The Hermitage will hold the first in Russia exhibition of Anselm Kiefer
ARTinvestment.RU   13 января 2017

Especially for the exhibition in Saint-Петербурге, which will be held at the Hermitage from late may to early September, Kiefer has created 20 new works, dedicated to Velimir Khlebnikov

the Exhibition "Anselm Kiefer — Velimir Khlebnikov" is a dedication to a contemporary artist to the great Russian poet.

Anselm Kiefer — artist, prone to deep and multifaceted intellectual reflection. In his work he addresses the themes of history, religion, literature, philosophy, images of memory and heritage. The source of inspiration for Kiefer — world culture, in a broad slice of German history, religious mysticism, ancient poetry, Mesopotamian myths.

Anselm Kiefer was born in the small German town of Donaueschingen in 1945, two months before the end of the war. Exploring the theme of silencing the guilt and pain that paralyzed his generation, Kiefer, along with George Baselitz and Gerhard Richter, was one of the first artists, in their works openly and boldly addressed the topics of Nazism and the Holocaust. In 1980, Kiefer was among the artists representing Germany at the Venice Biennale. In the ensuing years, his solo exhibitions were held at the Kunsthalle in düsseldorf, Museum of modern art in new-Йорке, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Royal Academy in London, the Grand-Пале and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Anselm Kiefer — is the only living artists whose work is included in the permanent collection of the Louvre.

According to German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, "the art of Anselm Kiefer has its own special space, as ravnoudalenie from the horrific and decorative", — two constants of modern art. His paintings — large-scale, multi-layered, three-dimensional — mark the revival of the genre of historical painting with the key issues of memory and cultural myth. In a bold manner vangogovskie paint on the canvas of Kiefer c are mixed with dust, earth, clay, rusty metal, straw, dried flowers. In 1985, the artist bought the dilapidated roof of the Cologne Cathedral: lead sheets became pages of numerous books that determined the whole liperovsky iconography. Acquaintance with Anselm Kiefer's works require the viewer's willingness to meditation, mystical empathy, immersion in the maelstrom of the refined ideas of the intellectual right.

In 2016, Anselm Kiefer, inspired by a visit to St. Petersburg, created specifically for the Hermitage's new exhibition project. In equipped for a three-part exhibition space, the Grand hall of the Nikolaev Kiefer plans to place paintings devoted to the Russian poet-футуристу, the experimenter word creation of Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922). For the exhibition was created more than 20 new works.

Poetic works often for Kiefer's starting point: "I think in pictures. Poems help me in this. They are like beacons. I swim to them, from one to another. Without them —, I was gone. They are the backbone, which in the vastness of space focuses".

One of the Central to Velimir Khlebnikov, the idea of infinite looping fatal military clashes taking place on the water and land time in 317 years, Kiefer becomes the basis for reflection on the themes of war and peace, of the fragility and finiteness of all human aspirations, of the merciless rock. At the same time, the exhibition "Anselm Kiefer — Velimir Khlebnikov" — is a picturesque ode to the sad beauty of rusting ships, once communicated a message of fear, but now abandoned by theircreators on the edge of the earth.

Source: hermitagemuseum.org