Anselm Kiefer

White Cube, Bermondsey
October 2011

I started to follow a friend (who pretends to be an Artist!) during her visit to the most famous galleries in London. The first time we were lost in Bermondsey, desperately looking for the White Cube Gallery : the German artist Anselm Kiefer was exhibiting there “Il Mistero delle Cattedrali”.

I didn’t know what to expect, but instantly, walking into the light and the bright space, I was absorbed by the melancholic atmosphere.

Turn left, first room.

Alkahest

Coming out from a metal bucket, a sequence of lead-fringed photographic film let the journey begin: it was like walking in my past enlightened by the experience of the Artist.

"Kiefer has been producing hefty, turbulent odes to Germany's dark past with a dogged consistency since the 1970s, when he was schooled by Joseph Beuys, among others", the journalist Rosalie Doubal explains, through the materials he evoked to me a pice of cultural, ideological and personal history.

"The grand-scale works include the use of terracotta, oil, rubber, salt, paint, lead, resin, copper, plants and steel in order to convey his apocalyptic vision." (Design Boom, 2012)

We spent as much time as we could inside the Gallery.

Il Mistero delle Cattedrali, 2010-11

Tempelhof, 2010-11

'il mistero delle cattedrali' installation view

Dat rosa miel apibus', 2010-2011

detailed view of 'dat rosa miel apibus'

For the first time in my life I have been able to stare at a piece of art and visualise my desires through it: the mountains and an extraordinary expression of beauty, freedom and aspiration.

'sprache der vögel', 1989

'Opus Magnum', 2010

a detailed view of one of the pewter bowls joined to the bicycle
built for three in 'merkaba', 2011

'merkaba', 2011

Reference:

Mark Rosenthal A Speyer, Anselm Kiefer, (Chicago ; Philadelphia : Art Institute of Chicago : Philadelphia Museum of Art; Art Institute of Chicago. ; Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles, Calif.) ; Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.) ; Philadelphia Museum of Art., 1987)

Catalogue, Anselm Kiefer : bilder 1986-1980 : Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, (Amsterdam : Stedelijk Museum, 1986)

Anselm Kiefer, A book by Anselm Kiefer (London : Thames and Hudsonm, 1988)

Anselm Kiefer, John Hutchinson, Anselm Kiefer  ( Stuttgart : Edition Cantz, 1990)

Available at: <http://whitecube.com/> [Accessed 2 April 2012]


Available at: <http://www.theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/anselm-kiefer-il-mistero-delle-cattedrali-white-cube-bermondsey> [Accessed 2 April 2012]

Available at: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-reviews/8985410/Anselm-Kiefer-Il-Mistero-delle-Cattedrali-White-Cube-Bermondsey-review.html> [Accessed 2 April 2012]

Available at: <http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/anselm-kiefer-il-mistero-delle-cattedrali/> [Accessed 2 April 2012]

Available at: <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8d165e02-316f-11e1-aeec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1sye7kvXj> [Accessed 2 April 2012]

Available at: <http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e95fc096-eeb6-11e0-959a-00144feab49a.html#axzz1sye7kvXj> [Accessed 2 April 2012]

Available at: <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/movies/sophie-fienness-over-your-cities-grass-will-grow.html?_r=1> [Accessed 3 April 2012]

Available at: <http://www.janecairns.co.uk/wordpress/anselm-kiefer-il-mistero-delle-cattedrali-white-cube/> [Accessed 3 April 2012]

Available at: <http://artobserved.com/2012/01/london-anselm-kiefer-at-white-cube-bermondsey-through-february-26-2012/> [Accessed 3 April 2012]

Available at: <http://ropac.net/artist/anselm-kiefer> [Accessed 3 April 2012]


Available at: <http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/aipe/anselm_kiefer.htm> [Accessed 3 April 2012]

[Kiefer] n.d. [image online] Available at: <http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/18883/anselm-kiefer-il-mistero-delle-cattedrali.html> [Accessed 2 April 2012]

[Ashes to Ashes] n.d. [image online] Available at: <http://thepaintingimperative.com/issue-3/ashes-to-ashes/> [Accessed 2 April 2012]


[Kiefer] n.d. [image online] Available at: <http://www.newscircle.co.uk/article/index/anselm-kiefer-il-mistero-delle-cattedrali,-white-cube-bermondsey-review/519776> [Accessed 2 April 2012]