anselm kiefer artist biography
Anselm Kiefer, one of Germany’s great living artists and son of an art teacher, was born in Donaueschingen in 1945 but spent his childhood in Rastatt, later studying art in Freiburg im Breisgau. His works incorporate materials such as … After 1985, Anselm Kiefer returned to criticism of Nazism, a kind of analysis of the role of Germany in the general context of the earthly civilization development. Anselm Kiefer was born on March 8, 1945, in Donaueschingen, Baden-Württembürg, Germany, and raised near the east bank of the Rhine in the region of the Black Forest. He says: “History for me is a material like landscape or color”. He explores that past and other topics in massive works of art. He studied under the tutelage of Joseph Beuys and showed great promise from an early age, but he also studied Law and French. Soon thereafter he abandoned his aspiration to become a lawyer to focus solely on visual art, taking classes with the influential painter Peter Dreher at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildende Kunste in Karlsruhe. Ring in the new year with a Britannica Membership, This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anselm-Kiefer, The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Biography of Anselm Kiefer, Art Encyclopedia - Biography of Anselm Kiefer, The Art Story - Biography of Anselm Kiefer, Praemium Imperiale - Biography of Anselm Kiefer, Anselm Kiefer - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Birthday . He subsequently studied at art academies in Freiburg, Karlsruhe, and Dusseldorf. He studied with Peter Dreher and Horst Antes at the end of the 1960s. Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. His studio in Paris is large as well: 36,000 square meters in a former Samaritaine department store warehouse at Croissy-Beaubourg. Germany. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. The son of an art teacher, Kiefer was drawn to art and saw himself as an artist. His use of materials, influenced in part by Robert Rauschenberg's combines and the unconventionality of Art Brut and Arte Povera, brought a revitalized awareness of the symbolic use of everyday non-art resources in painting. The controversial work of the German artist Anselm Kiefer was a complex examination of many themes, from alchemy to his country's Nazi past, often explored through such unconventional materials as lead and straw.. Anselm Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, southern Germany, on March 8, 1945, during the final days of the collapse of the Third Reich. During this period, at the age of 24, he also traveled extensively throughout Europe. Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors, Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. Painter #109630. Anselm Kiefer is a German artist who has explored his country’s postwar identity, history, and mythology throughout his career. Anselm Kiefer's monumental body of work represents a microcosm of collective memory, visually encapsulating a broad range of cultural, literary, and philosophical allusions—from the Old and New Testaments, Kabbalah mysticism, Norse mythology and Wagner’s Ring Cycle to the poetry of Ingeborg Bachmann and Paul Celan. Ever teetering on the edge between abstraction and figuration, Kiefer uses a distinctly poetic, psychological style to convey heady social and political issues, abandoning the cold aesthetics of Minimalism and Conceptual art in favor of a more redolent, painterly, and moralistic visual language. By then, however, Kiefer had became a student of the conceptual artist Joseph Beuys, who encouraged Kiefer’s use of symbolic images to deal ironically with 20th-century German history. The themes that the artist worked on originate in occult movements and mystical practices that the Nazis loved to exploit. Artist Bio Born at the close of World War II, Anselm Kiefer reflects on and critiques the myths and chauvinism that propelled the German Third Reich to power. Most Popular ★ Boost . Biography Anselm Kiefer (b. While Kiefer rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s in the midst of the Neo-Expressionist movement, his work continues to resonate with artists and audiences alike. Along with his contemporaries Georg Baselitz, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter, he has succeeded in bringing social issues to the forefront of contemporary discussions, forcing Germany to reckon with its horrific past. Kiefer reflects upon and critiques the myths and chauvinism which eventually propelled the German Third Reich to power. With Wagnerian scale and ambition, his paintings depict the ambivalence of his generation toward the grandiose impulse of German nationalism and its impact on history. He began his artistic career with a provocative photographic series titled Occupations (1969), which caused controversy because of its overt dealing with the Nazi past. Anselm Kiefer (born 8 March 1945) is a German painter and sculptor. Kiefer was born on March 8, 1945 during the final months of World War II. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. In 2008 he left the Barjac complex in the hands of a caretaker with plans to let nature take its course and moved to Paris with his second wife, the Austrian photographer Renate Graf, and their two children. ... Works by the artist. Anselm Kiefer (German, b.1945) is a contemporary painter and sculptor. While this period saw the use of new motifs, including sigils, and a fascination with spiritual and occult symbolism, it was also characterized by Kiefer's use of a number of new materials. Untitled (The Rhine), 1982. The presentation also served to catapult Kiefer's career into the global art arena, leading to widespread recognition. Anselm Kiefer Himmelspaläste, 1987–1991 Emulsion, oil and straw on canvas. Anselm Kiefer had the opportunity to study under the tutelage of the famed figurative painter and well-known prime realist Peter Dreher while studying at Karlsruhe. One of the greatest living 20th century painters, the German artist Anselm Kiefer is most famous for his exploration of taboo themes from German history, notably the Holocaust, in order to come to terms with the country's Nazi past. He grew up in a country divided and struggling with its sense of past and future. Anselm Kiefer, (born March 8, 1945, Donaueschingen, Germany), German painter who became one of the most prominent figures in the Neo-Expressionist art movement of the late 20th century. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In 1992 Kiefer left his first wife of approximately 20 years and their three children, moving from a small town outside of Frankfurt to a new 200-acre studio complex in Barjac, France, which had been an abandoned silk factory. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Kiefer traveled outside of Germany, with several trips in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. At the same time, he renewed his long-standing interest in sculpture and text, creating a compelling series based on the Russian Futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov and revisiting the work of the Romanian poet Paul Celan, whose writings recur throughout Kiefer's oeuvre. Home Artist Anselm Kiefer . Anselm Kiefer is a German Postwar & Contemporary artist who was born in 1945. Anselm Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, a small town in Germany’s Black Forest on 8th March 1945, shortly before the end of the Second World War. Kiefer’s landscapes and interiors done in the 1980s acquired an intense physical presence by means of perspectival devices and the incorporation of such materials as sand, wood, straw, and lead to create unusual textures on the surface of the painted canvas. Anselm Kiefer Biography German artist Anselm Kiefer uses a variety of media including painting, photography, sculpture and large-scale installation to explore the consequences of …