Anselm Kiefer: Solaris = Anzerumu Kīfā : sorarisu

Abstract

"Anselm Kiefer was born in Germany in March 1945 and he is amongst the most important artists of his generation. This exhibition is Kiefer’s largest ever in Asia, featuring thirty-three paintings and sculptures that will be displayed inside the Daidokoro Building and in the surrounding courtyards. In recent years, the use of gold has become a recurring feature in Kiefer’s work, and exhibiting on the same site as the immense collection of Kano School gold-leaf paintings in the Ninomaru Palace, is a starting point for comparing aesthetic, philosophical, and political affinities between Japan and the West since the beginning of the Edo Period. Kiefer is renowned for the overwhelming scale of his powerful paintings and sculptural installations that have stunned audiences for decades and inspired deep questions about history, philosophy, religion, and culture. At Nijo Castle, visitors are welcomed by Ra, a nine-meter tall sculpture of a winged painter’s palette, before moving indoors to encounter the ten-meter wide painting Für Octavio Paz, which Kiefer created especially for this exhibition. Anselm Kiefer: Solaris is expansively installed in five sections throughout the Daidokoro that addresses Kiefer’s reflections on the aspirations and responsibilities of artists, touches on affinities between Zen Buddhism and modern physics, examines the impact of Japonisme on Kiefer’s aesthetics, and compares the parallel historical developments of Japan and Germany during the 19th and 20th Centuries. The majority of the works are lit only with natural light, in order to allow their expressive luminosity of gold to be properly experienced. On the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War II and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kiefer asks why is mankind prone to repeat the same tragic history again and again"-- Publisher's website.