Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kiefer
Anselm Kieferis a German painter and sculptor. He studied with Joseph Beuys and Peter Dreher during the 1970s. His works incorporate materials such as straw, ash, clay, lead, and shellac. The poems of Paul Celan have played a role in developing Kiefer's themes of German history and the horror of the Holocaust, as have the spiritual concepts of Kabbalah...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth8 March 1945
CountryGermany
thinking purpose upbringing
Because of my Calvinistic upbringing, I was trained to think that what you do has to have a purpose.
might facts chaos
I might have been born into a very literal sense of chaos, but in fact that state is true of all of us.
artist interesting
Not content, but the road the artist takes, is the interesting part.
art artist giving
When I see a new artist I give myself a lot of time to reflect and decide whether it's art or not.
ideas paradise judgment
I am against the idea of the end, that everything culminates in paradise or judgment.
heaven earth rooms
I grew up in a forest. It's like a room. It's protected. Like a cathedral... it is a place between heaven and earth.
art giving people
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.
believe thinking artist
I am of the opinion that there are artists and non-artists. I think that this is the way it always was and always will be. I do not believe that we are in the center of the world. It is possible that there are gods who do not relate to human. As an artist, I believe that it is possible to depict these forces.
memories believe palaces
But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.
art work-out sometimes
Art really is something very difficult. It is difficult to make, and it is sometimes difficult for the viewer to understand. It is difficult to work out what is art and what is not art.
people
History is formed by the people, those who have power and those without power. Each one of us makes history.
art space wells
Art maybe the only space where an indvidual can be utterly free to question himself, as well as his relationship to his God
book ideas stories
The book, the idea of a book or the image of a book, is a symbol of learning, of transmitting knowledge.. I make my own books to find my way through the old stories.
house eras germany
When, at the end of the 1960s, I became interested in the Nazi era, it was a taboo subject in Germany. No one spoke about it anymore, no more in my house than anywhere else.