“An angry, jaw dropping, relevant show” 

Für Jean Genet (For Jean Genet), 1969 Bound watercolour on paper, graphite, original photographs, hair and canvas strips on cardboard (24 pages), 67 x 51 x 4 cm Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer

The Ashmolean Museum is hosting an exhibition of older and more recent works by Anselm Kiefer, most  on loan from the Hall Art Foundation.

Those familiar with the artist would know him for his use of mixed media (variously incorporating ash, clay, lead, concrete,  shellac) and for the prominent on-canvas dedications. These range from Rilke verses to personal dedications, to references to his collectors.

Subjects are equally varied: from landscape, to German romanticism, to Norse mythology.

When Dr Sturgis, the museum’s director, opened the show, he described it as “angry and shockingly relevant”, referring to Kiefer’s long-standing preoccupation with the nazi regime legacy.

Wege der Weltweisheit – die Hermannsschlacht
(Ways of Worldly Wisdom – The Battle of Hermann), 1977
Woodcuts on paper with acrylic and shellac mounted on synthetic fabric, 305 x 321 cm Hall Collection. Courtesy of the Hall Art Foundation. © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Roman März

The world’s enduring fascination with Nazism

From Elon Musk’s shrug, “The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired“, in response to his gesture of enthusiasm being equated with the Sieg Heil salute, to political capital being made through other such historical references, the century old ideology gets dragged centre-stage at every and any opportunity, no matter how tangential.

Kiefer’s work are anything but tangential.

His father wore a Wermacht uniform, which Kiefer son donned to create a powerful work of art, as part of his “Confronting The Past” series, at a time when the questions it raised were both provocative and uncomfortable.

Preoccupation with nazi regime legacy

Kiefer’s preoccupation with the nazi regime legacy dominates the show to a large extent.  Themes of German romanticism and Norse mythology are seen and interpreted through the same prism: how traditional German culture was hijacked and abused by fascism.

Underscored in other works is an ad rem theme, “could German artists create freely in nazi Germany”.

And so it is with the woodcuts series, portraying Germannness generally and depictions of the Valkyrie warrior Brunhilde.

The show is, thus, as much a reflection of the collective anxiety Germany still feels about that period of its history, as it is a point of  contemporary relevance.

How to Draw series

Kiefer’s “Kitsch paintings”, the “How to draw manual” and “Painters’ Palette” series, represent a revival of figurative painting. They are both humorous and fun, and, like the woodcut portrait of the artist’s grandmother, looking into the horizon, have no “nazi past relevance”. This is a welcome respite from the otherwise dark side of the show, inviting you into a more intimate and colourful world of Kiefer’s.