ANSELM KIEFER

Anselm Kiefer is a German painter, sculptor, and photographer. He was born in 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany. Since early in Kiefer's childhood, he wanted to be an artist. Kiefer attended the art academies in Freiburg and Dusseldorf Germany. In school he studied under Peter Dreher, and then Jospeh Beuys. Kiefer has always had a focus on German history and the Third Reich. Kiefer is renowned for his paintings, but he began his career as a photographer. His first photograph series consisted of pictures of himself around Europe signaling the Nazi salute.

Bohemia Lies by the Sea, Anselm Kiefer, Oil, emulsion, shellac, charcoal, and powdered paint on burlap, 75 1/4 x 221 ”, 1996

Kiefer's paintings often revolve around a theme of Germany's abandoned past and the somber and macabre leftovers of the Third Reich. Later in his career, during the late eighties, Kiefer incorporated mythology, existentialism, and psychoanalytic themes into his paintings. Many of Kiefer's paintings reveal to us the epitome of Western tendencies in regards to setting. He reaches into and is blessed with access to a collective memory of ideas and histories. Kiefer's paintings are grandiose in scale, process, and depth.

I love his pieces with a one-point perspective composition. There is enormous anxiety within such pieces because when looking down a field of parallel lines that touch at the horizon, there is an innate sense of future of an impending arrival. What generates anxiety more than an assumed future?

Velimir Chlebnikov, Anselm Kiefer, Oil, emulsion and acrylic on canvas with mixed media, 12 x (74 13/16 x 110 ¼ ”, 2004

Immediately after seeing Kiefer's paintings, I was fascinated by his use of ordinary found materials encrusted in paint to create thick and penetrating impasto. His paintings depict a nature destroyed. Landscapes have not intrigued me the way in which people and portraits do. However, I seek to produce portraits that show an ego destroyed, an organic identity revealed, and conscious creation drowned out by the echo of destruction.

Aperiatur Terra et Germinet Salvatorem, Anselm Kiefer, Oil, acrylic, emulsion and shellac on canvas, 110 1/4 x 299 3/16 ”, 2005-2006