MODERN & POSTWAR ARTISTS

Anselm Kiefer

b. 1945

Anselm Kiefer critically engages with myth and memory, referencing totems of German culture and collective history. “Germans want to forget [the past] and start a new thing all the time, but only by going into the past can you go into the future,” he says.

Revealing the influence of his tutelage under Beuys, Kiefer's epic-scaled, dense sculptures and paintings are often exposed to elements like acid and fire, and incorporate materials such as lead, burned books, concrete, thorny branches, ashes, and clothing; his work has been described as “heavy-load maximalism.”