Representing history and centrality for the City of New York, Rockefeller Center capitalizes on its popularity to introduce the public art of tremendous influence and power to the visitors. This summer is no exception as it presents Uraeus by Anselm Kiefer, the artwork created specifically for this site. The project is organized by Public Art Fund and the property group Tishman Speyer together with Gagosian Gallery which represents the artist. Kiefer confesses that the project was about eight years in making starting from its conception and a search for the right site and leading to its unveiling to the public in May 2018. It will stay in its location at the top of Rockefeller Center Channel Gardens until July 22, 2018.
The exhibition at the Met Breuer “Provocations: Anselm Kiefer” presents selected works from the Met collection covering artist’s 50-year career. Well known for pushing the boundaries of comfortable art and sleepy consciousness, Kiefer’s paintings, watercolors, and collages shake the norms by questioning the stale and tired concepts. The art lovers, sophisticated and novices, will appreciate the introspection and depth of thought that this expose projects. The exhibition is on view from December 13, 2017 until April 8, 2018. Read More
Anselm Kiefer is known for digging deep into historical consciousness and renewal for people and land devastated by war and destruction. His usually large-scale, heavy paintings done in multiplayer of media are well-recognized precisely for portraying the secrets of the forgotten landscapes with metal or concrete chunks looking menacingly in your face. With the exhibition at Gagosian gallery, which in addition to the paintings includes a collection of watercolors showing women, flowers and their erotic interplay, the author moves closer to the stage of rebirth.
Being born in Germany two month before the end of Wold War II, Kiefer’s oeuvre confronts Germany’s dark past and the horrors of Holocaust. Another very distinguished element of his work is an intermix of various forms of artistic expression. As such, in his earlier works he used a reference to Romanian Jewish writer Paul Celan‘s poem “Todesfuge” (“Death Fugue”). And later he created a series of tributes to futuristic Russian poet Velimir Khlebnikov. His latest works are full of Wagnerian references. Last year exhibition at the White Cube Bermondsey gallery in London titled Walhalla had an explicit theme of final destruction. Some pieces looked like “a set for Wagner’s Götterdämmerung” in the words of The Guardian reviewby Jonathan Jones.
This conversation between literature and art continues at Gagosian gallery with a collection of more than forty artist created books exhibited in glass cases. The gallery stresses the importance of these books to author’s body of work as they carry “the sequences of narrative information and visual effect”. The viewers are free to make up the rest of the storyline using their personal experience and interpretation of cues on the pages. This is not the first time in his career that the author turns to the watercolors. In fact, the title of the exhibition refers to his celebrated book from mid-70s full of sea-blues,warms and nudes.
In November Anselm Kiefer will receive J. Paul Getty Medal. Getty Board of Trustees explained to Artnewsthat the medal recognizes Kiefer’s engagement “in big ideas and historic moments, and sharing with the Getty a passionate commitment to global culture.”
