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Anselm Kiefer

Next Year in Jerusalem

November 6–December 18, 2010
555 West 24th Street, New York

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation view

Artwork © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Rob McKeever

Installation video Play Button

Installation video

Works Exhibited

Anselm Kiefer, Die Schechina, 2010 Painted resin dress, glass shards, steel, numbered glass disks, and wire, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 179 ⅛ × 82 ¾ × 82 ¾ inches (455 × 210 × 210 cm)© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Die Schechina, 2010

Painted resin dress, glass shards, steel, numbered glass disks, and wire, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 179 ⅛ × 82 ¾ × 82 ¾ inches (455 × 210 × 210 cm)
© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, San Loreto, 2009–10 Oil, emulsion, acrylic, and shellac on canvas, 185 × 220 ½ × 3 ⅞ inches (470 × 560 × 10 cm)© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, San Loreto, 2009–10

Oil, emulsion, acrylic, and shellac on canvas, 185 × 220 ½ × 3 ⅞ inches (470 × 560 × 10 cm)
© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Winterwald, 2010 Oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, ash, torn bushes, synthetic teeth, and snakeskin on canvas, in glass and steel frames; in 3 parts; overall: 130 ¾ × 226 ¾ × 13 ¾ inches (332 × 576 × 35 cm)© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Winterwald, 2010

Oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, ash, torn bushes, synthetic teeth, and snakeskin on canvas, in glass and steel frames; in 3 parts; overall: 130 ¾ × 226 ¾ × 13 ¾ inches (332 × 576 × 35 cm)
© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Flying Fortress, 2010 Airplane engine, steel, photographs, lead, and oil, emulsion, acrylic, and shellac on clay on canvas, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 94 ½ × 169 ¼ × 90 ⅝ inches (240 × 430 × 230 cm)© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Flying Fortress, 2010

Airplane engine, steel, photographs, lead, and oil, emulsion, acrylic, and shellac on clay on canvas, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 94 ½ × 169 ¼ × 90 ⅝ inches (240 × 430 × 230 cm)
© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Ararat, 2010 9 lead boats, wire, and oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, and clay on canvas, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 114 ⅛ × 216 ½ × 90 ⅝ inches (290 × 550 × 230 cm)© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Ararat, 2010

9 lead boats, wire, and oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, and clay on canvas, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 114 ⅛ × 216 ½ × 90 ⅝ inches (290 × 550 × 230 cm)
© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Kältestrom, 2010 Plaster-coated thorn bushes, plaster refrigerator, and resin ice cubes, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 126 ⅝ × 51 ¼ × 51 ¼ inches (322 × 130 × 130 cm)© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Kältestrom, 2010

Plaster-coated thorn bushes, plaster refrigerator, and resin ice cubes, in inscribed glass and steel vitrine, 126 ⅝ × 51 ¼ × 51 ¼ inches (322 × 130 × 130 cm)
© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Fitzcarraldo, 2010 Oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, ash, thorn bushes, resin ferns, synthetic teeth, lead, and rust on canvas, in glass and steel frames; in 4 parts; overall: 130 ¾ × 302 ⅜ × 13 ¾ inches (332 × 768 × 35 cm)© Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer, Fitzcarraldo, 2010

Oil, emulsion, acrylic, shellac, ash, thorn bushes, resin ferns, synthetic teeth, lead, and rust on canvas, in glass and steel frames; in 4 parts; overall: 130 ¾ × 302 ⅜ × 13 ¾ inches (332 × 768 × 35 cm)
© Anselm Kiefer

About

There is a special border, the border between art and life that often shifts deceptively. Yet, without this border, there is no art. In the process of being produced, art borrows material from life, and the traces of life still shine through the completed work of art. But, at the same time, the distance from life is the essence, the substance of art. And, yet, life has still left its traces. The more scarred the work of art is by the battles waged on the borders between art and life, the more interesting it becomes.
—Anselm Kiefer

Gagosian is pleased to present Next Year in Jerusalem, Anselm Kiefer’s first exhibition in New York since 2002.

The exhibition centers around the installation Occupations, which transforms the series of photographs from 1969 in which Kiefer appears making the Hitlergruß in front of European sites of historical significance. Inside a steel enclosure, seventy-six photographs, newly printed in large scale, are mounted on lead and hung slightly apart, one in front of the other, on thick metal hooks. While the mass of images can be sensed, the arrangement is only partially visible through open doors in the sides of the container. This imposing structure contains Kiefer’s provocative act, literally and imaginatively, to remind us of what has happened and what can still happen in the world. Occupations is a visceral confrontation between history and the present that is lodged in the stuff of memory.

Kiefer has transformed the space that surrounds Occupations into a labyrinth of glass and steel vitrines, some more than twenty feet high. Each vitrine contains a tableau of organic and inorganic material—cotton dresses, palms, bushes, an airplane fuselage, and burned books. They appear like ancient reliquaries with titles inscribed directly on the glass. In these works, Kiefer inverts the historical and ritualistic connotations of his chosen materials, particularly lead. In Valentinus, named for the second-century Gnostic theologian, lead buckets and chains are juxtaposed with synthetic diamonds and wire; in Die Schechina, a disembodied white dress is molded to an invisible female figure and pierced by glass shards and numbered glass disks, in reference to one of the ten Kabbalistic markers of spiritual presence.

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Jerome Rothenberg in a chair

In Conversation
Jerome Rothenberg and Charles Bernstein

Gagosian and Beyond Baroque Literary | Arts Center hosted a conversation between poets Jerome Rothenberg and Charles Bernstein inside Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition Exodus at Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles. Rothenberg and Bernstein explored some of the themes that occupy Kiefer—Jewish mysticism, the poetry of Paul Celan, and the formulation of a global poetics in response to the Holocaust—in a discussion and readings of their poetry.

Michael Govan and Anselm Kiefer

In Conversation
Anselm Kiefer and Michael Govan

On the occasion of his exhibition Anselm Kiefer: Exodus at Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles, the artist spoke with Michael Govan about his works that elaborate on themes of loss, history, and redemption.

Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Winter 2022

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2022

The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.

Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Questionnaire: Anselm Kiefer

Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Questionnaire: Anselm Kiefer

In this ongoing series, curator Hans Ulrich Obrist has devised a set of thirty-seven questions that invite artists, authors, musicians, and other visionaries to address key elements of their lives and creative practices. Respondents make a selection from the larger questionnaire and reply in as many or as few words as they desire. For the fourth installment, we are honored to present the artist Anselm Kiefer.

Darkly lit road, trees, and building exterior at La Ribaute, Barjac, France.

Anselm Kiefer: Architect of Landscape and Cosmology

Jérôme Sans visits La Ribaute in Barjac, France, the vast studio-estate transformed by Anselm Kiefer over the course of decades. The labyrinthine site, now open to the public, stands as a total work of art, reflecting through its grounds, pavilions, and passageways major themes in Kiefer’s oeuvre: regeneration, mythology, memory, and more. 

Two dress sculptures in the landscape at Barjac

La Ribaute: Transitive, It Transforms

Camille Morineau writes of the triumph of the feminine at Anselm Kiefer’s former studio-estate in Barjac, France, describing the site and its installations as a demonstration of women’s power, a meditation on inversion and permeability, and a reversal of the long invisibility of women in history and myth.