Sunday 27 November 2016

Anselm Kiefer - White Cube, Bermondsey

Anselm Kiefer, Rorate Caeli Desuper, 2016
Anselm Kiefer: Walhalla is at White Cube, Bermondsey until 12 February 2017

Kiefer’s big themes – German history and mythology, creation and destruction – are fully present in this hugely ambitious show which summons both the Walhalla of Norse myth - the enormous hall to which the dead battle-heroes, chosen by Odin, were led by the Valkyries -  and the 19th century Walhalla, the marbled-monument to Germanic heroes created by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. However, in place of the gold of myth and the splendid polished marble of Ludwig’s neo-classical temple, Kiefer’s Walhalla is in the colours of concrete and lead.  
Kiefer has transformed the central corridor of White Cube’s huge Bermondsey gallery into a bleak, gloomy, dormitory of steel beds made up with lead sheets and pillows. In the galleries leading off the corridor are sculptures, vast paintings and installations – one, installation, Arsenal, replete with giant lead books fills an entire gallery; the paintings, made of oil, acrylic, emulsion, clay and lead are of ruined concrete towers in a scarred landscape under apocalyptic skies.
Astonishing – a Gesamkunstwerk.
Listen to Kiefer interviewed about the exhibition on Radio 4’s Front Row; read reviews by William Cook, Emily Spicer, Caroline Elbaor and Jonathan Jones.
Listen to Wagner’s Entry of the Gods into Walhalla from Das Rheingold.
See also blog entries on Kiefer's 2014 RA exhibition here and here.
Click on images to enlarge.
Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, 1992-2016
Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, 1992-2016 (detail)
Anselm Kiefer, Sursum corda, 2016
Anselm Kiefer, Sursum corda, 2016 (detail)
Anselm Kiefer, Arsenal, 1983-2016 (detail)
Anselm Kiefer, San Loreto, 2016
Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, installation view
Anselm Kiefer, nubes pluant ustem, 2016
Anselm Kiefer, nubes pluant ustem, 2016 (detail)

Anselm Kiefer, Gehäutete Landschaft, 2016
Anselm Kiefer, Gehäutete Landschaft, 2016 (detail)
Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, installation view
Anselm Kiefer, from Walhalla, 2016
Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, 2016

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