ANSELM KIEFER: EARLY WORKS

THIS EXHIBITION HAS NOW CLOSED

★ ★ ★ ★

‘Urgent’

The Times

★ ★ ★ ★

'Direct and powerful'

The Guardian

★ ★ ★ ★

'Engaging'

The Telegraph

 

Anselm Kiefer: Early Works was a landmark exhibition of one of the world's most important living artists, organised in collaboration with the Hall Art Foundation and drawn from the Hall Collection.

Featuring paintings, watercolours, artist books, photos and woodcuts, all rarely displayed in the UK, this major exhibition took us back to the origins of Anselm Kiefer.

With 45 works made during the period 1969–82, the show explored the artist’s roots, covering an array of cultural, literary and philosophical  subjects including recent German history.

Best known for his monumental paintings and installations, Anselm Kiefer has become a towering figure of post-war art, and this exhibition was a unique chance for you to see his multi-layered and poignant early works. The exhibition also featured three new paintings chosen by Kiefer from his own collection.

Kiefer’s artistic techniques and materials – which include straw, lead, concrete, fire, and ash – are as expansive as the themes of his artworks, with pieces endlessly changing in their organic nature.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES EXHIBITION FILM

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xnZlMIjGUNA?rel=0&cc_load_policy=1

Director Xa Sturgis and curator Lena Fritsch step inside Anselm Kiefer's exhibition to discuss his early works and the show's highlights and themes.

The exhibition featured works which some visitors may find challenging or shocking. It included references to Nazism and depictions of the artist making the Nazi salute in protest against fascism.

Born in 1945, Anselm Kiefer was among the first generation of Germans to confront the country’s troubled past and national identity in the wake of the second world war and the horrors of the Holocaust. Kiefer wrote, ‘If we don’t remember what we have done, we will do the same thing again.’ His work in the Occupations series (1969–70), where he makes the ‘Sieg Heil’ salute, constituted a protest against forgetting the crimes of the past, challenging viewers to ask themselves if such atrocities could ever happen again.

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This exhibition is presented in partnership with the Hall Art Foundation
 

Hall Art Foundation logo, the partners of the Ashmolean's Anselm Kiefer exhibition

Exhibition supported by

White Cube art gallery logo
Huo Family Foundation logo

The Ashmolean Patrons

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