This exhibition, entitled “diptych“, places Anselm Kiefer at the centre of attention, highlighting the artist's special connection with the work of Vincent van Gogh and presenting all of Kiefer’s most beloved works from the Stedelijk’s collection. Both venues will also present new works by the artist that have never been exhibited before, including the immense and breathtaking work that gives the exhibition its name: Tell me what the flowers are.
Seven works at the Van Gogh Museum
The exhibition brings together twenty-five works by Anselm Kiefer, including a major new work, Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, together with paintings, installations, films and works on paper from the two museums.
The presentation at the Van Gogh Museum demonstrates the enduring influence of Vincent van Gogh on Kiefer's work. In 1963, Kiefer won a scholarship and chose to follow the route taken by Van Gogh, from the Netherlands to Belgium and France. Van Gogh and his work remained a vital source of inspiration for him. The exhibition presents seven new works at the Van Gogh Museum, alongside previously unseen paintings and thirteen early drawings by Kiefer. Paintings, such as Van Gogh's Wheatfield with Crows (1890), are juxtaposed in the same space with Kiefer's monumental works on the same theme.
Other works at the Steddelijk Museum
The presentation at the Stedelijk Museum focuses on Kiefer’s close ties to the Netherlands, particularly the artist’s relationship with the museum, which has been crucial to his career. The Stedelijk acquired Innenraum (1981) and Märkischer Sand (1982) early in his career and gave him an acclaimed solo exhibition in 1986. This exhibition is not only an unprecedented opportunity to see the entire collection of the Stedelijk, but also a chance to see Kiefer’s most recent paintings and in particular two new spatial installations. The title work, Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, is an immersive painting installation, over 24 meters long, that fills the space around the museum’s historic staircase. The second installation, Steigend, steigend, sinke nieder, is made of photographs and lead, an important material that recurs throughout Kiefer’s work, alluding to the weight of human history. The exhibition also features films by and about Anselm Kiefer, including the previously unreleased film Noch ist Polen nicht verloren (1989), shot in Warsaw shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain. The title of the exhibition “Sag mir wo die Blumen sind” is taken from the 1955 protest song “Where have all the flowers gone” by the American folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, which became famous when Marlene Dietrich sang it in 1962.
Who is Anselm Kiefer?
Anselm Kiefer (1945) uses materials such as straw, lead and gold leaf, as well as traditional art techniques such as oil paint, watercolour, gouache and photography. Although Kiefer and Van Gogh do not share the same colour palette, the two artists are strongly linked
The Cycle of Life and Death: Flowers
Kiefer’s new and impressive installation for the Stedelijk Museum “Sag mir wo die Blumen sind” combines paint and clay with uniforms, dried rose petals and gold, symbolising the cycle of life and death, with the human condition and the fate of mankind as the central motif. The flowers in the title are also a reference to Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers (1889) and Kiefer’s recent landscapes, which will be shown for the first time in the exhibition.
