Anselm Kiefer at the White Cube in Bermondsey

TODAY, I MADE MY second visit to the Anselm Kiefer exhibition, which is on at the Bermondsey White Cube gallery until the 20th of August 2023. I was pleased to visit it again because after my first visit, I left it feeling oppressed and somewhat depressed. This might be what the artist (born at the end of WW2 in Germany) intended when he created the extraordinary series of scenes of dereliction and decay on show in Bermondsey. My second visit (on the 15th of August 2023) left me with a slightly more favourable impression, but my opinion that the artist has depicted an image of a world of confusion, conflict, and decay, remains unchanged.

The works, which are distributed in several rooms and the central corridor of the gallery, are, so I read in an information sheet, Kiefer’s reactions to, and representation of, a novel by James Joyce – “Finnegan’s Wake”. The artist has written short quotations from the book on many of the items that together make up the amazing art installations. As I have not read the book, I cannot comment on the appropriateness of what he has created.

In one room of the gallery, there are mainly huge paintings, which I found attractive. On close examination, one can see that the paint has been applied to that it is far from flat. The three-dimensional surfaces create interesting illusions, which change according to from where you view the pictures.

Another room has a huge pile of sand littered with discarded, corroded supermarket trolleys – an impressive but sad sight. In yet another room, most of the floor is covered with barbed wire and huge pieces of concrete – the ruins of a large building. As a friend of ours said, it looked as if it had been imported straight from a bombsite in Ukraine.

Would I recommend visiting this exhibition? It is certainly inappropriate for people who suffer from claustrophobia or depression. However, if you are of an adventurous frame of mind, do head for this show before it ends.