ANSELM KIEFER

Visual artist

Born on March 8, 1945, in Donaueschingen. Anselm Kiefer began studying law and Romance languages in 1965 and studied painting with Peter Dreher in Freiburg and with Horst Antes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe from 1966 to 1968. In 1969, he completed his studies with a photographic documentation of the performance “Besetzungen” (Occupations), which caused a scandal. Kiefer performed the Hitler salute in his father's Wehrmacht uniform in several countries. In 1970, he had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie am Kaiserplatz in Karlsruhe. He continued his education from 1969 to 1972 in the Beuys class at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. In 1969, he published his first of many artist's books. In 1971, he moved to Hornbach in the Odenwald. Participation in Joseph Beuys' campaign “Überwindet endlich die Parteiendiktatur -Rettet den Wald” (Overcome the party dictatorship at last - Save the forest). In 1975, the avant-garde magazine ‘Interfunktionen’ published a selection of 18 photographs from the “Besetzungen” (Occupations), causing another scandal.

In 1976, he spent three months at the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome. Towards the end of the 1970s, the use of lead as a material increasingly became Kiefer's trademark and a medium for his images. However, Kiefer's work is not only concerned with Germanic heroic sagas and German history; he is also interested in topics such as alchemy, myths, and explanations of the creation of the world. In 1981, he moved into a former factory building in Buchen (Odenwald). In 1988, he took over the site of a former brickworks in the neighboring village of Höpfingen, where he planned the “Zweistromland” art park. In 1992, the idea failed for economic reasons. In 1991, Kiefer left the Odenwald and interrupted his career as a painter for three years to devote himself to traveling, photography, and writing. He then set up his studio in the south of France. In 2007, he moved to Paris, where he set up a large studio in the warehouses of a former department store in the suburb of Croissy-Beaubourg.

Numerous awards and honorary memberships, including honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1990, honorary member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1996, and honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Since 2010, he has been teaching at the Collège de France in Paris, and in 2017 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Freiburg.

The Japan Art Association's statement explaining its decision to award the Praemium Imperiale in 1999 included the following: “Kiefer works with the conviction that art can bring healing to a traumatized nation and a confused, divided world. On huge canvases, he created epic images, continuing the tradition of history painting, which depicted the history of German culture with the help of figures such as Richard Wagner and Wolfgang Goethe as a means of addressing the world. Few contemporary artists have such a deep sense of art's engagement with the past and the morals and ethics of the present, or express so profoundly the possibility of redemption through human endeavor.”

Awards (Selction)
2017 J. Paul Getty Medal
2011 Leo-Baeck-Medal
2011 Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres
2008 Friedenspreis des deutschen Buchhandels (International Peace Price, German Publishers and Booksellers Association)
2005 Cross of the Order of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany
2005 Austrian Decoration of Honour for Science and Art
1999 Praemium Imperiale
1990 Wolf-Price
1990 Goslarer Kaiserring (Imperial Ring of Goslar)
1986 Carnegie Prize

Solo exhibitions (Selection)
2019 Books and Woodcuts. Jan Michalski Foundation, Montricher
2018 Provocations: Anselm Kiefer at the Met Breuer. New York
2017 Anselm Kiefer for Velimir Khlebnikov. Fates of Nations. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
2015/16 Retrospective. Albertina, Wien; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig
2015 Anselm Kiefer. Im Gewitter der Rosen (In the storm of roses). Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg
2014 Retrospective. Royal Academy of Arts, London
2011 Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (The waves of the sea and of love). White Cube, London
2010 Anselm Kiefer. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek
2009 Artist Rooms on tour with the Art Fund. Tate Modern, London
2008 Anselm Kiefer. Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills
2007 Anselm Kiefer. Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao
2007 Sternenfall/Chute d’étoiles. Monumenta, Grand Palais, Paris
2007 Anselm Kiefer au Louvre. Musée du Louvre, Paris
2005 Anselm Kiefer. Part I and II: Für Chlebnikov. White Cube, Hoxton Square, London
2005 Anselm Kiefer. Heaven and Earth. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Canada; The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
2001 Anselm Kiefer - Die sieben Himmelspaläste 1973-2001 (The Seven Heavenly Palaces). Fondation Beyeler, Basel
2000 Recente Werken 1996-1999. Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent
1998 Works on Paper 1969-1993. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
1997 Himmel-Erde (Heaven-Earth). Museo Correr, Venice Biennale
1993 Melancholia. Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo; Kyoto National Museum of Art; Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art
1991 Bücher 1969–1990 (Books 1969–1990). Kunstverein München; Kunsthaus Zürich
1990 Über Räume und Völker (About spaces and peoples). Städtische Galerie im Städel, Frankfurt am Main
1987 Anselm Kiefer. The Art Institute, Chicago; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York
1986 Bilder/Schilderijen 1986–1980. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
1984 Anselm Kiefer. Städtische Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf; Musée de art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Israel Museum, Jerusalem
1981 Anselm Kiefer. Galerie Marian Goodmann, New York
1981 Bilder und Bücher (Pictures and Books). Museum Folkwang, Essen
1980 Venice Biennale (German pavilion with Georg Baselitz)
1978 Bilder und Bücher (Pictures and Books). Kunsthalle Bern
1977 Retrospective. Bonner Kunstverein
1977 documenta 6, Kassel
1974 Heliogabal. Galerie Venster, Rotterdam
1973 Notung. Galerie Michael Werner, Cologne
1970 Bilder und Bücher (Pictures and Books). Galerie am Kaiserplatz, Karlsruhe

Group exhibitions (Selection)
2019 Baselitz-Richter-Polke-Kiefer. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Deichtorhallen Hamburg
2016 Dream States: Contemporary Photography and Videos. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2016 Superflat Collection: From Shohaku and Rasanjin to Anselm Kiefer. Yokohama Museum of Art
2014 Kunst-Geschichten. Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Rupertinum
2013 Baselitz-Richter-Kiefer. Albertina, Vienna
2011 Gerhard Richter bis Kiki Smith From Gerhard Richter to Kiki Smith). Albertina, Vienna
2009 Anselm Kiefer, Antony Gormley, Antony Caro. Jesus College, Cambridge
2008 Blood on Paper - the Art of the Book. Victoria & Albert Museum, London
1990 Life-Size. A Sense of the Real in Recent Art. The Israel Museum
1982 Zeitgeist. Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein
1972/1982/87 documenta 5, 7, 8, Kassel

Filmography (Selection)
2019 Armbruster, Claudio (director): Dialoge in Südfrankreich - Ferdinand von Schirach trifft Anselm Kiefer. Documentary film
2010 Fiennes, Sophie (Fiennes): Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow. Documentary film. (Special screening at the Cannes Film Festival)

Bibliography (Selection)
2015 Arasse, Daniel: Anselm Kiefer - Die große Monographie. Munich: Schirmer/Mosel
2013 Biro, Matthew: Anselm Kiefer. London: Phaidon
2013 Cohn, Danièle (publisher): Anselm Kiefer Ateliers. Munich: Schirmer/Mosel
2007 Lauterwein, Andrea: Anselm Kiefer/Paul Celan. Myth, Mourning and Memory. London: Thames & Hudson