Anselm Kiefer: Angeli Caduti (Fallen Angels), Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 22.04–21.07.2024

Abstract

After the Anselm Kiefer episode at the Doge’s Palace in Venice for the 2022 Venetian Biennale, I knew what to expect when I arrived at the imposing Renaissance Strozzi Palace in Florence. An exhibition and an artist that stands its ground. Thoroughly prepared to clash once again with the ‘better half’ of art history: the Italian Renais­sance. A German artist in the heart of Renaissance art, already a good title to venture into a memorable visual experience. Because Kiefer’s exhibitions are memorable, it’s as simple as that. There are no positive or negative attributes, just memorable, because a mark remains a mark whether it’s good for you or not. Kiefer’s art is like a scar that is always ready to reopen and hurt. He is an artist who meticulously dissects pain and expects everyone to be his partner in this splitting in vivo. He comes from a nation that continues to bleed from the still-resurrected wound of Nazism. Perhaps that is why his interrogations of history and humans are returning to the forefront of contemporary art. History that refuses to die, a hydra of murder and a road of no return. These are Kiefer’s desert landscapes: paths without horizon, where the line between sky and earth resembles a leaden rail—not dividing the two realms, but bringing them mortally close, crushing every will and every action under their clash. A horizon that smashes thoughts until they crack, scattering their livid contents over sordid puddles and charred flora. In the Strozzi palace, Anselm Kiefer was as strong as we know him. In the haste of a man who knows what he must do, he has built a labyrinth of spectral bodies, gold leaf and heavy lead objects. All on a grand scale, imposing, almost monumental but not quite, as the gigantic dimensions of the works do not always possess the gravity of monumental art. As in Venice, Kiefer tried again to create only iconic images. Each work was self-sufficient in symbol and material: descriptive objects enclosed in huge dioramas, large canvases with lots of gold leaf or bituminous gestures, black, white and reflections. All concerted to mythologically translated falls and damnations, recalling the irreconcilable condition with divinity.