Anselm Kiefer

by Germano Celant

German artist Anselm Kiefer is one of the most important and controversial artists of the post-world war II art scene. Begining with the work he showed at the 1980 Venice Biennale, he has interpreted the great political and cultural issues at the heart of the modern European sensibility, through media as diverse as painting, photography, artist’s books, installations, and sculpture. Kiefer’s wildly expressive work receives all the space and fluent interpretation it demands in this superb high-quality production. The book’s approximately 300 full-color images trace Kiefer’s creative evolution and present his great themes in their full scope and power. The author interprets Kiefer’s art as a site where distinctions between modern and postmodern senses of representation, history, cosmology, and nature become thematic. He addresses individual works and gives the historical, biographical, art-critical, and philosophical setting for each.

Genres: Art

524 pages, Hardcover

First published October 2, 1997

About the author

Germano Celant (11 September 1940 – 29 April 2020) was an Italian art historian, critic, and curator who coined the term "Arte Povera" (poor art) in 1967.
Celant was the renowned curator of contemporary art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and artistic director at the Fondazione Prada in Milan.

On 29 April 2020, Celant died in Milan from COVID-19 during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. He was 79.

Reviews

[Amory Blaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing compares to seeing an Anselm Kiefer creation in person, but second best may be this enormous collection of his complete works. The art is perfect - huge, glossy, exactly colored; however, the text is lacking. A biography of Anselm Kiefer ought to have been included, and an interview would have been ideal. Instead, we're given a double introduction, both of which feel pretentious, pointless, and overly poetic. The authors seem much more interested in their own interpretations of Anselm Kiefer than in Anselm Kiefer himself. And that, given the immense and powerful work showcased in this book, is truly unfortunate.

[Dan Pfeiffer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difficult to put in words, but his art lends itself more to feeling and experience than speech anyway. Genius. The book itself contains quality reproductions of Kiefer's art and sculpture along with analysis that makes for an engaging read. Fans will drink this book in.