German Artist Anselm Kiefer Engages In Visceral Dialogue With Van Gogh In Blockbuster Exhibition Sprawling Two Amsterdam Museums

Re-imagine the night sky, simultaneously tranquil and disquieting, as straw, gold leaf, wood, wire, and sediment mimic thick, impasto brushstrokes to pay homage to one of art history’s most captivating swirls. The unusual materials, interacting with emulsion, and oil and acrylic paints, borrow from Post-Impressionist exploration of light and color to depict the verisimilitude of nature.

German artist Anselm Kiefer named his work De sterrennacht (The Starry Night) (2019) after Vincent van Gogh’s painting executed from the Dutch master’s east-facing window view during his yearlong stay at the asylum (psychiatric hospital) of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence.

“What you see here is Kiefer working on a very grand scale, using his entire arsenal of materials. The green is created by electrolysis, he’s using a lot of gold right now, and it is really about how he’s getting out the movement in the Starry Night in an almost overwhelming way,” Emilie Gordenker, director of the Van Gogh Museum, said during a tour of the exhibition following the previews of TEFAF-Maastricht. “These works are also clearly looking to Van Gogh.”

Van Gogh’s influence permeates Kiefer’s career, and is most evident in this colossal painting, stretching nearly 28 feet long and soaring more than 15 feet high. Sag mir wo die Blumen sind presents a wide range of Kiefer’s work displayed across the Stedelijk Museum – showcasing his early works from the museum’s own collection together for the first time, along with recent paintings and two new installations – and the Van Gogh Museum highlighting his lifelong dialogue with van Gogh.

The name of the exhibition, German for Where Have All the Flowers Gone?, is borrowed from the eponymous 1955 anti-war song, originally written and performed by American folk singer Pete Seeger, who was inspired by the traditional Cossack folk song “Koloda-Duda” (Колода-дуда in Russian) while reading Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel in four volumes, Quiet Flows the Don. Some of us may be more familiar with Marlene Dietrich’s recordings of the Seeger song in English, French, and German.

On view through June 9, the sprawling exhibition is drawing global crowds, and it’s wise to purchase tickets in advance. If you’ll be in Amsterdam this spring, consider this a can’t-miss inquiry into Kiefer’s singular artistic process and robust creative relationship with van Gogh.

Kiefer’s visceral oeuvre – spanning monumental paintings, sculptures, installations, woodcuts, artists’ books, works on paper, and films – confronts his childhood amid the rubble and contrition of postwar Germany. He denounced the pettiness and peril of nationalism, depicting the desecrated landscape and architecture and embracing the ambit of emotions that resonated with viewers around the world.

Complexities are woven into intricate Kiefer’s work, referencing literature, poetry, philosophy, mythology, scientific theory, and mysticism, amplified by the technical layering of his massive canvases and installations. Lead, straw, sand, charred wood, dried flowers, books, concrete, branches, ashes, and clothing lend to the visual narratives which reject any objective truth to history. Memory – individual and collective – was central to redefining national identity and public discourse in the wake of Nazism and the Holocaust, creating a new paradigm of memory politics which continues to inform our opinion of a dark chapter of history that’s still fresh to survivors and resonates amid ongoing geopolitical horrors.

A skylight eerily illuminates the lurid grit of Kiefer’s sinister Innenraum (1981), derived from a photograph of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, designed by Adolf Hitler’s favorite architect, Albert Speer, plunging us into the abyss of inhumanity.

“In the early 1980s it was still difficult when he came up with his Nazi criticism. He was also provocative. In the early 1970s he was doing performances in which he was wearing the Nazi uniform of his father. And this was, of course, not well (received) in Germany, and this caused quite a disturbance. For him, it was a critique. It was making a fool of Nazism, in a way. But in the Netherlands, he found a very good ground with collectors and with museum directors, especially here at the Stedelijk,” said Rein Wolfs, director of the Stedelijk.

Shock and awe define the experience of navigating Kiefer’s uncanny, enormous works, and Steigend, steigend, sinke nieder (Rising, rising, sinking down), a site-specific installation made from lead and photograph for the exhibition, magnifies the wow-factor. Imaging the hours of wrangling with the heavy metal (lead has a density of 708 pounds per cubic foot) to assemble this astonishing installation is exhausting, creating a genuine immersive experience where we surrender to the many memories emblazoned on the black-and-white photographs evoking myriad emotions. This glorious monstrosity epitomizes organized chaos and forces us look beyond the surface, temping us to crawl inside.

Van Gogh continues to enthrall the global art world. M.S. Rau of New Orleans sold the rare Still Life with Two Sacks and a Bottle by van Gogh (asking price of $4.75 million) to a private collector at the 38th edition of TEFAF Maastricht, which is widely regarded as the world’s preeminent fair for fine museum quality art, antiques, design and jewelry.

More from this year’s TEFAF Maastricht:

Exquisite Couples Delight At Breathtaking TEFAF Maastricht Preview

Rediscovered Pioneering Portrait Painter Lotte Laserstein Rises At TEFAF Maastricht