Exhibition Information

Anselm Kiefer Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr
2022 Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, lead, rope on canvas 190 x 280 cm
All images © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Georges Poncet.

Anselm Kiefer Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr
2021-2022 Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac on canvas 190 x 280 cm
All images © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Georges Poncet.

Anselm Kiefer Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr
2022 Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, lead, rope, on canvas 190 x 280 cm
All images © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Georges Poncet.

Anselm Kiefer Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr
2022 118 laterite and straw bricks 83 x 288 x 183 cm
All images © Anselm Kiefer. Photo: Georges Poncet.

			Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

– Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Herbsttag’ (‘Autumn Day’, 1902), translated from German by Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann

 

The exhibition Wer jetzt kein Haus hat (Whoever has no house now) premieres a new series of works by internationally renowned German artist Anselm Kiefer paying homage to the Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Inspired by poems by Rilke dedicated to the autumn season, the paintings on view will feature dark, silhouetted trees and falling leaves in rich autumn browns leading into winter greys, displaying both the painter and the poet’s fascination with transience, decay and the passage of time. ‘The poem by Rilke has been in my memory for 60 years. I know many poems by heart, they are in me, and every now and then they emerge.’ The works in the exhibition draw on a group of photographs Anselm Kiefer took in Hyde Park, in London, on a sun-drenched autumn day. ‘I was truly shocked by the explosion of colours,’ he recalls, ‘by the overwhelming natural scenery. The light and the colouring of the autumn leaves were of such intensity that I fetched the camera from the hotel and went to work.’
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(Source=Thaddaeus Ropac)