Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer is a German-born painter, sculptor, and visual artist working across multiple disciplines, associated with the neo-expressionist movement.
Born on March 8, 1945, in Donaueschingen, Kiefer holds German, Austrian, and French citizenship. He received his formal training at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, a step that placed him within one of Germany's most established art education institutions. His practice spans painting, sculpture, illustration, photography, and graphic art.
Over the course of his career, Kiefer has received a substantial number of awards and honors. These include the Praemium Imperiale, the Peace Prize of the German Publishers' and Booksellers' Association, and the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He has also been awarded the Leo-Baeck-Medal, the Goslarer Kaiserring, the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art, and the Rome Prize of the German Academy Villa Massimo. The breadth of these honors spans artistic, civic, and academic institutions across several countries.
Kiefer works in the German language and is associated with neo-expressionism. One of his notable works is Athanor. His output as a painter, sculptor, illustrator, photographer, and graphic artist reflects the range of disciplines he has worked across throughout his career.
Quotes by Anselm Kiefer
When I see a new artist I give myself a lot of time to reflect and decide whether it’s art or not.
If I do something that depresses, it’s not because I’m depressed, but because political life and history is depressing.
History speaks to artists. It changes the artist’s thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images.
Art is difficult. It’s not entertainment. There are only a few people who can say something about art – it’s very restricted. When I see a new artist I give myself a lot of time to reflect and decide whether it’s art or not. Buying art is not understanding art.
Art maybe the only space where an indvidual can be utterly free to question himself, as well as his relationship to his God.
I am interested in reconstructing symbols. It's about connecting with an older knowledge and trying to discover continuities in why we search for heaven,
As an artist you have to find something that deeply interests you. It's not enough to make art that is about art, to look at Matisse and Picasso and say, how can I paint like them? You have to be obsessed by something that can't come out in any other way, then the other things - the skill and technique - will follow.
