Exhibition

Anselm Kiefer

Photography at the beginning
Anselm Kiefer photographie en noir et blanc.
Anselm Kiefer photographie en noir et blanc.
Exhibition

Anselm Kiefer

Photography at the beginning

From 6 October 2023
to 3 March 2024

To close its birthday season, the Museum is presenting an exhibition devoted to one of Germany’s greatest visual artists, Anselm Kiefer. Born in Germany two months before the Nazi capitulation, Kiefer has continued to summon up memories of the Second World War in his work, in cathartic fashion.

Internationally known and recognised for his monumental pieces and work on European memory, he will be presenting over a hundred and thirty works at the LaM, bearing witness to his practice as a photographer and the question of what images reveal, essential in his body of work but scarcely touched upon in previous exhibitions.

Dates

06.10.2023 > 03.03.2024

Opening hours 

Tuesday to Sunday 
from 10 am to 6 pm 

Prices*

Full price : 11 €
Reduced price** : 8 €

*Excluding application fees
**Upon presentation of proof less than 3 months old and/or valid 

Image
Émulsion argentique et technique mixte représentant des tournesols.

Anselm Kiefer, Sans titre, 2014. Émulsion argentique et technique mixte sur photographie ; 103,5 x 160,5 cm. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo : Charles Duprat

Image
Diorama avec deux enfants et des marécages en arrière plan.
Anselm Kiefer, Bergkristall, détail de l’installation Family Pictures, 2013-2017. Ensemble de 16 vitrines. Métal, verre, plomb, bois, contreplaqué, acrylique, émulsion, photographie, aquarelle sur papier et technique miste ; 351,5 x 1 400 x 100 cm. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo : Georges Poncet
Image
Photographie noir et blanc prise à l'argentique, représentant des arbres sous la neige.
Anselm Kiefer, Für Martin Heidegger Todtnauberg (Pour Martin Heidegger Todtnauberg), 2010-2014. Photographies noir et blanc, craie, fusain et feuilles d’argent sur carton ; 20 pages (9 doubles-pages + couverture et 4e de couverture) ; 103 x 66 x 4 cm © Anselm Kiefer. Photo : Charles Duprat
Photography to start with

Permeated by the ravaged landscapes of his childhood, in the late 1960s Anselm Kiefer’s body of work turned its focus to reflections on the origin of Evil and intimate exploration of the tragic nature of Nazism. A focus that led to a major series of actions.

The themes addressed in his work, underpinned by his wide knowledge of literature and with a basis in German history, cover a great many areas, from mythology to architecture by way of destruction, alchemy and geophysics.

Although he asserts that he thinks in images and always uses photography to create his paintings, up until now, Anselm Kiefer has very rarely or only partially presented this essential component of his work. The exhibition at the LaM is the first to take stock of his photographic practice, which has always been his career’s discreet companion.

 

Image
Photographie argentique d'une plante sur un fond galactique.

Anselm Kiefer, The Secret Life of Plants (La Vie secrète des plantes), 1998. Reproductions photographiques, plantes, graphite ; 64,50 x 50 cm. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo : Charles Duprat

Image
Anselm Kiefer, Calmly Unendingly Moves. Œuvre sculpturale grise, une vélo se retrouve enseveli de pellicules.

Anselm Kiefer, Calmly Unendingly Moves (für J.J.), 2023. Verre, acier, photographie sur plomb et technique mixte ; 385 x 145 x 145 cm. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo : Georges Poncet

Photography is of key importance in the construction of Anselm Kiefer’s process and approach. His first creations from in and around 1969 bear witness to the fact: photographs of the cathartic rituals to which he subjected himself, dressed in the Wehrmacht officer’s uniform his father had worn and making the Nazi salute on various symbolic sites in Italy, Switzerland and the south of France.

Likewise, most of the hundreds of unique books that he has created include photographs that have been glued, painted, erased, burnt, scribbled on, stained or “engineered” in one way or another. These days, all you need do is take a look inside his studio near Paris in order to understand the medium’s decisive role in Anselm Kiefer’s thought and environment. It is everywhere, in steel frames along the walls, and on the floor awaiting further processing.

In order to illustrate the full importance of photography in the artist’s body of work, the exhibition combines two viewpoints that help visitors understand how his work has evolved from the first photographs of the 1960s to the present day, gradually providing them with formats, numbers and subjects that put them on a level with his paintings. At the same time, the itinerary is divided into eight sections focusing on some of the essential chapters in his thought.

 


Commissariat général

Sébastien Delot, Director - Curator of the LAM 

Commissariat 

Jean de Loisy, art historian and freelance exhibition curator 
Grégoire Prangé, exhibition curator responsible for coordination of conservation and publications at the LaM.

The exhibition and all the programming relating to celebration of the LaM’s 40th birthday enjoys the exceptional support of Lille European Metropolis and the sponsorship of the Fondation Crédit Mutuel Nord Europe, Grand Sponsor of LaM’s 40th birthday.

          

The exhibition was created in close collaboration with the artist and his studio. It enjoys the exceptional support of the Gagosian Gallery.

 

 

Similar activities