Anselm Kiefer

I like Anselm Kiefer's work. I like his work a lot. I like his work so much in fact that once upon a time, I borrowed--for the sake of art--pieces of one of his works.

He had a show at Marian Goodman's many years ago at the time he made the move from Germany to France--I think it was called "20 Years of Solitude", or at least one room was. He took everything in the studio, which is to say everything that wasn't worth much by itself (I assume) such as canvases, detritus, floor sweepings, sent it to Goodman and piled it up in a huge pile about 18 feet wide by 18 feet high. (As I write I realize we're talking: everything at a garage sale, piled on high, and sold as one piece. Very clever: you can have it all or nothing. ) From a distance, it looked like an elephant turd.

So I picked up--off the floor--a piece of straw, a piece of lead, a piece of a silver print and a piece of clay.

So what, you ask? Well, exactly. So what.

Not inclined to throw them out, I mounted them on a board and labeled it "With the Right Materials, I Too Can Become an Artist."

Sadly, it turns out not to be axiomatic.

Still, I find him one of the most inventive, creative, visually interesting artists of the last 40 years. I particularly like his use of photographs as narrative (albeit, obscure) and his book work. Jeff Ladd at 5B4 reviewed one of his books of books here and had some very insightful things to say. So...

If you have any interest in Keifer, on the Saatchi Online TV & Magazine website, there is a 4 minute video tour of Anselm Kiefer's studio at Barjac in France.