Anselm Kiefer: ‘I’m 80, I’m still young. I will live to be 100, maybe more’ An interview with the artist
By Rachel Campbell-Johnston
An all-but-life-size cornfield occupies the Royal Academy. A massive painted canvas stretches the entire length of a wall. Sheaves of stuck-on cornstalks stand rowed into stooks. Thick pigments and dried clay create the stubbled ground. A flock of crows rises, as if disturbed by your presence. They hang, dark and bedraggled, against a vast gold-leaf-skimmed sky.
Visitors will surely recognise the influence of Vincent van Gogh on this vision of Anselm Kiefer, one of his most ardent admirers. Kiefer’s 2019 painting The Crows is one of several pieces now on display beside works by his predecessor in Kiefer/Van Gogh, an exhibition in which a contemporary German pays homage to the post-impressionist master who has been of such significance throughout the course of his close to 60-year career.
Kiefer certainly looks at ease in the world of Van Gogh. I watch him, a tall figure clad in a pale linen suit, open-collared white cotton shirt and backless leather loafers, as he paces the galleries. He turned 80 this year. His hair has receded to a shadowy curve round the back of a close-shaven head. But the eyes remain attentively bright behind rimless metal glasses. His posture is upright, his step youthfully brisk. And, more importantly, his mind is still inimitably sharp. His English, though competent, may not be able to keep up with his thinking — when we talk, he turns frequently to his studio director for help with translation — but to read his words in the exhibition catalogue will leave you in no doubt of his depth. His references range from the poetry of Friedrich Hölderlin to the philosophy of Heidegger with anything from Rosicrucian alchemists to Lars von Trier’s films in between.
“I first came across the work of Van Gogh when I was a kid,” Kiefer tells me. “I saw his pictures in books: in elementary school and at my parents’ house.” He goes on to explain how, having received a travel grant in his late teens, he embarked on an “initiation journey” in the Dutch master’s footsteps, through the Netherlands to Paris and from there down to Arles. He discovered an artistic kinship that would retain its hold over him all his life.
