Am Anfang (In the Beginning)
Anselm Kiefer. Works from the Grothe Collection
20 June to 16 September 2012
Media Conference: 19 June 2012, 11 a. m.

Anselm Kiefer is one of the most important international artists of our time. His epic works fascinate with their unusual choice of material which underpins their subject matter: thickly applied layers of paint, earth, lead, enamel, plants, clothing or hair reach beyond the two-dimensionality of pictorial space.

Coinciding with dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel, the Art and Exhibition Hall is presenting a selection of key works by the artist from the Grothe Collection.

Hans Grothe’s decision to hold on to his works by Anselm Kiefer when he sold his substantial art collection in 2005 bears witness to the collector’s longstanding and unbroken fascination with the artist’s unique stance.

The Art and Exhibition Hall is the first gallery to present this body of work almost in its entirety. At the heart of the selection of key paintings from a period spanning three decades are works from this side of the millennial divide. Ensembles from 2010 and 2011 testify to Kiefer’s sustained interest in the subject of the panorama. While his work before his move to France in 1991 dealt predominantly with German history and mythology, his more recent output explores Judeo-Christian and mythological subjects. The often-cited pathos that is said to characterise the artist’s work seems strangely broken, restrained and neutralised in these later works.

A cooperation with the Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V. in Bonn