Anselm Kiefer Painting on view in David Chipperfield Pavilion

By Anzhela Khachaturova

A giant Anselm Kiefer painting that has spent almost two decades in storage is now finally on view to the public following the opening of a purpose-built gallery in Germany. The German industrialist and collector Reinhold Würth bought Kiefer’s Schwarze Flocken (Black Flakes, 2007), which is 11.2m high and 7.1m wide, directly from the artist’s studio in 2008. With the painting simply too large for any of the Würth Collection’s exhibition spaces, in 2025 the Würth Group commissioned the British architect David Chipperfield, working closely with Kiefer, to design a pavilion exclusively for Black Flakes. It opened on 13 October in the sculpture garden beside Museum Würth 2 in Künzelsau, northeast of Stuttgart.

Made with oil, emulsion, shellac, earth and branches on canvas, Black Flakes takes its title from a poem by Paul Celan, the Romanian Jewish poet whose parents died in Nazi camps during the Holocaust. Kiefer has often drawn on Celan’s poetry as he explores German history and memory in his works.

“The result is a wonderful solution: the work now has a fitting and permanent home,” Maria Würth, Reinhold’s granddaughter and the group’s executive vice-president for arts and culture, tells The Art Newspaper. “The pavilion creates an atmosphere that slows the act of looking and focuses attention entirely on the artwork. Here, in the presence of Paul Celan, to whom Black Flakes is dedicated, three masters meet as equals: Chipperfield, Kiefer and Celan.”