
Divine Emanations: Nymphs, Poets, and the Painter’s Palette
Janne Sirén considers Anselm Kiefer’s new paintings, the subject of an exhibition at Gagosian, New York, entitled Seal My Ears Shut and I Shall Hear You Still.
Gagosian is pleased to announce Anselm Kiefer: Seal My Ears Shut and I Shall Hear You Still. Opening on May 15 at 541 West 24th Street, the exhibition features a new group of paintings that advance Kiefer’s ongoing exploration of feminine archetypes and landscape as symbolic form.
For the works on view, Kiefer drew inspiration from poet Rainer Maria Rilke, painter Caspar David Friedrich, and female figures from classical mythology who connect landscapes with allegorical narratives. Incorporating thickly textured layers that emphasize materiality and transformation to embody the luminosity, growth, and movement found in nature, the paintings are executed in oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac, collaged canvas, gold leaf, and sediment of electrolysis. That last material is a deep verdigris green produced when a bath of copper, salts, and fluids is exposed to electrical current—a process that is a physical realization of the artist’s long-standing interest in alchemy.
In Für R.M.R. wirf mir die Ohren zu: ich kann dich hören (For R.M.R. seal my ears shut and I shall hear you still, 2023–25), a face emerges from the rough surface of a boulder. The painting is inscribed with a verse from The Book of Hours, which Rilke wrote in three parts between 1899 and 1903, overlapping the time when he was a secretary for sculptor Auguste Rodin. Titled after a medieval book of prayers, these lyrical poems explore a contemplative search for spiritual understanding.
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Janne Sirén considers Anselm Kiefer’s new paintings, the subject of an exhibition at Gagosian, New York, entitled Seal My Ears Shut and I Shall Hear You Still.

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.
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.
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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.