Installation Views

Works Exhibited

About

Beauty requires a counterpart. And in thinking about this flaw, the other flaw occurred to me as well: the Morgenthau Plan. For it too ignored the complexity of things.
—Anselm Kiefer

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of recent paintings and sculpture by Anselm Kiefer, which further explores the historical and formal concerns of Morgenthau Plan, his exhibition that inaugurated Gagosian Le Bourget in Paris last October.

Born at the close of World War II, Kiefer reflects upon and critiques the dangerous myths that propelled the Third Reich to power. Fusing art and literature, painting and sculpture, the artist engages German history and the ancestral epics of life, death, and the cosmos to reinforce lessons of the past.

The exhibition at Le Bourget and the subsequent body of work on view in New York draw upon the Morgenthau Plan as a metaphor for a common pitfall of the creative process—namely, works that put forth beauty without any other detectable motive. Kiefer presents the initiative as a representation of ideas—artistic and political—that ignore “the complexity of things.”

Proposed in 1944 by United States Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the plan was conceived to transform postwar Germany into a pre-industrial, agricultural nation in order to limit the country’s ability to wage war. Morgenthau sought to divide Germany into two independent states, annexing or dismantling all German centers of industry. Although the Morgenthau Plan was never realized in its original form, it represented an alternative postwar Germany potentially occupied more by farmland and plant-life than by industry. In his latest paintings, Kiefer explores this rural landscape. Flowers—one of his central leitmotifs—bloom through the devastation.

On Anselm Kiefer’s Photography

On Anselm Kiefer’s Photography

Sébastien Delot is director of conservation and collections at the Musée national Picasso–Paris and the organizer of the first retrospective to focus on Anselm Kiefer’s use of photography, which was held at Lille Métropole Musée d’art moderne, d’art contemporain et d’art brut (Musée LaM) in Villeneuve-d’Ascq, France. He recently sat down with Gagosian director of photography Joshua Chuang to discuss the exhibition Anselm Kiefer: Punctum at Gagosian, New York. Their conversation touched on Kiefer’s exploration of photography’s materials, processes, and expressive potentials, and on the alchemy of his art.

Jerome Rothenberg and Charles Bernstein

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.

Anselm Kiefer and Michael Govan

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.

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.

Anselm Kiefer: Architect of Landscape and Cosmology

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. 

La Ribaute: Transitive, It Transforms

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.

Rainer Maria Rilke: Duino Elegies

Rainer Maria Rilke: Duino Elegies

Bobbie Sheng explores the symbiotic relationship between the poet and visual artists of his time and tracks the enduring influence of his poetry on artists working today.

Mythologies: A Conversation with Erlend Høyersten

Mythologies: A Conversation with Erlend Høyersten

Gagosian’s Georges Armaos speaks with the director of ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark, about the exhibition Mythologies: The Beginning and End of Civilizations, the art of Anselm Kiefer, and the role of museums during times of crisis.

Cast of Characters

Cast of Characters

James Lawrence explores how contemporary artists have grappled with the subject of the library.

Veil and Vault

Veil and Vault

An exhibition at the Broad in Los Angeles prompts James Lawrence to examine how artists give shape and meaning to the passage of time, and how the passage of time shapes our evolving accounts of art.

Uraeus

Uraeus

Richard Calvocoressi speaks with Anselm Kiefer about the range of mythological and historical symbols in the artist’s sculpture Uraeus.

Anselm Kiefer: Uraeus

Anselm Kiefer: Uraeus

Taking viewers behind the scenes during the installation of Anselm Kiefer’s Uraeus at Channel Gardens, Rockefeller Center®, New York, this video features interviews with Kiefer, Robin Vousden, Nicholas Baume, and Richard Calvocoressi. The speakers detail the conception, installation, and symbolism of this monumental public sculpture.

Transition from Cool to Warm

Transition from Cool to Warm

Art historian James Lawrence explores Anselm Kiefer’s latest body of work.

Anselm Kiefer at Copenhagen Contemporary

Anselm Kiefer at Copenhagen Contemporary

Tom Lee explores Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition at Copenhagen Contemporary, tracing the literary and alchemical references at work in the installation.

Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy of Art

Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy of Art

Anselm Kiefer discusses his work with Tim Marlow, director of artistic programs at the Royal Academy of Arts, on the occasion of his exhibition at the London institution.

Anselm Kiefer poster featuring the painting En Sof

Anselm Kiefer: Exodus

$20
Cover of the book Anselm Kiefer: Field of the Cloth of Gold

Anselm Kiefer: Field of the Cloth of Gold

$80
Cover of the book Anselm Kiefer à La Tourette

Anselm Kiefer à La Tourette

$60
Cover of the book Anselm Kiefer: Ureaus

Anselm Kiefer: Ureaus

$50
Cover of the book Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm

Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm

$120
Anselm Kiefer poster featuring aller Tage Abend, aller Abende Tag

Anselm Kiefer: Transition from Cool to Warm

$20
Clamshell box of Anselm Kiefer book, published by Royal Academy, London

Anselm Kiefer

$13,500
Cover of the Gagosian Quarterly: Winter 2023 Issue featuring artwork by Pablo Picasso

Gagosian Quarterly: Winter 2023 Issue

$20
Cover of the Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly magazine, featuring artwork by Anna Weyant

Gagosian Quarterly: Winter 2022 Issue

$20