The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum presents Kiefer an exhibition open 01.08.2012.
Anselm Kiefer, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
Anselm Kiefer (Donaueschingen, 1945) is the most internationally acclaimed German artist at work today. Both cultured and complex, his work evokes the collective memory of his countrymen while serving him as a way into his own personal introspection.
The book of the seven celestial palaces (Sefer Hechaloth) returns to what, since the 1980s, has been one of his habitual touchstones: Hebrew spiritual literature and, in particular, the Cabbala. The staircase is used symbolically in a number of traditions to represent the soul’s ascent to heaven. Here Kiefer interprets this spiritual journey, anchored in the book as a symbol of knowledge and the transmission of knowledge. The large format and sparing use of muffled colours, also present in the paper and the lead included in the fabric, add to the solemn gravity of the work. – www.museobilbao.com