New Anselm Kiefer exhibit at Vienna’s Essl Museum

Horlogium (Sternenfall), 2003
Oil, emulsion, acrylic, gypsum plants on canvas;
Lead books, cardboard, metal and glass
280 x 500 x 32 cm,
170 x 160 x 140 cm
© Anselm Kiefer

The ESL Museum in Vienna has been amassing a collection of works by Anselm Kiefer for the past decade and is currently exhibiting 15 in Anselm Kiefer: Works from the Essl Museum on view through May 29, 2012.  Kiefer’s work, characteristically baroque, charred, desolate and majestic, is often epic and portentous, constantly harking back to decay and denial in post War Germany.  However, since decay precedes renewal, there remains an under current of hope. The world of Kiefer is never dull.

Here’s an excerpt from their exhibition announcement:

In my pictures I tell stories to show
what is behind the story. I open up a
hole and I go through it.
Anselm Kiefer

In February 2012, Anselm Kiefer, one of the most significant artists of the present day, forms the big opening of the exhibition year in the Essl Museum. A new solo exhibition personally furnished by the collector Karlheinz Essl is on show, with 15 works, among them four new main works from the artist’s latest creative period. Agnes and Karlheinz Essl have been exploring the work of the great German artist for many years and have repeatedly visited him in his studio. In the last ten years the collector couple have acquired a large number of important works. The exhibition grants a very personal collector’s view of the artist; for the first time all of Kiefer’s works in the Essl collection will be made accessible to a wide audience.

Dia-Lyse, 2006
Oil, emulsion, shellac and soil on board
285 x 140 x 8 cm
© Anselm Kiefer
Photo: Lothar Schnepf, Köln

Claudia Quinta, 2005
Oil, emulsion, shellac, soil on photograph on cardboard
with barbed wire and lead boat and objects
95 x 124 x 28 cm
© Anselm Kiefer
Photo: courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris

The Fertile Crescent, 2009
Mixed Media on canvas
330 x 762 x 7 cm
© Anselm Kiefer
Photo: Ulrich Ghezzi courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris · Salzburg