ANSELM KIEFER

2/18/2026

When I looked at Kiefer’s list of exhibitions, reviews, and criticisms, it was endless. I don’t recall another artist having such visibility, and I wondered why and how, even though I knew the answer.

Kiefer gave the white/Western world, the world of those in power, the world of the past conquerors of the planet, a thorough look at themselves, especially as they have appeared in the last 80 or more years — at least the last century.

Without obviously taking sides or berating anyone, without assigning guilt, without pointing fingers directly — but biting his lips — Kiefer has made the world (Europe/Germany) naked.

What does Kiefer think of today’s world — today’s politics? Does he see a semblance of memory in the current political atmosphere and the future?

He is quick to mention in his interviews that his work has been praised by the Jewish community and that there is a lot of Jewish lore and religious texts, as well as alchemy and mysticism, in the work. He claims to have studied this subject in depth and used Jewish cultural metaphors in the work. (See Anselm Kiefer at Gagosian – February 24, 2023.)

The stature of the work is always breathtaking: Singulart Feb 15, 2024 — Date Created, 1983; Medium, Mixed Media; Genre, Contemporary; Period, Late 20th Century; Dimensions, 63.7 × 72.4 cm.

From ceiling to floor, I stand with my head moving across a wide plain of rotting wood, dried paint, cement, etc., and aside from these types of material, he also uses every technique to get the point across. His point, in my opinion, is that the world is “shit.”

The world is dead, the world is debris — there is no sanctity left in the world. It is finished.

Yet here we are making more debris.

Like most artists who work incessantly, he obviously reads a lot. We do this in order to place our memories within a context that is pliable by hand. And it is obvious he has read much of the history — and more of Germany in the last two centuries.

Kiefer took on a major task: to destroy in his mind the horrors of his country and Europe in the past two centuries, and in particular WWII — the Nazi regime; to blast its horrors to the world in the most dramatic way; to make art that fills a room from roof to floor and the ends of the horizontal walls; to show the decay he obviously sees in his mind, the decay he saw and experienced as a child growing up in Germany — the Allied bombing experience he said he and his mother hid from.

And after the bombing, it took years to rebuild Germany, so his childhood was fraught with the horrific destruction of shreds of buildings all around him. Holding his mother’s hand as she walked the streets to find food or anything she needed, Kiefer’s young mind would have been blasted as though the bombs were falling on him at that very moment.

Kiefer was born March 3, 1945, during the bombing of Germany by both the US and England. In July 1945, Germany unconditionally surrendered.

Imagine being a baby hearing these sounds around you. The city was in ruins. One year, two — maybe three, maybe four, five, six, seven. The rubble clearance took a decade or so, and then there was the rebuilding.

So, as a child, one has to incorporate this external hell into one’s psyche.

Well, Kiefer is depositing his internal hell onto his “canvas.”

What does Kiefer want from the world after spewing all this pain and grotesque horror? Does he want the world to kneel before him and say, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned — or they have sinned — or what?”

Well, if I meet him, that will be my question:

Has he forgiven the world for devouring his early years?

In 1971, Kiefer produced what would be considered a small piece entitled On Every Mountain Peak There Is Peace. The size is 12½ x 18⅞. This is a rather small piece for Kiefer, and had I met him, I would have asked why it was so small.

Kiefer said he named the piece after a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), a well-known German poet. He speaks of the work as representing the cycle of life and death in nature. Here again, we see Kiefer’s fascination with death, decay, and destruction.

His raw portrayal of this subject is what fascinates us about Kiefer’s work — no matter how many flowers he may put in it. The size of his works — floor to ceiling, wall to wall horizontal — is a demanding way of enticing the viewer. It works; it overwhelms and draws you in, creating a pain in your chest.

Kiefer’s work keeps being connected with the Holocaust, especially because a Jewish scholar wrote of his use of Jewish iconography and mysticism. Kiefer confirmed his comments and has allowed the world to pursue this concept. I do not see this, but I am unfamiliar with Jewish iconography and mysticism.

Aside from all the hullabaloo, Kiefer’s work is astonishing. He has become the artist of the century. His fame continues to grow, and he continues to work.

But that is not what draws me to his work.

What I am left with is not the scale, nor the debris, nor the history he summons.

What remains is the question:

Has he forgiven the world for devouring his early years? Has he soothed the pain displayed in every brush stroke every touch.

And perhaps more quietly —

How have we dealt with ours?

I have not spoken of his outdoor pieces in his abandoned silk mill in Southern France. Tours of this site are available and can be booked online.