Anselm Kiefer: Superstrings, Runes, The Norns, Gordian Knot


Stunning exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Anselm Kiefer.

From the wonderful main corridor lined with 30 vitrines, boxes filled with a collage of painting and sculpture, I was grabbed. Each box work as a standalone work but the whole became an installation. The detail of each was different and I particularly liked the ones with gold backgrounds.

From the corridor you fed off into the side rooms which were mainly dominated by huge landscapes. My favourite was “Ramanujan Summation 1/12”, a huge piece in a room of its own, which worked like a modern altarpiece. There was a complex explanation of it but I saw a First World War battlefield with rows of posts and explosions. I stood in front of it with a sense of awe.

I loved the three “Superstrings” pictures, great wide landscapes, with paths leading to a horizon. They made me feel very positive and lifted, however the description described them a devastated landscapes, so maybe I was just in an optimistic mood!

The North Gallery had great collages of swathes of twigs and branches with an axe set into them all called “Der Gorische Knoten” (The Gordian Knot), referring to Alexander the Great’s solution to unravelling the impossible knot by one singe cut. OK without the explanation I wouldn’t have got that link, but I’d have still found them stunning pieces.

Closed 26 January 2020

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