Having read through just a few of the other comments, I'm struck by the hostility to Kiefer's work expressed by people who don't appear to have seen any of it.
And, having read the article, I'm struck by how *strange* Kiefer is. Off-putting, for sure. Troubled, I think. I would be much surprised if he didn't have a whole mass of trauma connected with the national, familial, and personal history he has as a German of a certain age. The legacy of Nazism reverberates generation after generation, in the children of perpetrators as well as the children of victims (and the children of those who were both perpetrators and victims). It's very easy for people who lack an intimate connection to that history to judge the psyches and behavior of those who do have that connection.
And to come back to Kiefer's art. I don't hold with naming anyone "greatest" anything. But. But. Having seen a number of exhibitions of his work, I am more than happy to call it (yep) great. It's beautiful, strange, terrifying, nightmarish, breathtaking. It engages unforgettably with a traumatic history that Kiefer and I are on more or less opposite sides of. I never want to stop looking.
14
@Jolanta That was beautifully put. An artist lives in intimate relationship to mystery, that which is within and that which is everywhere. Art expresses this relationship without explanation or apology. It's why critics and art aficionados can be greatly informed, passionate in their opinions, and still miss the mark.
Knausgaard sought a connection between Kiefer's personal life and his art, something the artist himself seems uninterested in providing. I can understand that lack of interest; either the art speaks to you or it doesn't. And whatever anyone has to say, it lies beyond judgment. It resides in the realm of its own power.
I've had the good fortune you've had: encountering Kiefer's work in person a number of times. And I agree--it is stunning. Whether anyone calls the artist great or wants to tear him down is beside the point for me. I too never want to stop looking.
4
This is fascinating as ever--narcissism feeding on narcissism, a hall of flattering, faltering mirrors--but I do have a bone to pick, Karl Ove. "The Danube could also be said to be the source of Germany, or of the myth of Germany?" You should read your Magris, Karl Ove. It is the Rhine that embodies that troublesome, Teutonic mythology. The Danube--the Donau, the Duna, the Tuna--flows away from the German, toward the Slavic, the Latin, the Turkic. It ends in the Black Sea, after all. Not the river you're looking for...
2
Brilliant. Not Kiefer. Karl Ove.
3
I was thinking ..."Hey, Ove, maybe don't meet your hero's."
Anselm Kiefer, of course is impressive, if not a little hokey, akin to how I feel about a really good cukoo-clock, which incidentally is also from the Black Forrest. Against my 'better Political judgement' I found the Royals in the forrest to be infinitely more interesting and weird subjects, there is a book there, which Sebald should've written, alas. As an artist myself, Anselm Kiefer seems, to me, to be 'just another artist' a quite accomplished one, who owns a helicopter.
2
Greatest living artist? Says who? Knausgaard describes a failing old man who fills very large warehouses with bric a brac, is enthralled with minor Royalty from a time long ago. There are great living artists among us, he is not the one.
4
I worked at Moma in 1988 when the Kiefer show went up. I was just confronting the megalomaniacal stance of Moma then. His art felt of a time when a white male was always the role model. When the greatest meant painting. A time when African art was used to show the importance of Modern Art and the head curator would write a response saying he wasn't racist. I knew Bill Rubin and he was a bit of a fascist. But so was Moma.
Then Moma showed Sturtevant just as she died of old age. She didn't believe in the greatest living whatever. She called that "real medieval thinking".
2
These paintings, at least to my untrained eye, are evocative, unsettling, almost frightening and leave me wanting more, which is saying something in this supersaturated age where most leaves me wanting less. Having seen none in person, I can only imagine how intense such a feeling would be in a room overwhelmed by the massive canvases. But, isn’t visiting art akin the visiting the rides at the amusement park for a certain sort of us, something to spin us around and leave us discombobulated for a spell? And, like at the amusement park, don’t we sometimes wonder, “I waited in line for that?”
I’ve met actors, singers, politicians, famous surgeons, very high ranking soldiers, internationally acclaimed artists, Nobel Prize winners, billionaires, authors and once, I met a whale. The people were all more or less interesting, but the whale! Now, that was a life-changing encounter.
2
@Victoria
If Art is Life and Life is Art, then one of them is unnecessary.
1
Adorno said that "After Auschwitz there can be no ". Kiefer proves him wrong. But it ain't pretty.
1
Anselm Kiefer is certainly the "greatest living artist" to about 100 people – mostly dealers and collectors. I don't deny that he's a good artist, that his works inspire wonder or that he merits public accolades for his work. But. Isn't this piece more Kiefer myth making than anything else? The Van Gogh business is part of that; as is the "forest" the "well" the "bicycle." Sure we artists are strange and idiosyncratic, but this kind of conscious mythologizing of a living artist reeks of soft sell wall street. Is it critical? Do we understand his work better? Hmm... molten lead poured from a crane? Sure! Great. I like Kiefer's works, but I also like thousands of other artists who, unlike Kiefer, have poured themselves into their own works, are ever bit the artist as he is and work largely in darkness. A Black Forest of their own, teasing out their own demons and ignored completely by Wall Street, museums, and autobiographical novelists like Knausgaard. Power begets power, the winners write history, money begets money. All is vanity and chasing the wind. Who does this piece serve?
15
@MATTHEW ROSE
thank you, that's very nicely written, without grudges like other comments. and i feel it similar to you. but unfortunately that's the way it is in the global art scene. how could knausgard know that there are such good artist colleagues like you and me and others. and they all have different standards of value and taste.
4
Kiefer isn't the first whose relationship with Karl Ove seemingly disappears after an intense bout of dry intimacy with the writer. The difference between you or me is Kiefer's "great art" let him share the relationship in person so Knausgaard could see, first hand, what his extraordinary-before-inevitably-forgotten style does to his legion of readers.
GREATEST living artist?
Beware of superlatives used in the arts.
3
I tell people if they’re going to look at Anselm Kiefer’s art to bring oxygen and wear knee pads because it’s going to take your breath away and you’re going to fall to your knees.
9
I think for Kiefer's paintings to "work" or to convey their angst there has to be a balancing act between the material and the gestalt of the painting. The impact at its best is instantaneous at its worst the paintings are just a lot of material trying to add up but failing. This balancing act applies to other artists whom I have written about:
"It is interesting that Kiefer’s eschews structures except for the death houses and builds his paintings of flowers out of the fragile stuff of organic nature. They are the opposite of the reassuring solidity of Held’s structure by this German who saw positivist technology run amok in Nazi Germany. His work thrives on angst and guilt. However, as in Winters the repetition of the mood in recent work renders no new emotional territory. Rothenberg’s Dance on the edge of recognition and intransigent stuff is hard to repeat over a lifetime and keep fresh. Judging from what I see online, Rothenberg’s latest work like Winter’s suffers from inertia. It is god forbid more representational than abstract."
Even more interesting than the article are the comments. The article represents a kind of Rohrschach test that allows us to look into the mind of the informed public. There are recriminations, jealousies, and broad statements about Germany, etc. Nonetheless, this article, the artist, his work and the comments represent a kind of Zeitgeist. From all of that, someone, looking back, carefully and critically could surmise something about where we are today. Would that we had had such contemporary commentaries on ancient Greek architecture and scultpure. U.Even more interesting than the article are the comments. The piece represents a kind of Rohrschach test that allows us to look into the mind of the informed public. There are recriminations, jealousies, and broad statements about Germany, etc. Nonetheless, this article, the artist, his work, and the comments represent a kind of Zeitgeist. From all of that, someone looking back, carefully, and critically could surmise something about where we are today. Would that we had had such contemporary commentaries on ancient Greek architecture and sculpture. Where is all this taking us? The artist asks the author, "do you have a helicopter?" For further illumination, as Icarus and Daedalus have taught us and even contemporary news of doomed celebrities, you need one to get closer to the Sun.
5
The following "action" section of this brilliant biographical rant, to me, signatures its worth: "Kiefer poured lead over three paintings that day, and each of them was completely distinct, although the starting point for all of them had been similar." This, and the subsequent descriptive "analysis" of Kiefer's methodology, his genius in navigating his way through these perilous substances and assemblages defines the essence of Knausgaard's passionate homage to this innovative and clearly enormous mad talent!
To critique this offering based on one's ethics/morality or concern about lead poisoning clearly misses the point!
5
This is an interesting encounter between two people very invested in keeping a private space for imagination, but also ensuring it is perforated in crucial places to allow insight to flow in and fame to shine out. Of the two, Knausgaard comes across as the more careful architect of his curated interior, because he has long said nothing remains unsaid, whereas Kiefer depends on his forests to remain dark.
6
If this artist doesn’t have chronic lead poisoning I’ll eat my hat.
Lead is very dangerous stuff. And the fumes are super toxic. And once in the body, lead doesn’t go anywhere. The effects on the central nervous system (and other organ systems) are profound. Keifer’s mental status as described by Knausgaard would be very typical for chronic lead poisoning.
And Knausgaard might want to have his lead level checked as well, even though his exposure was short. He probably Ingested a significant dose from the fumes he inhaled during his visit.
As a matter of fact, everyone working in this artist’s studio should have their lead level checked. The studio should be shut down and decontaminated. I’m sure the lead levels in the studio are off the charts.
The carelessness exhibited in the use of this dangerous material is shocking and almost certainly illegal. I hope the French public health authorities see this article and act on it. This artist is placing the health of everyone who works for him and everyone who visits his studio at risk.
Sad to see.
24
@Enigma Variation great artistic creation can only be born out of madness.
3
@Enigma Variation - Kiefer has been splashing large quantities of lead since the '70's . I'm sure he's been tested for it and, if need be, treated.
A number of comments suggest that Knausgaard believes Kiefer to be in some state of dementia, but I didn't get that impression at all: instead, the article seemed to portray Kiefer, throughout, as utterly self-absorbed and childish. In short, the type who collects friends and obsesses over them for a short time and then quickly grows bored of them and forgets about them. I have met many people who fit this profile, mostly in Los Angeles.
11
I think the title of the article simply refers to AK’s belief from youth that he was the greatest artist —It is called IRONY perhaps .though AK’s work is powerful.
7
absolutely right. the profile was a comic (droll) tour de force
3
What is it called when evolution changes? When great changes happen?”
No one could think of the correct word.
The word is entropy.
3
@Clark Frankel
Isn't it singularity?
This is an adoring portrait of an artist from a fan. FANatic.
But, "art" is almost entirely subjective. There are people who despise Van Gogh, for example.
Fans do the the artist no favor by breathless declarations (greatest living artist!), however.
6
What an interesting and lyrical piece of writing. I've often looked at a huge canvas of his in the St. Louis Art Museum and wondered what could be so badly damaged in a person to make them produce such a piece. Now I have a bit more insight into that.
10
Of course we remember that Mein Kampf is the German translation of Knausgaard's tremendous work, My Struggle.
One of the things in the article that stuck out for me was Anselm Kiefer's abhorrence for the silent generation in Germany after WWII.
Is it possible that all of Kiefer's art is an attempt at atonement for the greatest atrocity ever visited on the living during the Holocaust?
21
It is unfortunate. I love Knausgaard's writing and yet the title of this article was so off-putting, I had trouble reading it. Do we need a "greatest living artist"? Especially if that person happens to be male and white.
17
@Linda I thought it was maybe ironic or humorous.
7
Ironically I comment on the least interesting aspect of this arresting tale. as my fellow readers express concern about the artists mental health , so I would add that indeed lead toxicity or "plumbism" , referring to the heavy metal used to make lead weights to measure or plumb the depth of water, strung at the end of a "plumb line", is an ancient disease that has plagued artists using lead pigment paints, or makers of stained glass windows, or smelters and others exposed occupationally. In particular the inhalation of lead fumes is extremely toxic and is associated with damage to peripheral nerves, autonomic nerves, red blood cell and hemoglobin production, and central nervous system damage.
Relationships have been proposed between lead exposure and the age of onset and severity of dementias. Links to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease are under study. We use lead free gasoline for this reason: the cumulative toxicity of inhaled lead represents known health risks to those living in proximity to highways, and gasoline workers.
Why an educated man, a "real raconteur", would consider working in the medium of freshly smelted lead, without the use of a hazmat suit, or at all, is a great mystery to me. It seems that both he and presumably the world would be better off if he skipped the lead and switched to the coagulated menstrual blood of virgins or some other exotic pigment. But if I read the article correctly, it wont really matter either way.
11
A fascinating man; oddly reminds me of Gurdjieff, though I can't completely put my finger on it.
3
Knausgaards style of writing is truly unique. his insight is way outside of the box. I have read other articles of his in this
Newspaper and have been unable to put down the story until I read it from start to finish. Keep up the good work Ove.
22
I am a fan of both the writer and the painter, but after reading this article, it gave me the strong impression Knausgaard is implying that Kiefer has dementia. On several occasions, he portrays Kiefer as not being lucid — confusing Karl Ove with Klaus, confusing Norway with Finland, and at the end of the article, not recognizing Knausgaard at all during a dinner. It made me wonder — what was the purpose of this? If Knausgaard has concrete evidence of Kiefer’s deteriorating mental state, he should clearly state it, with accompanying proof, instead of dropping hints as he does in this long article. Again, I am a bit surprised why Knausgaard would malign — and potentially damage the career — of a fellow artist who was kind enough to accept to illustrate his book.
6
@Ricardo Guise Long time-spans were involved and Kiefer clearly entertains plenty of journalists and makes a lot of appearances. The article was just implying that even though the artist could perhaps feign at being intimate, one magazine writer is the same as the next one or the past one to him. He even made the point that another writer was treated to the same "routine" with the bike ride, etc. The idea was that it was all *theatre* put on by the artist. There was absolutely nothing implying he has a deteriorating mental state (and how that would even affect his career I couldn't figure anyway -- it's art, not brain surgery.).
26
Thanks for your take, ck. However, in “theater” (as you put it) one must still remember his lines. And serious collectors tend to avoid paintings from artists in decline. For example, de Kooning’s work after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
3
@Ricardo Guise Ah, some of his best work IMO.
1
This is why I subscribe to the NYT. Thank you for such an interesting article.
16
I don’t know—it seems infrequent that authors pen their own titles. In my mind, this “world’s greatest” was a response to the article’s obvious (and upsetting) pretension by a savvy editor whose tongue was planted firmly in cheek. Given this reading, accusations against the NYT for more canonical white-male appraisals might be intentionally tempered by an ironic wink to the audience.
5
Does anyone else think it was shameful of KOK to out Kiefer, in the final section of the article, as someone in the early stages of dementia, after Kiefer had been so kind and helpful to him? It's even presented in a way that makes Kiefer seem like a jerk.
5
Just two hours or so from NYC, in MassMOMA, there is a large building devoted to Kiefer’s art.
Those critics who obviously have have idea what Kiefer’s art looks and feels like have missed a fine opportunity to shut up.
11
@Cat Fish
It is extraordinary.
3
@Cat Fish
He is exhibited in MASS MoCA , North Adams, MA.
5
'Science describes the world in abstract terms, while the world is concrete, and only art, with its third language, is capable of bringing these two realities together.'
A remarkable piece of writing and worth reading for ths alone.
12
@John Newton I had the same response and almost simultaneously realized that the idea that the world is concrete is absurdly wrong ... if quantum physics have taught us anything it is that we have little understanding of the universe, usually citing almost cartoon notions of that which we have been taught by those who know little of which they speak.
Still felt it was a well written exploration of Kiefer regardless of the issue of possible early stage dementia ... I have to look twice when my son, who lives far away and visits infrequently, has removed his beard.
5
I thought this article was wonderful and magical like a Grimm’s brothers tale. The author writes intelligently about art and is entitled to his own opinion. Look at the words not your identity politics and I am a proud feminist.
19
I always enjoy KOK's writing no matter the topic. I could spend the day reading his work and, at the end of it, feel as if I had experienced something intimate and true. I have in fact done so, and often.
10
I hope he is being careful with the lead. Although he is 70-plus years old, that stuff is still nasty, including the fumes...
5
@PJM I thought the same ...
I regrettably must have missed last year's election of the world's 'greatest living artist'
If you could expend a bit more care in forwarding me my ballot then I will be sure to vote this year.
Just in passing - I totally would have voted for the Biebs last year.
5
Like all his writing, Knausgaard piles detail upon detail until you wonder to yourself, “Is this really necessary?” But you continue reading, because you can’t help yourself, until you realize yes, it is necessary, because he is bringing you as close to the reality of his subject as is possible with language. It is for articles like this that I continue to read the Times.
29
Why am I commenting when I know no one will read it or care what I think? Because I spent time reading the essay, at first drawn in by the forest, and then wondering as I kept reading if other people reading the essay were also wondering how much wealth it must take to maintain the lifestyle and the space required to be the “world’s greatest artist” and where did that wealth come from and when will the world just start ignoring narcissists? Why did I just waste 10 minutes of my life commenting? Because it feels a tiny bit powerful to have words published by the NYT even if no one reads them.
15
@Alix I feel congruent to your sentiments. Glad you wrote.
2
@Alix
The author depicts the artist as alchemist. The lead he uses on his art is transformed into gold at auction!
12
Well shared
If Kiefer had fawned over the writer during their last meeting, would the article have ended differently?
4
Less hyperbole in the title would go a long way.
Lotta painters in the world, not all of them are German, European, male, white, and can make reference to Paul Celan with some claim of "authenticity."
Easy to heap praise on old AK with his tar and heather system, but there are many other systems, lotta cool painters, no need to crown anyone with the crown of patriarch.
Even we Californians have some nice old growth forests, ya know redwoods and those bristlecone pines go aways back.
I like me some Celan too, but out here on the Left Coast we painters are more partial to Coltrane and maybe Foucault, or how about Angela Davis and Terence McKenna? Lotta good poetry and prose out west. I haven't even mentioned film noir yet! That's just our little neck of the woods, lotta terroirs to explore...
Watch out Karl, the #metoo folks have some gravitas to spare and one heckuva discourse re diverse valuation systems. So ease back on the greatest living paint slinger tag. Some young talented wrist might come a lookin' for trouble...
8
I'm a reasonably well read person with considerably more interest in art than the average individual. And I'm happy to admit that I may have missed something but I have never heard of Anselm Kiefer who, according to Karl Ove Knausgaard, is the world's greatest living artist. This, no doubt, is down to my ignorance. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be also be partly down to the irrelevance of much of contemporary art.
9
@Paul Revere I never heard of him either. It doesn't add or subtract from this interesting piece, whether he is the greatest or not the greatest
3
@Paul Revere Once you stand before one of Kiefers monumental works, or for that matter, even a smaller one, you will feel the power of his art. I encourage you to investigate before you pass judgement on the artists greatness or lack thereof.
11
@Edith Fusillo Point taken Edith.
3
It seems pretty clear to me that both the writer, and his subject, need some sort of psychiatric intervention.
14
I think A.K. reaches out for deeper parts of the All, parts that we know but have forgotten. And he uses the very old technique of the artist who simply places something he created in front of us and suddenly there is silence and recognition. Creation derived from a level we all share but often aren't very aware of and certainly too few of us know how to bring down into form. At least that's what happened when I stood in front of a piece by him in the Guggenheim in Bilbao a few years ago. Thank you.
18
What egomaniac doesn't believe they are the greatest? That's not the point of the piece, so not really worth further discussion, I'd argue. What I found intriguing about Knausgaard's essay was how he presented the artist as "place" where everything comes together and "resides." That, of course, is a big notion and why, I think, it took Knausgaard years to write his profile of the artist. Reread the part where the writer and artist travel to Donaueschingen and Jeanette, the hereditary Princess of Furstenberg, asks about writing the profile.
Great stuff, this article. Thanks for publishing.
23
The Times continues the tradition of male artist as God. The two articles on Celia Paul on the other hand offered critiques of her living style and offered no reverence.
170
@GB right.
I have enjoyed Kiefer's work for several decades. It's fine, falling somewhere in the vein of Art with Mild Gravity. But it has become impossible to care anymore about the Great White Male Story, in painting, in music, in all art. I was surprised to see this story refer to him as the greatest living artist.
I managed one paragraph and had to stop.
30
The profiles of the female artists focused on their relationship to their domestic life and relationships to their intimate partners. This portrait of the artist is so different. His mistakes in relationships and relationship to others is not investigated. His mythology is upheld.
The article on women artists asked the question if female artists can ever just be artists- and it answers the question - “no”.
41
@larrea
I see the Though Police is alive and well. Why, in the name of all that is sacred (Gods and Goddesses alike), should I write about Florence Nightingale or some admirable African freedom fighter if what I really want to write about is Alexander (the Great)? Zealots everywhere, when will they ever learn?
8
Please quit calling white male artists the "Greatest Living Artist". Do an article on Sturtevant, you might learn something.
30
Please, Sturtevant’s work was completely derivative. Not compareble.
9
@GB Countering what you perceive to be arrogance with a bit of your own, I see.
12
@GB You know she died 6 years ago...
8
This was a painfully boring read about two egotistical male"artists." In the 80's I had a brief obsession with Kiefer and look upon that time fondly but greatest living artist? Oh dear.
Pity their women.
197
Karl Ove's work conveys his regret at how he treated "his women"
9
@Lisa Amen.
1
@Lisa Spot on Lisa
2
It takes one windbag to heap such over the top praise on another.
188
@Sedat Nemli Agreed. The fact that it took Knausgaard so many, many, many paragraphs to telegraph his irritation that Kiefer didn't know who he (Knausgaard) was, is absolutely a waste of time.
24
I didn’t get irritation.
6
Well demolished, Sedat Nemli !
8
I saw kiefers monumental painting of a figure under the night sky at Guggenheim Bilbao some months ago and was struck by its pretentious and cartoonish execution . Was this supposed to be serious ? Or a joke like koons puppy outside ? Museums often provoke an aura of sacred and holy , as if one shouldn't speak or blaspheme the artist by laughing at the piece. But this expressed nothing , showed nothing , like so many of the works on that floor - richter , basqiat , twombley etc. in that monumental space I felt like a witness to the emperors new clothes : none of these artists were really saying anything , or hiding anything either. There was nothing showing nor was anything underneath . maybe the paint was a kind of cloth concealing some vulnerability or cultural trauma? But there was nothing there as if the paint strokes were executed with the same actions of a commuter on his way to work.
So I was surprised to see knausgaard reveal a blind obsession for kiefer . To be drawn into a monumental work - engulfed- in the same wAy a white cube galllery or an ikea store engulfs a visitor , barring them from anything different from itself .
This was my experience with kiefers work in Bilbao: it wanted to draw everything into itself , like some monumental narcissist sucking the space into itself. As if nothing else mattered and everything was only about THIS. I am what I am. The alpha and omega. No differentiation , no other .
89
@William Theodoracopulos Knausgaard fits the same description as your description of Kiefer and his work.
4
@William Theodoracopulos
"was struck by its pretentious and cartoonish execution"
This is entirely subjective, yet you write as if it's a "truth."
7
@Jim Gordon Hilarious. And oh so true.
One of the world's greatest artists? I think not. This is a terrible piece about an artist I wish I had never heard about.
20
@Andrew Macdonald oh dear!
5
Being married to an artist - who happens to be a woman - I was drawn to this story and its claim to be about the "greatest living artist." Of course, it is a man. A man with his own helicopter. I cannot stop laughing.
83
Indeed.
3
@Freshginger well said.
3
If the Times truly thinks of itself as the paper of record it must act appropriately. What does that mean? First of all do not create headlines that say someone is the "greatest" anything! Irresponsible at best. Juvenile as well.
4
True artists live in an alternate universe. Their very life is art, and all they do is art. Art exudes from their very being. I don't pretend to understand them, but what they do always amazes me.
3
Why is the greatest living artist a European American? Elected by a European writer? Published by the NYT? UGH!!! This is so stale. European Psycho Angst has dominated the psyche of the US artistic, intellectual and academic fields for too long. This article is a self-reinforcing circle that is closed and has no room for the rest of the world to enter.
6
@Maria
American? Anselm Kiefer is not American, he's German.
3
The concept of the "greatest living artist" is ridiculous.
9
I'm sorry, but to call Keiffer the world's greatest artist is an absurdly embarrassing exaggeration. He's good at what he does, but what he does is not to everyone's taste. He's a craft beer in a bar that serves over a hundred. If you like that really bitter old fashioned german brew that goes best with chain smoking, he's for you. Most like it just a tad less dark thank you.
11
I am worried about his health. I hope he gets his blood lead levels checked occasionally.
4
Fascinating profile. As someone who has long appreciated Kiefer's monumental paintings, but always found them somehow repulsive, this portrait of the artist — though incomplete — rings true.
I would encourage the negative commenters to read Knausgaard's piece more carefully and notice how absolutely cutting it is.
Kiefer seems, well... demented... and more obsessed with Nazi ideology than disgusted. We learn from Knausgaard that Kiefer has had a lifelong aspiration to aristocracy, which reaches this strange fulfillment in the profile in an almost-fairy tale meeting in the castle near his childhood home; Kiefer's admiration of despots like Charlemagne and Alexander the Great and Napoleon; his attraction to Carl Schmitt. All of this reflects the darkest parts of Germanistic psyche. I've always thought this is evident in Kiefer's paintings, which to me evince not irony or criticism toward Germany's history, but fascination and trauma.
Grateful for this complex piece.
32
Well said. The article was a kind of revelation. I thought it well done. We had a good sense of those meetings. Etc.
7
Yes. The anecdote about the mace was a key. The experience of viewing these monumental works of art is like being struck on the head! The will to power exemplified and dissected.
1
Calling anybody the “greatest” at anything undermines the legitimacy of whatever point you are trying to make. It’s intellectually lazy.
7
Title should be “ Into the Black Forest With the Greatest Living Artist - I Think”.
2
SELFIE VS. TRICKSTER
Hyper-literalism can rarely understand a trickster. If that’s what’s happening here. All that excruciating selfie minutiae that Knausgaard packs in his books brings a psychological lens too small to comprehend anything of scale. It’s a high-end version of spectrum behavior trying to comprehend play, irony, metaphor, myth, the dance of the self with itself.
The real question is: what is Kieffer’s agenda? Narcissism? Senility? Private performance? Competition? Sadistic puncturing of the hyper-literalist lens? With one meeting, maybe; but with many meetings over many years, unlikely. Kieffer’s behavior does seem cruel; at the very least, self-involved. But of course, we are getting Knausgaard’s hyper-literalist version here, which is its own inflamed subjectivity of mismeasured weights and misinterpreted tones.
Artists don’t like to be treated like animals in cages, with prying eyes trying “figure them out”—even, perhaps especially, when it is another artist trying to do the figuring out. All those zoo questions. What does it MEAN? What are you trying to SAY? Who are you REALLY? What is the true YOU?
Beyond that, it’s the usual fight between epistemology and metaphysics. Those who prefer Richter and Polke?—aesthetic epistemologists. Those who prefer Kieffer and, say, Pollock?—aesthetic metaphysicians. We need them both. And that means Kieffer too—
who is,
indisputably,
great.
7
Of course the greatest living artist is like all other "great artists" a white man.
I have followed the work of Kiefer for many years. I am also a reader of Knausgaard. I read five of his six 'My Struggle' and many of his essays.
Perhaps I will be able to read this article one day but first I need to get past the headline. There is no greatest living artist. This is a wildly pompous statement that serves neither the artist or the writer.
I can only hope the word and its arrogant implications will pass utterly into meaningless.
2
The greatest living artist? Really?
3
Easily the poorest portrait of an artist and his motivations that I've ever read. As shallow as a Kiefer, and a prime example of stupefied, vapid hagiography. I wish that '..standing in front of Kiefer's pictures, you fell silent.' sir. How I wish you had. Kiefer's imagery is so leaden (literally), so shallow (literally) and his metaphors so 2 dimensional (literally) while being so totally unacceptable as a balm for history; "my guilt, my pain, my dark land etc", over and over, as if the land itself were to blame.. that plus Kiefer's appalling narcissism and shameless exploitation of his own imagery (a million bucks per apology) gives a layer of meaning to his work that wholly escapes Knausgaard because it wholly escape the artist himself. Blood and soil, the metaphoric language of Nazi mythology is the stuff of every Kiefer painting, and that stuff is not repurposed (see Beuys, and lead). Had he made one snowy landscape with a lifeless academic perspective and lugubrious import, it would have been dismissed as a sophomoric depiction of guilt. But 1000? Like so many American demonstrations of shame at its war crimes in Vietnam, Kiefer's apologies don't admit the life or fate of the victims (or victors). And so he extends the erasure of the 'other' and completes the annihilation. It's as if WW2 only happened to the Germans; as if they bear the deepest wound, as if their shame has historical value. Kiefer spent decades licking those wounds as a profession. It has made him rich.
13
@Seth Tillett Very well said.Thanks!
3
@Seth Tillett "It's as if WW2 only happened to the Germans; as if they bear the deepest wound, as if their shame has historical value." ... This! A very perceptive comment.
1
Since so many comments are so obsessed with "greatest" in the title. Maybe this is where irony steps in : probably it is a quote from young Kiefer himself which the author is quoting and in the piece. We also hear from Kiefer himself now : there is no such person: “Yes. In one of these books I wrote once, ‘I’m the greatest painter, and there’s no doubt.’ Heh heh heh heh! Today I wouldn’t say that, it is complete nonsense"
20
@N.B. thank you for being the first commenter to mention what I've been thinking as I read through other comments. Unless I'm mistaken, the title is meant to be a bit ironic, at least--although the writer does seem to hold the artist in great regard...something to which we are all entitled to feel about an artist and his or her work, regardless of public opinion.
10
@N.B. You obviously are one of the few who actually read the entire piece from start to finish including the title. Actually liking his work is purely personal. Thank you.
7
What‘s greater than men talking to men about men? Great men talking to great men about other great men! And what‘s greater than great men? The greatest men of all! While reading this entertaining piece of male tunnelvision and myopia I kept imagining a drinking game: a shot everytime another great man is mentioned. How can one commission, write and publish such a piece in 2020?
6
@Gesine This is a funny comment. I laughed out loud. Thank you. However, I still think Karl and Anselm are both great artists, and much of the (too-long, but after all, what "notes" should be omitted?) story is fascinating. Perhaps inadvertently, Karl has exposed the "great artist" in all his self-important glory, and that is something the writer does well; he did it with Hitler in "The End" and now with AK, all in his seemingly measured, unassuming and yet revelatory way. (All that frolicking among dead, stuffed animals made me ill).
2
Good lord, what a profile.
4
I have to say, the first digital section of video with him and his cigar is striking.
Knausgaard as well as Kiefer are more respected than they ought to be. The writer is a narcissistic bore and the artist a one-tone creator. Of the two Kiefer is far better.
3
Kiefer is clearly a pretentious and bombastic artist. As to his work, well, some of us would take a Paul Klee over a Kiefer any day.
4
One of the world’s greatest egomaniacs.
3
I hate to be a scold, but “greatest living artist?” That is an utterly ridiculous, unverifiable and unnecessary statement, one that I feel confident would make Kiefer blush. It’d be fine on Twitter, but the NY Times needs to be more rigorous than that.
1
Next up, the author can interview the artist from The Big Lebowski who swings over her paintings in a harness, naked of course (cause the act of painting is so primal), splashing paint across her canvases.
2
This exchange tells me everything I need to know about the man:
“Do you have a helicopter?” he said and looked at me.
“No, unfortunately,” I said.
“You should get one!” he said.
3
Whatever he's managed to do, it isn't because he smoked.
Stop romanticizing the image of the smoking artist.
Aren't we past that?
Don't we know it's silly, at best?
Note, Mr. Knausgaard, and NYTimes, that you have never, and will never, use the words 'Greatest Living Artist" for either a white woman or any person of color. Therefore, the designation is utterly meaningless to me - but it is not meaningless in the world. Yet again, it cements the notion that only white males can attain such 'mastery' such 'grandeur' that they can be deemed the greatest living thingamajig. And this is exactly why we are where we are, in a world that spends a huge amount of its time/resources dealing with the phenomenon of men vaunting other men, no matter what, or who, how, or when. If a white man did it it, is surely great, the perfect phone call, just a few beers - it all translates to impunity. And the rest of us must live with this impunity. And so goes democracy, down the drain, on the wings of white male impunity. The art world helps to cement these narratives. And this I find unforgivable. You are supposed to be the critical thinkers. But of course, you never really are, because you necer want to challenge your own position at the top of the S. heap. Anselm Kiefer is a wonderful painter. He is not the greatest living anything. Write an article about Betye Saar, call her the greatest living artist. That is, if you know who she is.
2
@Anda He is being ironic and implying that Kiefer is obsessed with 'greatness'. Helicopters, cranes, castles, aristocracy, massive spaces.. Kiefer seems to be in this text so self absorbed and as KOK implies a bit blind to the outside world, so in a sense Kiefer is massaging his own greatness more than anything else and have always been. Since he was a kid according to Kiefer, he thought of himself as a genius, amazing at what he did. almost like his amazed by himself. Its a bit of a punch his way I think.
9
Anselm Kiefer to be the greatest living artist? What a strange proclamation.
2
When we, like a little prince, chance upon a room
at the top of the stairs
It's often a surprise:
So Simple, Empty & Pretentious
But who or what can survive
the brightest lights
and biggest markets?
Nature?
Life?
Love?
Beauty?
So I presume that what is most precious
to these two Aryan masters,
is locked away.
2
Three things:
• Knausgaard can write an article about how he watched paint dry and it would still be interesting
• The parenthetical asides about the fact checking added another dimension to the story
• The ending was a subversion of how, I thought, Knausgaard would end the article which made it a rewarding read.
More articles from this writer please NYT — even short ones like that of the chewing gum.
13
"The world's greatest artist"? are you kidding me?
3
What Art are we talking about?
Anselm Keifer’s rubbish...
I dread that years from now, if earth survives the humans of 21st century, they’ll say these idiots put chalk, lead and metal on these panels and praised them as High art.
I can’t even begin to imagine the incredulity of those future generations— or perhaps I can, as the author captures it well, indirectly in the last encounter.
1
The video for this article, posted on your front page, triggers my prior addition to smoking cigarettes.
1
That so many readers call this "great writing" and "incredible writing" makes me just shake my head in wonder. To this reader, this writing is meandering (posing as throughtful), self-absorbed (posing as open and curious), and mawkish (posing as humble, self-effacing, unpretentious). I began this piece curious about both the writer and the artist, and ended it not wanting to know anything more about either one. Two self-important white men. I need a bath.
4
Eurocentrism run amuck! This is just more of ‘The White gaze in the bluest eye’...to quote Toni Morrison
1
The German “Soul”
2
The moving black and white image of the subject smoking above the piece is brilliant
The NYT should do much more of this
3
Whenever I read, "The Greatest Living ________" I get turned off immediately. One presumes ignorance by this heading. Just a thought for the author...
Excellent work, but "greatest living artist" as the title of this article is insane.
1
This: “He was nothing,” Kiefer had said. “He couldn’t study because he was an officer in the war. Not that he was involved in any crimes....”
coupled with celebrated photos of a Nazi salute, and then the Holocaust casually referenced not as the Holocaust, not as horror, not as murder, but “the extermination of the Jews.” These images of words are both travesty and tragedy - oh wait, this was about an artist ?
3
The paintings are a nightmare. Greatest living artist, eh?
1
"Greatest Living Artist?" Really? I haven't seen his other work but it reminds me of something people said about Hitler. They said he couldn't paint people so he did landscapes.
1
This piece was a bore and Kiefer is an insane genius.
1
Naturally, the greatest living artist is a heterosexual white old German. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the European state-funded art-washing marketing industrial complex or with the echoes of capitalist colonialism.
Also, it must be my inferior perception, being a Queer Middle Eastern Jew, that makes me yawn in front of the realm of European market-oriented, quasi-market-oriented and pseudo-critical visual art.
It definitely can't be, that by subordinating itself to its civilization's distorted colonial headspace, to the market and to the art of artificially inflating the value of its artifacts, European and White US visual culture had signed a contract with the devil of boredom and the mundane.
1
@Jeremy you said this better than me! (I tried! Maybe to close to the bone for me to be calm about it.) Anyway, I enjoyed your take!
1
But you are a painter!
Greatest you say - another great, white (living) male artist. How unoriginal. He's not the only one who needs to get out more.
3
Gee, and all this time I thought the greatest living artist was Gerhard Richter.
3
Karl Ove is writing for the times!
1
I am an art historian. The entire concept of the "world's greatest living artist" has long been discredited. But even if we were to be making such a dubious list, Anslem Kiefer -- overwrought, heavy-handed, self-important -- would be nowhere near the top.
7
Well, while reading the long article I almost forgot to breathe.
As a big fan of Van Gogh I never thought a painter of high caliber was at work nowadays. But why the obsession with snow-covered black forests devoid of any life. Yet, the "lifeless" paintings are over-powering. Thanks to NYT for the rare read.
6
He's an interesting artist, but really, the greatest living artist? That would mean that all other artists are lesser, perhaps not even worthy of our attention? I'm sorry, but I don't subscribe to the pyramid marketing scheme in the art world, where one is said to be "the greatest" and all others eat dirt.
3
I have not read Knausgaard so can’t assess if he’s being ironic in describing Kiefer as the greatest living artist.
It seems the sobriquet “greatest living artist” had relevance and significance during the times of da Vinci, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Picasso as late as in the 20th century. However, now we can explore a variety of great art by mere clicks. Or can jet around the world to art fairs. It is simply a tired trope that has no real meaning in 2020. But it does catch the eye.
1
Like all artists, he's only ever made one painting. Just made it many times.
3
The greatest living artist is nature.
9
The epiphany is also in the writing, is it not? The inner writer is exposed to the point of fault, and embarrassment and in the case of Knausgaard, it has ruined portions of his own personal life. He is truly transcendent, I would think much like Heidegger or Wittgenstein were to philosophy. It is remarkable that this man, a Norwegian writing in English and one of the greatest living writers, is not more well known in America.
3
Varus looks like the view from the pool when I am swimming laps. Trees are good.
1
The photographs are STELLAR. Wow, they are not only peeping-Tom into the man's physicality and interior, but they respond to the artist's work so artfully and intelligently.
As for the piece, celebrity pieces get more and more elaborate and Rococo as readers become more jaded -- private airplanes, sweeping black capes, royalty, castles, canapes, JET LAG (every celebrity profile includes jet lag and meals) adoring sidekicks . . .blah, blah. I don't blame the celebrities, it's expected of them. You could change out all the set pieces here for GOOP's offices and the moody photos for cheerful, pastels of GP and you would have the same piece.
Many many thanks for this!!
I saw the giant show in Paris in 2007. Overwhelming...
Go to Kiefer... he still has something to say.
3
Thank you for an insightful article about a great artist (who seems to be a rather repellant human being, alas) by a great novelist. I often think of cancelling my subscription because almost everything you print nowadays is filtered through the lens of identity politics; and then an article like this comes along.
6
Art, of course, is a matter of taste. But to describe Anselm Kiefer as the greatest living artists is a bit hyperbolic, no? Lets not forget that Gerhard Richter is still around with his squeegees and other materials, Banksy is making some of the most challenging art anywhere, Jasper johns still has iconic works hanging in some of the most well known museums, Richard Serra's work still has the power to awe, Cindy Sherman is still revolutionizing the selfie. All of these folks are still alive and some of them are still creating thought provoking art.
1
I’m fascinated by this profile, and not so much of Kiefer himself, but of the author’s observations at Donaueschingen. The watering well on the castle’s estate as the origin of the Danube River. The role this must have played in Kiefer’s mythology and sense of self. His preoccupation with order. And as Heidegger would say, “Gestell.” Thus what is revealed in the world, what has shown itself as itself required first an Enframing, literally a way to exist in the world, to be able to be seen and understood.
4
Great photographer in this dark and profound article by Karl Ove Knausgaard, profiling this artistic inconnu to this viewer, reminiscent of a living sculpture by Henry Clews.
After he died, and during The Occupation, his wife was able to hide his work in the medieval castle, and pretended to be a maid.
"Once Upon a Time at La Napoule" is spartan in showing the work of the sculptor, but the photograph taken by his son, Mancha, of his dying surrounded by birds, is quite moving. Perhaps it was all a bit of a fairy tale before the Nazis arrived, but enchanting nonetheless.
"A way to hide something by expanding internal space."
To create more room to run around freely in and hide without confinement. For instance, to hide from someone who wants to capture you by understanding, or who marries you and wants to live off that creative impulse that they may not themselves possess. Heh heh heh.
1
Fascinating & felicitous, as I am a great fan of Kiefer and Knausgaard. My only request for the author, as I have noticed in the final volume of his "Struggle", that he reconsider the term (or translation) "extermination" as applied to people. It plays into the language of dehumanization, against which he writes so elegantly.
3
I doubt that KOK wrote the silly title for his article, or if he did, he imagined quotation marks around "greatest living artist." Why else would he tell a story that locates Kiefer, as a person, at the heart of an undecidable question: is this guy authentic or only a self-inflating promoter? But KOK writes beautifully about the effect of K's art even as he acknowledges that one can't really translate visual art into words -- that, as he writes, is art's "point." (So much for the dismissive comments here about K's lack of "message.") The art leaves him both silent and provoked into writing this article. KOK's own writing has a similarly mysterious quality. I've read only a bit of "My Struggle," but I was stunned and mystified by the elusive power of his descriptions of everyday life. I'm a professional student of literature and I don't know (yet, perhaps) how to account for it. KOK wants to answer the same question of K, and he clearly knows from the start that, despite his longing for a Romantic portal into an originating consciousness, he is not going to find a pure biographical origin for K's art. So when he stands looking at what may be the source of the Danube, it is of course "impenetrable." Powerful art, powerful writing seduces us into posing unanswerable questions. If Kiefer doesn't do it for you, fine; but if you don't value KOK's self-consciously futile quest to explain what K's art does to him, you probably don't place much value on art or literature either.
5
Kiefer seems like a skilled and impressive artist, but one has to wonder if his long-term exposure to lead has affected his mental faculties.
An interesting essay, at any rate.
3
I really wanted to savor this piece, so I read it in installments. It was also dense. It wasn't clear at first, though by the time I reached the end, I realized, that, it was really a subtle, humorously drawn horror movie though constructed on a sophisticated scale, and with a psychological build-up that takes the reader, like Hansel and Grettel, down a trail of breadcrumbs to the witch's lair. the final scary ending: that Kiefer is the black forest. a kind of terrible, unknowable force. Stay out.
Such great compelling writing on a sophis
2
‘Greatest living artist’ - is a useless, lazy trope to use. Art is not a competition, no-one is ‘the greatest’.
2
...yet another addict dependent on nicotine....sorry, you have to do it on your own before you get my respect. Being edgy is easy with toxics surging through one's blood.
The word "great", to my ear, grates. From the "Greatest Show on Earth" to "Make America Great Again", the word has been degraded, and when I hear it, I check to make sure no one's picked my pocket. It connotes a con, please choose a substitute superlative.
2
KOK's writing is just terrific. So glad he is still around.
2
I can't get past " the greatest living artist" in the headline. Not helpful, and probably deliberately provocative. "Most ambitious living artist" maybe, if art were like spectacle or politics. Maybe when I cool down, I'll read the article.
1
Art and celebrity and commerce make strange bedfellows.
3
The writing, totally absorbing, couldn't put it down. But what it narrates is Knausgaard's inability to penetrate Kiefer's carapace persona. So he should have pushed himself to recognize how that very public defense allows the private melancholy from Kiefer's father's "authoritarian" oppression to manifest in the work as the "overwhelming gravity" of loss to which that any receptive soul can relate.
4
Ah but they did not go INTO the Black Forest but were only at the edge of it. A metaphor perhaps for Knausgard’s failure to penetrate Kiefer? Forelli is the key. She is the link between him and the world: maintaining boundaries, deciding who to admit and who not to admit and under what circumstances and on what terms, and taking care of his needs.
4
Whatever (or whoever) Kiefer is or has become, his art demands knowledge, self-reflection, and humility.
To those unaware of Kiefer's historical and mythical references and allusions, you may be awed by the sheer scale of his works, but you will not 'get' them in their totality. His is a difficult body of work in both form and content and he expects a great deal from his viewers, but the rewards can be extraodinary.
To those who lament the celebration, even elevation, of yet another 'Western white male artist', you fail through such parochical and essentialist tribalism to appreciate an artist that speaks across cultures and eras.
Aesthetic and critical fads ebb and flow; great art endures.
7
The mutagenic nature of this written piece is reminiscent of how the male ego knows no bounds except unending deception amid static talent. The mutation never occurred with the represented arts in painted or written form. Fooling oneself is ageless or rather timeless. When the guru fold his arms with cosed eyes the mental matter is likely mundane and ordinary like the bicyclists entry.
1
Enchantment and disquiet in equal measure.
2
Private helicopters, melted lead, cherry pickers in hangars, castles, Furstenburgs, Wilhelms, obscure contradictory ruminations, high cheekbones, slanted light, exotics assistants, genius’s and untouchable delights and beauty, very important parties with very important people whose every utterances in between sips of $80,0000 bottles of wine, are like rivers of diamonds, given value by the tragic murder of millions. Knausgaard should try to stay away from people like this. Its excruciating.
2
At times this read like a dialectic between a typically reserved, serious northern European and a more brash Southern European — or between the writer personality and visual artist personality. Also striking was the tableau of a man hobnobbing with princes in the very town where he grew up in straitened circumstances.
BTW, “In 2017, Kiefer was ranked one of the richest 1,001 individuals and families in Germany by the monthly business publication Manager Magazine.” (Wikipedia). Perhaps his ability to work a room and make a big impression have something to do with that.
2
I couldn’t finish this. Just as I couldn’t finish “My Struggle” - somewhere in the 3rd volume, I think.
I’ve read many comments though. Last night.
Something about the idea of pouring lead on a beautiful painting seemed too much like reading about the current destruction of the Constitution...
Even so, I commend the Times for providing such a rich menu of different “foods for the soul” - at a time when we bombarded by way too much distressing information. Helps to assuage all the other emotions.
2
The random rhythm of this piece is wonderful,and the flawless coda !!
- Kiefer's rummaged attic treasures remined me of Rauschenberg's scavenging the vacant lots of Soho for assemblage parts....and his remarkable goat....
2
The "world's greatest living artist"? Really? According to the author and who else? This gushing, fawning and excessively long paean to Kiefer is quite embarrassing. I think Kiefer has produced some strong work and used to admire him more than I do now, but the repetition and leaden (literally and figuratively) imagery has long since grown tired and unworthy of a great artist who would usually have a wider range of images and subject matter over a period of decades. Huge, hulking relief canvases and equally hulking sculptures of wings, they've become redundant and thin in contrast with their physical presence.
1
So what that we try to award Trumpian adjectives to this artist, “the greatest”, etc...” He has to live inside these parameters whether he wants to or not - that’s the curse of the 21st century. We see that he does resist it, as the writer suggests, in his interior world - as we all do.
1
I am absolutely enamoured with Kiefer’s series on Margarete and Shulamite inspired by Paul Celan’s “Todesfuge.
1
Thinking about all of this: How it must have been, growing up in postwar Germany, with no one mentioning the war, though with memory of the horrors inescapable...deep in the Black Forest, near the reputed Donauquelle, with tales from the Brothers Grimm and legends like the leaping stag...Kiefer's early fascination with van Gogh.. his strange interactions withthe author and others...the description of his cavernous studio... I'm reminded that it has often been said that genius is akin to madness.
3
I prefer to let the art speak for itself.
No coincidence - and adds insight - that many positive responses to the article, the writer, and the artist come from men.
Portrait of a megalomaniac. The best writing about Kiefer is Simon Schama’s. Unlike Knausgaard, Schama delves deeply into the roots of German mythology and attachment to land and forest. As for Kiefer’s verbal tactics, they appear to be fairly typical of the grandiloquent European: say something silly with enough force to disequilibrate your interlocutor, who is then obliged to accept the silliness as authority or prove him or herself a better tactician. And the fascination with royalty! They say we are obsessed by money; the attachment to crowned heads is no different. Hola magazine anybody?
3
This is exactly why I have a NYT subscription. Kiefer has had a major influence on my own art, one of the few contemporary artists to do so. Perhaps I am making my art on the wrong continent.
1
The "greatest" living artist? Out of thousands worldwide? Excuse me while I can't stop laughing.
2
"Greatest" is a very subjective judgment.
Not the greatest living artist, not even a great artist; his work is repetitive, monotonous and without insight. He's just another unhappy, disgruntled, cranky aftereffect of the WW II disaster, who is either losing his mind or a narcissist, completely uninterested in the people around him.
2
Suffice it to say, I struggled to see why I should consider this man the greatest living artist. Perhaps it will require three more rather longer articles to convince me.
1
kiefer is a beast. they can't overstate his prowess or overhype him. glad to see the times talking about someone who won't be forgotten in five years.
1
Fluff piece. Take away - turbulent childhood with dad issues leads to punk rock motivation. As Andy said Art is anything you can get away with. Including "performance art" as the artist. Well crafted fictional piece where perhaps the most telling line was A way to hide something by expanding internal space. Seems Anslem has expanded internal and external space and more is more is more.
Would be a fun cocktail party with all of them. Kiefer clearly wasn't letting this dude into his "life." Homie got played .
1
I guess this piece is as much (more?) about Knausgaard as Kiefer. They are both experts at creating a mood (dark? uncomfortable?) that draws you in to see where they're going or where they came from. I read a long road trip piece by Knausgaard where he keeps moving, but nothing really happens. Was it Paul Theroux who said the problem with travel is that we take ourselves with us.
The castle and the museum were perfect. Who wants to look at all those stags' heads, human skulls and family bludgeoning weapons ...but you can't turn away.
Do you have a helicopter?
4
How did the canvas not catch fire or burn when the lead was poured on it? He must have a layer of tar on there.
I have cast metal so I am now curious about this.
2
There was no need to finish the profile once Mr. Kiefer rode in on a bicycle from somewhere in the converted airplane hanger. The rest of the story was already written. Many times.
2
Great piece Klaus! Perhaps Kiefer should have called up Richter to find out who the greatest living artist is
I think that Anselm Kiefer should have a smoking competition with David Hockney, who is an advocate of puffing in public. Perhaps MoMA could sponsor it.
Kiefer lives in places and spaces that are huge and ancient and are constructs of mythological past. He is the product of dreaming of great leaders in history. He benefits from the eerie ugliness of WW2, that runs like blood in his veins. I have been made very sad by the writer's adoration of this "construct" person, sad like I am for the infamy of Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. When oh when will we be real?
It is said that, humans experience the world in three dimensions. Perhaps we do not.
Artists like, Knausgaard have an intuitive understanding that we exist in a multidimensional universe. Those dimensions might be interned in our psyche's and the very skilled can draw them out.
https://phys.org/news/2014-12-universe-dimensions.html
2
@Anyoneoutthere?
Distracted while writing. Artists like "Anselm Kiefer"
1
As ever with Knausgaard, the writer outshines his subject.
2
This story comes close to art itself.
1
This article reads like the 80s.
"Greatest Living Artist"
Is this not the most tired of all approaches to discussing art?
Meanwhile: "Kiefer’s studio director, a trim, well-dressed and friendly woman".
A
Trim
Well-dressed and
Friendly
Woman
Later:
“Do you have a helicopter?” he said and looked at me.
“No, unfortunately,” I said.
“You should get one!” he said.
And:
Jeannette leaned toward me.
“It must be difficult to get this huge guy into a profile,” she said. “How do you do it?”
“It is impossible,” I said.
“Profile means already huge,” Kiefer said. “Complete. Profile is complete, no?”
Here's hoping the trim friendly women can handle a guy this huge.
2
"How could a landscape evoke such feelings?"
Evidently you haven't seen much art, or even read Thoreau?
2
I am leaving this without reading any of the other comments first (It's a habit I've had difficulty breaking). But what really struck me most about this article written by, as of 2012, my favorite author is what he writes at the very end of this article when he describes his most recent "meeting" with the Kiefer at a dinner party:
“What is your profession?” he asked.
Was he joking with me? Or did he genuinely not recognize me? I had shaved off my beard and cut my hair since last time, but surely he had to realize I was here?
“I’m a painter,” I said, trying to return the joke.
“A painter?” he said.
So after spending all that time with Knaussgard, he had really no recollection of him. Is that what an "artist" represents? Is the great artist just a narcissist? Are they all like this? What does this say about the potential of humanity? That the best of us is also equally representative of the worst in all of us?
That is why I use the word 'Yikes' more in the past year than I had in my previous 50.
1
I enjoy Kiefer’s work very much, but I absolutely love the writing of Knausgaard. This was such a funny piece! I wonder if Kiefer would have agreed to spend time with Knausgaard if he had actually read any of his books. Kiefer is talented, but maybe some of his success is due to his Prince-like persona and his seeming extroversion at the endless dinners and socializing that he must regularly participate as such a high profile artist? Knausgaard wanted to actually get to know him, but that’s not how Kiefer approached this new acquaintance. It was all about the show.
6
Leave the hierarchical judgements that the mainstream tries to commodify culture into a sport with for the reality shows. Saying the world's greatest living artist is already off and an extraordinarily weak perspective for the integrity of any creative potential. It's like saying America is the best country or my wife is the best wife... or one person's love is the best. Culture is a spectrum, not a stacked line.
7
It might be myoptic to measure art/artists like this, but I've often thought Kiefer is the greatest living artist.
I saw his retrospective several years ago and - despite being packed with museum-goers - it was a transcendental experience. My mouth was agape the entire time.
3
The Black Forest has a rich history of skilled craftsmanship and artisans. Modern art is at it's doorstep in nearby Basel.
I read this to see what was said about the Black Forest which is where my mother is from. She was always homesick for it's mountains, and mountains in general. One of the few times there as an adult, I was struck by how romantic it seemed. I can't place why, but this is the feeling I had. The dark green, dramatic valleys, an ancient history gently and artfully sprinkled over the land.
The best living artist in the world is FRANK STELLA, commanding the world of painting and sculpture, playful, intellectually rigorous, respectful and inspired by the past with a comedic and ironic sense of the future, that does require the SCHOPENHAUER and WITTGENSTEIN prison that is the daemonic but noble inspiration of Keefer
2
@King of clouts
How can there possibly be a single "best living artist in the world"? I can't image a set of criteria that could determine that.
2
@msm Agree! It was the way the article was written that made it into a sports contest. But Stella has probed most areas of post WW11 art brilliantly. Despite recent passing's too innumerable to mention, there are dozens of artists that I admire fiercely.
Best,
1
I love that the NYT introduces me to new artists which then leads me to discovering new museums. Mathew Wong was another happy find even though his story is a sad one. These articles are one of my favorite things about the NYT. I just wanted to say thanks.
11
I'm sure there are some who will agree with the author's knighting him as the greatest living artist.
Despite that obsequious approach, there are some worthy pieces and some that, to me, as valid a critic as any in the viewing of art, don't cut it.
I would rather agree that many are wonderful, many are great, but there is no one who is the greatest living artist.
Perhaps the title of this piece was chosen to trigger such a more tepid reaction, which others here seem to share with me. As I read through it was clear that Mr Knausgaard was charmed, even smitten, with him, and may explain much of the gushing prose.
I'm willing to enjoy (some) of his work but other pieces fall flat for my eye, and would like to see some of the other greatest living artists have their works so extensively reviewed here.
3
@reid Maybe this is where irony steps in : probably it is a quote from young Kiefer himself which the author is quoting and in the piece we also hear from Kiefer himself now : there is no such person: “Yes. In one of these books I wrote once, ‘I’m the greatest painter, and there’s no doubt.’ Heh heh heh heh! Today I wouldn’t say that, it is complete nonsense"
1
I am somewhat puzzled by all the commentary about the sameness of Kiefer's works and their darkness. Obviously Knausgaard is making a point about the variety of work including all the brightly colored watercolors. My experience of Kiefer's work at a huge show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal and then again somewhere in NYC was of the variety of interest and types of feelings and reactions one has to his various pieces. It is not all German history. I loved the sunflower pieces in particular. I also found the experiences exhausting in their variety. As for Knausgaard, other than being the genius of our times, his self deprecation as he went from Klaus the Finn, to hailed grand companion to who is this guy who knows the word mutation makes me ever mindful of his role in all his writing as the everyman, the everyday man. And Kiefer, as both great narcissist and showman as well as great artist.
This piece made my heart and brain swell for both of them.
11
Coming from an artistic and artist rich family I can admire the work and the energy that art emanates, but all the human energy available goes into the creation of art and the person Themselves is dysfunctional, families suffer and are neglected. And while I enjoy Kiefers work I would not enjoy knowing the artist- it lessens the work for I know what needs neglecting in order to create.
7
When I saw the painting called Varus I had to wonder if it was a reference to the Roman general who lost the battle against Germanic tribes at Teutoberg. Google tells me it was.
The author mentions the forest as a location where Romans were defeated but the mention of the name Varus actually placed in the painting seems worth noting. It is evocative (to me at least) adding to the sense of how time and memory and people themselves both disappear and remain in the forest depths.
5
Greatest? I don’t think so. The work is ambitious and interesting but not really groundbreaking. It’s just big and labor intensive. In terms of art history it will be seen as a footnote, compared to his German contemporaries, Richter and Polke.
14
Thanks. That's sorted then. I'm off to the stonemason to get that chiseled into granite.
1
I have been completely unfamiliar with this artist, and I tend to find contemporary dark paintings simply dark. I am not familiar with this author either. I was completely engaged reading this piece. I look forward to checking out more about the artist but even more about the writer. I see he's written about Munch. Thank you for a thoughtful read.
20
This strikes me as a perfect example of the view that art is not so much of the artist but comes through the artist.
Otherwise nothing that he shows of himself is really who he is. The tip-off is the continual "heh-heh-heh". He's hiding behind that.
There's a great deal of pain in his work much of which he doesn't seem to acknowledge, but the pain nevertheless finds him and comes through his work which is all that matters.
11
He is the "greatest living artist" because "his works are so monumental, so charged with time, so burdened by history, and because the private sphere ...is so completely absent from them".... but not because of the art?
I consider *the quality of the art* much more important than the size, the 'message', the 'history' or its recognition. And in this area his painting is not "the greatest" by any means.
20
@James I love Kiefer the artist and his immense refusal of the horror... So who do you regard, among living artists, as great?
1
@James, I wonder how much money this obvious charlatan, or his agent, paid to get such an obvious puff piece into the New York Times?
If this character is an artist, then I'm the Pope. But wealthy idiots will buy any sort of garbage that's hailed by journalistic idiots as "art," and that's what it's been all about, ever since the days of Andy Warhol.
Well done, I will need to research more from Karl Ove Knausgaard. I am an artist, metalsmith, and not familiar with Kiefer's work, that will change.
8
There aren't any great living artists. There hasn't been a great artist in well over 100 years.
There are successful artist-promoters, who make money by persuading people they are great artists (usually, the persuaded are dealers and collectors who have a financial interest in maintaining the pretense).
16
@Jonathan Katz there hasn’t been a great artist since at least 1920? That’s evidently absurd. And just a note, very rarely throughout history have artists been purists untouched by issues of financing and public response. What do you imagine the relationship was like between artists and benefactors or patrons?
20
Thanks for the lecture
Perhaps you should explore more.
My first encounter with Kiefer’s work was years ago at the Des Moines Art Center. Admittedly, I knew nothing about the artist, only that his work was monumental, transcendent and thought-provoking.
I appreciate the NYT and Knausgaard for this revealing article.
27
The first time I saw a piece by Kiefer I was mesmerized to a point where the surrounding disappeared and I just stood in awe saying to myself I need to see more of this. He’s definitely a character and I admire his story.
11
@Paul A Bouchard
'I admire his story'. As told by Karl Ove Knausgaard
in this instance.
Kiefer has been my favorite artist since I was first exposed to his work in the early 1990s. I don’t consider myself much of a reader but could not tear myself away from this profile. Knausgaard is a masterful writer.
25
Thanks for publishing this. It's refreshing to read about an artist rooted in the connections between mythology and culture and the physical world for a change. I thought that had all been drowned in the swamp of american identity politics.
11
Kiefer as long been my favorite artist. Having grown up a child of a German mother and an army father (who was Jewish), and stationed in Germany after the war, his artworks always moved me to silence and tears. I played among the ruins of cities, spoke German to my relatives, and tried to make sense out of the senseless at an early age. His works screamed guilt, destruction, history and rebuilding to me. I have ascribed meaning to the meaningless when looking at his work, and in some ways that has helped me sort things out. His works are monumental relaying the vastness of what Germany was, and by pouring lead and burning, and burnishing, destructive and erasing at the same time, while exposing remnants of what was and what could be. If you haven't seen any of his pieces in person, please do. The silence you experience will be deafening.
53
@San D The leaded hand of God the father in the art, burning, and burnishing, destructive and erasing. The statement I am that I am.
4
I remember that the first time I saw a painting by Kiefer in the late seventies that my reaction was that for once I was seeing a deeply poetic contemporary painting that had sprung from a profound knowledge of culture and history vs. the painted and repainted pseudo-intellectual one-liners that were starting to cover gallery walls everywhere.
Yes, maybe he's egotistical. Maybe all that lead isn't too good for him. He's probably someone I wouldn't care to have dinner with. But he can paint, that's for sure.
23
LOVE!!
a canal system that would connect the Danube to the Black Sea — that had only been completed more than a thousand years later, in the 1990s.
The canal was finished by Romania in 1984.
12
@Constantin The Danube flows directly into the Black Sea, so no need for a canal. Knausgaard must have misunderstood. Kiefer probably referred to the canal connecting the Rhine (via the Main and Danube rivers) to the Black Sea, which was first attempted by Charlemagne over 1000 yrs. ago.
2
In my limited personal experience of growing up in a German-American family, German men of this generation carry a lot of baggage. Their fathers fought on the side of genocide and lost. People did not talk about it. In my family, all the heroic tales of war were about my grandmother's courageous struggle to keep herself and her 3 children alive. Her resilience could be legitimately admired; my grandfather's experiences as a soldier could not. I think this was hard for the boys--their fathers could not look them in the eye and say, well, we lost, but we fought a good fight. There was only shame and regret. I can see how an artist struggling to process these personal experiences would choose to express himself through monumental images of national downfall. It is a way to express one's own grief and shame without exposing oneself directly. I can see how disorienting meeting Kiefer would be for Knausgaard, because Knausgaard is the exemplar of rigorous self-exegesis and self-exposure through art. Kiefer is the opposite; he hides behind his work, using it to express his emotions in a highly intellectualized and depersonalized way.
190
Well said, but to mind mind irrelevant. would Kiefer’s work carry the same weight if we didn’t know who had created it? I suppose that i’d the test for me. Appreciation of artistic expression independent of the artists own life and experiences first, then possibly enrich understanding a little by investigating the artist.
3
@Elisabeth
Thank you for your illuminating comment, especially "all the heroic tales of war were about my grandmother's courageous struggle to keep herself and her 3 children alive. Her resilience could be legitimately admired; my grandfather's experiences as a soldier could not."
I wonder whether this permission to valorize women's experiences while men's had to be elided helps us understand why Germany can have a strong and successful woman leader as Merkel has been—and yet here in the US, even against the morally bankrupt and unqualified Trump, we are still asking whether a woman is "electable."
18
@Elisabeth Thank you for your comment. I was immediately reminded of my childhood and the goodnight tales my grandmother would tell me about the end of the war and its aftermath, when my grandparents were barely adults. They were usually tales of survival or of experiencing the danger of being attacked, as if my grandparents themselves had been to young to remember being the aggressors in that war. Perhaps they were. They certainly didn't deny any of its wrongs. But rarely if ever did I hear about any heroic feats by my male ancestors. I never thought about it this way before.
6
Skimmed, I confess. But couldn't stop thinking about the liquid lead the assistants are being exposed to. Surely that can't be good.
23
I read all of Knausgaard’s My Struggle books late last year. Incredible writing. I have also read his writing for this magazine which is also astonishing. At some point I expect him to win a Nobel Prize. Kudos to the Times for giving him this opportunity to reach a wider audience. And I too believe Kiefer to be at the top of the game.
36
He probably will. Awarding Scandenavians the Nobel Prize in literature is the standard "default" mode for the Swedish committee.
This is a Memorial Stone in Karlsruhe, Germany erected in memory of my grandfather, grandmother and uncle -- along with 1000 other Jewish victims of the Shoah who were residents of Karlsruhe.
http://gedenkbuch.informedia.de/index.php/PID/2.html
I believe if enough people don’t remember something,
it never happened.
I am deeply grateful to Mr. Kiefer who by his lifelong devotion to art has helped to keep memories of them and their stories alive.
51
@A. Stanton
I stayed overnight in Karlsruhe this past September, breaking up a long journey from Hamburg to Zurich, where I had Opera Tickets for Nabuco.
I took a long walk there and may have seen the Memorial Stone. “Ruhe” (in German) means “rest” - and may they Rest In Peace.
You might be interested to know that in the Opera, the Hebrew Slaves were all dressed in a drab grayish brown - and were meant to evoke concentration camp inmates. At the point of the famous chorus of the slaves, where they lament their captivity, the audience gave a standing ovation. (It way the very night when Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment investigation.)
So many things come full circle.
I am sorry for your loss.
3
This is a Memorial Stone in Karlsruhe, Germany erected in memory of my grandfather, grandmother and uncle -- along with 1000 other Jewish victims of the Shoah who were residents of Karlsruhe.
http://gedenkbuch.informedia.de/index.php/PID/2.html
I believe if enough people don’t remember something,
it never happened.
I am deeply grateful to Mr. Kiefer who by his lifelong devotion to art has helped to keep their memories and stories alive.
7
I believe if enough people don’t remember something important, it never happened.
1
Wow. This is fantastic writing - no, Knausgaard is painting with words, bringing to life the life of a possessed, and tragic, man.
Why is it that great artists often seem to derive so little joy from their creations? The obsessions that drive them also cut them off from what is truly alive.
18
I think he and many artists experience great satisfaction when they make something that transcends them.
What is joy? It’s only temporary - like all things.
I think he sounds full of life, passionate, unstoppable and alive.
So many people work in jobs they don’t like - in cubicles- live mundane lives and watch a lot of tv.
At least he puts himself in the crucible - he is an alchemist. This is true satisfaction and why can’t it be considered “joy”? Imagine if he didn’t create.
Van Gogh suffered terribly - within his own mind and in his relationships with others- but in his paintings he communicated purely- excitedly- divinely. His work is exuberant and uncontainable. How is this emotional complexity not more astounding than moments of “joy”?
I am sure they both have the fever- the fever to create- some people cannot he contained and their creativity and power remains once their bodies pass on. Viewing transcendental artwork - artwork that gives me the chills in one of the best feelings I experience in life.
48
I thought the photo up front was Knausgaard,maybe ten years from now?
A world apart........a blessing or a curse, for both Kiefer and Knausgaard.
I did get drawn in and read slowly allowing my imagination to create images of the moments described.
Continually amazed at the different levels of humanity that make the world go around, and couldn't help but conjure up an image of starving villages while some somehow live(?) in their gilded cocoons.
Gotta go change the oil my truck.
25
@Mike
Such a Mainer! Efficiency of words, simple construction, incisive content, and, in the end, very practical!
And I agree with all but have no clue on the oil.
1
Can we nominate this article? It is one of the best written in the past two years. FANTASTIC! And...informative, mind altering.
74
Thank you I agree and was captivated by the writing. Artist writing about another artist and so eloquently.
1
The Emperor's clothes are so interesting this season...not! But, is there court jester willing to say, "Emperor, your wardrobe isn't memorable. Perhaps, try wearing something recognizable as clothes."
11
Kiefer has nothing on Antoni Tapies, a viewing of whose work submerges you in true creation, the deepest sense of the earth and its materials. I admire Kiefer's work. I am moved by Tapies, a warmer human being. But then, I guess, it's apples and oranges.
3
@JDStebley Thanks for your hierarchy of personal predjudices -will take note. Per my experience, you are entirely wrong.
I was very young when I first encountered Keifer’s massive waste land/rebirth construct images — moved me to my core and still do. Genius.
16
“There are plenty who say his art is that of a megalomaniac, that it consists of grand gestures and little else, that it is hollow and empty and perhaps not art at all but kitsch.”
This thesis is supported by Knausgaard. I met Kiefer once and was reminded of Peter Sellers in Being There.
32
I’m embarrassed to say I should withdraw this comment. It is based on an error, a mistaken memory, though I do find the particular quote does conform with my experience with Kiefer’s work.
Mea culpa. (I mistakenly recalled an encounter with a different German artist.)
William Kentridge. One could just as easily argue that no other living artist has captured the themes of our time—so articulately and in so many different media. Anselm Kiefer is certainly worthy of a major profile and Karl Ave Knausgaard is welcome to his opinions. I wonder why the Times chose a headline that was bound to cause controversy.
13
@belinda The Times chose a headline that was bound to cause controversy because controversy sells newspapers.
@belinda I agree. The headline is terrible and an insult to non- old, white male artists everywhere
This article is wonderfully vague while sucking me into wanting to know so much more. Like the author was sucked into this aritst's life. Beautifully written.
34
The showman who lives inside his art.does he not reject reality?
10
There are those who look, and those who see. Read the comments and know who they are.
13
Once I start, I can never stop reading anything by Knausgaard. After, I wonder why. Does he really have a gift for imbuing the trivial with meaning? Or is this just navel-gauzing par excellence and we are along for a voyeuristic ride? I had this experience again here. Then he takes the reader with him and Kiefer to the "source" of the Danube and my bs radar goes off. I am from the same region as Kiefer and have visited most of the sites described here. While the ancient, walled-in spring is a point of local pride, the Danube is actually formed by two smaller rivers (the Brigach and the Breg) that flow together somewhere in the vicinity. So the whole diatribe about the significance of that river - which doesn't swell to any meaningful size until much later and doesn't feature much as a theme in Kiefer's work - is entirely misguiding. I do feel a profound connection between the land, history and Kiefer's work, so much that it pains me to look at the latter. But in my view Knausgaard fails to capture the beauty and intrigue of the Black Forest and his attempts of connecting the landscape and the horrors of the third Reich in a causal way are absurd and deflect from the universality of the human experience.
28
@Nicola
Yes, I think I agree with your take on this article.
I am a painter and have long admired Kiefer's bold work....but this article left me feeling oddly itchy and uncomfortable. I came away annoyed by both the artist AND the writer, and by extension, myself for spending the time reading it.
Lola California
24
@Lola
Often we don't arrive to a place we want to be.
From that we probably learn more about the world than if we always did.
6
@Nicola
Knausgaard is not here to describe the horrors of the
Third Reich or to describe the beauty of the Black Forest.
He is writing about Kiefer and his art and the source of it
all.
2
Is this written in Norwegian and translated?
9
To the best of my knowledge Knausgaard speaks English but has written his books in his native language and they are translated by Don Bartlett. Martin Aitken also helped with the final book in his My Struggle series. I don’t believe he writes seriously in English.
1
@Douglas Ritter
Knausgaard lived for years in Sweden and did not write in Swedish . He lives since a few years back in London, UK but like you, I doubt he writes in the English. I would guess the article has been translated.
Interesting but I’ve still never heard of him. That’s the problem with making art museums so huge and building so many of them. Wallpaper often leaves more of an impression.
10
@John Doe Confessing you know so little about contemporary art doesn't lend any weight to your qualitative assessment. Kiefer has been around for decades as an established and highly-regarded artists, even if not to everyone's taste. As for museums, we have too few of them and too few people going to them. You've just contributed in your small way to the decline.
1
Profiles of artists, when as well-written as this one by one of my favorite writers, is so powerful and will linger with me for a long time. So many layers. The idea of "finding the artist's soul" is a journey that has no end, and in the end, what does it really matter when we will all be forgotten. And yet, while in the cultural spotlight, the artist subverts his true artistic nature by living and dreaming like an aristocrat, visiting castles where others cannot go, riding in helicopters high above those who are not worthy. Kiefer's work is stunning. Knausgaard's writing is thrilling, but somehow the soul of an artist is elusive and even lost in the life this artist has chosen to live.
17
Kiefer is a significant artist in my view--but he doesn't seem to have a lot of range. This is of course partly a function of the art market which rewards a consistent style that, if successful, becomes a 'brand'. I think it is very difficult at the level that Kiefer occupies in the art-world hierarchy to disentangle the 'art' from its dual existence as 'asset'. Even an artist as free from material constraints as Kiefer, becomes enslaved, I'm afraid--this is the way that capitalism can buy off, subvert, and debase those that become the focus of its lavish attention. Kiefer may be a great man, it's hard to tell--the profile is bedeviled by celebrity on all sides, making it difficult for an outsider to size up what's going on. My suspicion is that both the writer and his subject would benefit from several hundred years of scrutiny--then we'll know.
49
@john lafleur I tend to agree with you, but I'm not really convinced that Kiefer repeats his imagery mostly out of response to the art market seizing upon his earlier work and leading him to pop out more of what sells. I think it's more likely that he doesn't have a broad esthetic and repeats the same kind of imagery out of a failure of imagination or artistic vision. He's no Laddie John Dill popping out the same shtick for years, but in some ways the net effect is similar.
8
@john lafleur
For most of the long and varied history of "ART," it has depended on the non-artist for its existence. You cannot eat a painting nor clothe your children in a sculpture. There has to be a patron who "pays" for the art. The artist has always had to work within the strictures that society provided. Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael where just as "enslaved" as Kiefer. The genius is in how you bend that to your own needs and desires - and still produce art that survives its time.
2
Wonderful piece. Renewed my interest in both Kiefer and Knausgaard.
Because this is such a good piece it’s a shame if there are any mistakes in it, tiny as they might be: the canal project that was imagined by Charlemagne and realized in the 1990 connects the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers and thus the Northern and the Black Sea. The Danube has always flown into the Black Sea, no canals would have been necessary to achieve that.
11
Not my cup of tea, and I have been formally trained in art history and been to many of the great western art museums on this continent in Europe. Be careful with titles of "world's greatest" and find something more equitable. There are many different styles and art is often a matter of preference as to which the viewer sees greatness in. So much of recognition has to do with politics or personal finances and connections. I have seen some incredibly beautiful art by persons with less clout in the hallways of airports.
43
@Katie K
How does an artist live in the 21st century, in a media-saturated world, who is trying to remember the past and evoke feelings about it. Not your cup of tea? Ok.
1
It is a difficult quest -- to try to "find" the artist, to attempt an understanding of both the artist and the relationship between the artist and the work. Karl Ove Knausgaard does an admirable job of it. In the end, though, in the case of a truly great artist who continues to make profound and not easily "read" works of art over, now, more than half a century, the mapping of a biography over an artist's body of work perhaps cannot be done. Anselm Kiefer is in his work, can be located there, and then, of course, in his next work, and the work after that one. And as time passes and the work changes, the artist that one tries to locate there has changed as well. That is a good thing, I think.
5
Whomever was responsible for the heading and with all due respect to Anselm Kiefer, suggesting that any living artist is the greatest is a form of bigotry.
This kind of artificial hierarchy serves only the bourgeois art market and prolongs its discriminating grip that subverts the efforts of other living artists.
Bigotry, it seems, is alive and well everywhere.
42
@mandophoto
I can't say it s bigotry but nevertheless a word that rhymes
with bigotry: publicity.
It seems to me that Kiefer would not have accomplished what he has without a titanic component of narcissism.
24
He IS a world renowned artist like some actors writers etc...narcissism is in the eye of the beholder...
1
The title of this piece is its biggest drawback. Aside from that I enjoyed Knausgard's reflections. For those who complain about the author of the piece inserting himself in it, obviously you have not read 'My Struggle' a piercing, exhausting bio reflecting on the author's response to e v e r y t h i n g in his life. In regards to the title I'm sure Gerhard Richter, Jasper Johns, Kara Walker and many others can vie for that title. Isn't it time we gave 'the greatest living artist' designation a rest? There are many incredible artists today working in the visual arts, literature, music, theatre the list goes on...enough with the beauty contest.
49
I don’t think the title of this piece should be taken at face value. I was surprised at it at first, but after finishing the text, I came to see there is a purposeful wryness to it.
Almost like there should be a question mark after it.
34
@David Carson . . face value? or farce value ?
I was very curious how the Black Forest has informed Kiefer's art, only to find out that the author was taken for a ride,literally, a chaffeured ride at that.
The one place where a young boy in Donaueschingen will NOT get any inspiration, are the inner chambers of its castle. I rode my bike through the castle's garden every day to school. I have never been invited inside, it is meant for us, the people, to stay outside. Kafka wrote a whole novel about that.
The fact that Kiefer is now rubbing elbows with aristocrats is a comment about the PR stunts of self promoting artist to inflate their market value, not on their art.
The true transformative art in the duke's collection was a grey passion by Holbein. However,it has been sold. Maybe it will be replaced by a Kiefer soon?
54
Whenever I give up on the NYT for their normalization of our political dystopia, I find one article like this and keep the subscription going. I know, that's shallow - but this is a fantastic piece.
30
After reading this article I'm more curious about his five children and what they think of him than his art.
45
@Barb Davis
I totally agree with you--frustrating little info on his children.
When I saw the title and author of this piece yesterday morning, I didn’t dare to read it right away. I saved It for the treat I was sure it would be. I read it last night, very late. I was not disappointed.
8
The artist as prop. Heavy-weight lifting, predictable outcomes.
Keep these two away from each other because they
don't serve purpose.
Intoxication by cool aid.
Bonnard packs more punch.
22
One thing I noticed, upon later reflection at Mr. Donuts while studying kanji, is that the essay was "without sounds" besides human voices of course. In such a large spaces as a warehouse, why isn't music flowing through it? If not, then let's suggest a listening list:
1. Keep on the Sunny Side.
2. Here comes the Sun
3. Always look on the Bright Side of Life
12
Hilarious
1
two days after publication and a well written nyt article (by an accomplished and well know writer) on the "...the greatest living artist" has less than a hundred comments! that fact itself is a comment on art in contemporary society, a verdict on the attributed title or, probably (and most likely), a verdict on kiefer himself.
kudos to knausgaard for being able to find a way and even a word ("showman") to describe kiefer. showman dont like low ratings ( of any sort -even comments). but fortunately for kiefer, we now know he has either memory loss or, more likely, is quite adept at forgetting that which does not fan the flames at his altar.
i think kiefer is a great living artist. but as roberta smith correctly writes, kiefer has become "good at making kiefers" and the viewing public isnt falling for flowers being masqueraded as political profundity ( any more) just because "morgenthau plan" is written across the top of a painting, or because a glossary says such and such. kiefer should have stayed in the south of france and played, but his ego brought him back to paris because he yearned for yet more spotlight. play is at the heart of art and creativity and kiefer can play. perhaps this is what knausgaard pointed us to all along- kiefer is just now playing a different game in art?
9
@stephen the Artist is also Athlete; like a football player suffering from too many blows to the head, Kiefer must also struggle with the toxicity of lead- essential to his art, but at a permanent cost to his memory. He is indeed playing a different game now; it is the organic outcome of his process, by which he is being consumed.
Paolo Pellegrino's photos are absolutely wonderful reflections/encapsulations of the playing field and it's subsuming of one particular human being- rather Hitchcockian.
10
But this comment section is THE BEST!! I’m having such a good time on a sunny morning in the mountains reading them.
Wonderful article. The phrase " because paintings and sculptures communicate something beyond what language can capture; that is the whole point of them." proves that the author understands art in ways that most people do not. Regarding the question of oncoming dementia, the author describes misunderstandings throughout the article and throughout his relationship with the artist. Anselm Kiefer is an artist – not a fact checker.
7
This article reminded me of the difference between writers and artists: writers are mostly humble in their practice and do not have the big egos and self cult of many artists, famous or not. Perhaps writing is an advanced form of human expression in contrast to the Neo-expressionism of Keifer. I've always found Neo-expressionism backward, opportunistic and market-driven in its decorative function. Therefore, I was never interested in Kiefer's art before, an art I perceived as a negative and superficial influence of Van Gogh. This article confirms my perception. The only reason I kept reading it was because it is excellent writing and it succeeded in its objective as an exploration of Kiefer's personality...
4
WRITERS ARE ‘humble’ as compared with painters like KIEFER??? Get out of here!just go look at one of his shows PERIOD!
1
John Marciniak, Annapolis. Really great article - I enjoyed every word of it. My word for the Last "mutation" might be metamorphosis.
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I believe Adaptation is the correct word.
Surely Tom Wolfe is reading this piece in the next life, cackling with glee.
Meanwhile in this life, I'm struck by two things: the pervasiveness of trauma (familial, historical, environmental, physical) in Kiefer's life that seems to percolate through his work (which seems to include his lifestyle and performative persona). More specifically, it seems possible that his (no pun intended) mercurial personality quirks and affectations could be related to the effects of lead exposure. Meaning that he himself could be being altered, over time, by his choice of materials, much like his painted canvases themselves are. Like the mood evoked by his works, and those of his early inspiration Van Gogh too, the poignancy of that possibility is almost unbearable. Life imitating art, indeed.
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Well-said. As the article progressed, I wondered about the artist's mental and emotional state. At the end, he apparently could not recognize the writer with whom he had engaged repeatedly over the preceding few years.
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@EKW
I suspect the same with the most obvious of the clues at the end of the profile. The term “mad hatter” flashed through my mind.
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Fantastic article. I have loved Kiefer's art since I became aware of it in the mid-80s. He is my favorite of the artists his age working. When I am able to stand in front of one of his works, I stand in awe, stunned.
I see no reason to complain about the fact that this article is about an older, white, male artist. I love many different sorts of art. Much of it by outsider artists, people of color, women. I own local art, I own a piece of art brut, I own art by people of color, and so forth -- only what I can afford to buy on a paltry budget by art world standards. Wherever I travel, I seek out art, from street art to museums.
I don't understand why people have to demean the subject or the writing. I found the article fascinating.
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@Shirley Adams “I don't understand why people have to demean the subject or the writing.” Because, patriarchy. “Carthago delenda est" These demeaners can think no deeper.
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What's most valuable to me in this profile is Knausgaard's response not to Kiefer himself but to his art. He admits that the art touches him deeply and reduces him to silence. He seeks a connection between the artist and his art only to be left wondering. If his project fails as it must it fails with a sense of humor and a deeply humane curiosity. Great stuff. Thank you.
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An insightful read but the conclusion has got me wondering, is Anselm Kiefer drifting into dementia?
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@Mapopa Manda Agreed. And I am left wondering if anyone has checked him for lead poisoning.
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Haha most certainly.
What I appreciate about Knausgaard is his ability to render with scrupulous care and sensitivity, and utter lack of pretense or artifice, the mundane and the quotidian that is otherwise the great and forgettable frustration of living a life, without seemingly blinking. His willingness to engage in such an enterprise is itself an undertaking of some personal courage. It is him capturing himself in the act of observing his sensitivity to the mundane, in all its ordinariness, it’s evasiveness, even its mendaciousness. On the one hand, liberating, on the other, repetitive. For me, the only thing that keeps this from being a better piece is the ridiculous assertion that the artist, so called, is somehow the greatest, elevating him, flattering him, in a way that caters to a very pretentious self delusion. Please: Rembrandt was not, nor did he consider himself to be, the greatest painter, or, if you will, the greatest artist of his age.
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Sounds like many responders are (I suspect) used to "Art" --especially painting--being posited as the illustration to some timely, politically relevant, society-correcting text. Nice going, NYT!
None of them (I feel secure in saying), have ever stood alone, and open, phone shut off, in front of a representative, top-line, Anselm Kiefer painting. I can tell...
Because, if they had, they would experience what used to be called, (likely before they were born) "The Sublime." They would not have prejudice and hatred against the painter or the writer because of their gender, or their skin color, or because of their age. Or, at least, they would not feel the it was their moral duty to express such anti-bias. Or, perhaps, not in such a knee-jerk (and predictable) fashion.
I saw this gem of an article early this morning and my first reaction was : "How did THIS get through?" I was briefly elated; then, I wondered to myself how long it would take for the white male-hating social-justice trolls to pounce, and shred. How long? Not Long!
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I enjoyed this piece and didn’t think of any critiques of the egotistical male artist as a dismissal of him. The criticism is not at Kiefer himself but points out how differently women artists are described and profiled in pieces in the NYT.
@Allen
Into every life, a whipping boy must fall.
But otherwise, he is only one of many greatest living artists.
@Allen It's not white-male hating to point out that effusive articles about Great Artists got old once we had discovered how many women artists had been cast aside or stopped altogether by society, or their own families.
Of course important white male artists should be covered by the press - but not more than any other demographic category. There is more than one great artist about - trouble is, we only seem to recognize them when they act the part.
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Knausgaard’s Nobel Prize for Literature, given for alleviating the ordinary, for example here, stories of mankind.
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The 1976 painting of the forest (Varus) is extraordinary - beautiful and terrifying, as wandering in a true forest can be. Long ago, I was caught in a snow storm in the high Sierra, and it looked and felt just like this, though the blood was in my fears, not on the ground. Or not that I could see.The sculpture of wings, Ra, is also wonderful to me, uplifting and yet chilling. As is the photo of the artist in the very fleshly tunnel. The article and the artists are certainly in their different ways sublimely Grand Guignol. Yet the emotions I felt confronting the art were quite devoid of trickery.
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Looks like a cigar/smoking advertisement. Bad choice by NYT editors to male the illustration for the article (a) an auto-play video, and (b) so large.
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@eARTh well as a recidivist occasional smoker in the age when so much self congratulatory moral hygiene and approbrium is targeted at the smoker I rather enjoyed it...the sheer pleasure of a smoke was beautifully conveyed
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@eARTh
I totally agree.
So many connotations, so little time.
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@Tim
Medical imaging of this artist's lungs ,may just look like his own work.
Interesting read, an excellent introduction to the artist Kiefer and the author Knausgaard. After looking at more of Kiefer's work, it strikes me that his art is rather depressing. Is this his reaction to the Nazi regime, and his own father's authoritarian personality? There is a sculpture in NYC, titled "Uraeus." The wings on either side of a book, with a snake slithering up the staff that supports the wings & book, with discarded books at the base, has a dark foreboding atmosphere. Does knowledge free us, or does knowledge eventually bring us down....or is some knowledge bound to doom humanity? It would be useful to know what Kiefer had in his mind, when he created this piece.
Apparently Knausgaard was unable to pierce through the veil to discover more about Kiefer's inspirations, other than what he was able to witness from his relatively few interactions with Kiefer. From what the author shared with us, Kiefer is an enigma. Frankly, what he did tell us about Kiefer is rather depressing to me. Perhaps that is what makes a great artist, a tortured soul expressing what is deep within their angst.
Most Germans are haunted by what the Nazis did, myself included. What I find most disturbing is that the evil acts they wrought sprang from the depths of their common heritage, and even the Black Forest emanates it.
From the view of Kiefer's vast studio, a demented horror movie could be made. The empty ballgowns/wedding dresses are eerie.
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@LovesGermanShepherds Regarding the matter of Germany in the forest heart of Europe, I too, have often thought about it, and I am culturally and physically not related to the events or places. Yet, as we both know, there is another side to reality, which readers of this kind of stuff, long to be associated with. each according to their own tastes. I am one of those. Or the movie goers who merge with the matter in the darkened theaters (yes, I still go there) but then, have to leave. Why couldn't we stay? Or Why can't we stay as an invisible companion to Mr. Knausgaard inside this essay continuing on, hunting for the stag called Kiefer? Each morning arising before dawn. dressed in winter undershorts and robe for an early breakfast, before taking up the rifle, opening the door to the weather and the woods.
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“Rather depressing”?!
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I've admired Kiefer's work for a long time but didn't know anything about him. I think I should not have read this.
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I was introduced to his work, and him, as it happened, at the Carnegie International in 1985. He was standing among the guests at the reception, smoking a cigar. I was struck by this arrogance, as museums were then, as now, strictly non smoking to protect the work. Our encounter was brief. My partner asked him a mundane question, "When did you start painting so large?" His answer, spat out with disdain, "I always painted this large, even at the Gymnasium!" And he walked away.
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K.O.K. says "He turned all his studios into artworks themselves, so it was as if he lived in his art, I thought. If Kiefer was similar to any mythological figure, it must be King Midas: All he touched turned into art. If that was a blessing or a curse, only he could know.”
It could apply to K.O. himself as well as to A.K.
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If an artists spits....
Remarkable profile.
Knausgaard made this a joy to read.
Greatest living artist?
I think Kiefer's one of a number who qualify including Johns, Richter, Hockney, Serra, Sherman.
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It is interesting what has happened to Anselm Kiefer.For years he was a recluse, no interviews, no photos.In recent years he is everywhere, on Youtube , in the papers.He channels Picasso, he is holding court, he is narcissistic , he markets himself.He likes toxic fumes and is intoxicated with himself.
He has become the high priest of his art of ashes and lead.
Megalomania.
And the curse of being chased through the German forests .
Karl Ole Knausgaard tried hard to describe the sphinx ---and then gave up.Writing about art is almost impossible, it takes congeniality. but who can be congenial with the sphinx?
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So many famous artists are megalomaniacs. It goes with the territory. Only a gigantic ego - or fragile one possessed- could believe in himself enough to push through the enormous physicality of the work-
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@Norbert Voelkel I don't need to be congenial with the Sphinx. That it exists in all its fascinating otherness is quite enough for me.
I'm an artist and I've never heard anyone talk about art the way Karl Ove Knausgaard does. He identifies emotions I have about my own art that I was not able to define. For this I'm very grateful.
I've read My Struggle also, and think he is a most courageous and generous writer in every sense of the word.
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I'm reading Knausgard's "My Struggle" for the first time. And something that has puzzled me through the first two books is how someone can look into themselves so deeply that they draw up something that is truly Human. I found meaning in what he wrote and felt a connection with him although our worlds were radically different. I've felt that way about painting, fiction, movies, and music, but never an autobiography.
After reading this, he is able to draw from that same well in writing about something outside of himself, and equally foreign to me. An incredible read by an incredible talent.
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As it happens so often with visual artists that become rich and famous, there was a time at the beginning when Kiefer had important and visceral things to say. His Occupation photographs in the late 60's cut the silence and hiding in the box of the recent past of German society with a knife. His first books were incredible in their exploration of mixed media and truly poetic and ironic. The translation of these discoveries to his first mixed canvases , blending photography, painting, lead, straw, text, history, etc was a great addition to the art of the 70's and early 8O's. But then as it happens so often, how do you continue? Bigger and more expensive and more quantity of the same? The "Great" artists are NOT those who continue doing the same thing "bigger and more", but those who either don't stop inventing (Picasso, Joyce, Mallarmé, Beethoven) or those who after achieving greatness, stop (Van Gogh, Rimbaud, Larraín). Duchamp is a good example of a great artist who would not stop inventing though all his life and yet create at a very limited rhythm with a concise and spare production.
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And then he stopped producing when he got older and decided to play chess.
Magnificent portrait! Who better to interact than two highly complex, creative and intellectually well-matched artists? Thank you for running this wonderful piece of first person journalism.
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Every time i visit nyc i make a point of standing in front of 'bohemia lies by the sea' at the met and see new things- the poppies / dead souls/soldiers in the fields of france and belgium, the steppe, the vanishing perspective of trains heading toward ??camps...more than ever kiefers work is vital as the rise of neo fascism in most of the 'developed' world relies greatly on the loss of memory. a fine piece in the nyt, altho K's work 'my struggle' was a problematic read for me.
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Through The Black Forest with Kiefer, we go. along with Art imitating Death, dressed strikingly in a priestlike ankle-length black robe, he is in search of a lonely knight to play chess. A child takes flight on fleet feet, and the birds are silent, hearing him cry that he is on his way back home.
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I too don't like the male artist as divinity. And the profile could be improved if the author removed the self-obsession (does he know me? does he like me?). On the other hand, it is well written and a fascinating introduction to the artist. Just tone down the divinity bit and cut out the narrator's narcissism and it would be stronger.
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@Le We had alot of 'woman artist as goddess' nonsense, too, in the recent past. Should posit "Artist (of any gender) as maker of objects/images" - and leave all the mythologizing behind.
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Lots of egohype. Interesting, but in the end the two men don't yield much.
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@Michael Nelson Like what? What didn't they 'yield' ?
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I suppose it is apropos of our narcissistic, social-media-driven times, but I miss the days when profiles were written by authors with the strength to leave themselves out of the narrative. Far too many "I's" and "me's" throughout this...
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"greatest living artist"? richter, hockney, dozens of others might demur -- as i do.
there's no compass, no altimeter, no truck scale in esthetics. so the statement itself is amateurish, a trope of publicity agents and the era of clement greenberg.
my main complaint is that kiefer's art is so intensely rhetorical. it's teutonic in the unfavorable sense. it compels a limited and rather depressing interpretation. you know how the artist intends you to respond, and you respond that way -- not through the intrinsic merits of the piece, but through its rhetoric.
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@drollere
Thanks to your terms, I will forever imagine artworks being weighed on a truck scale. It kind of breaks up the dead seriousness of high art . . .
Claiming anyone to be the "greatest living artist" has to be meant to induce argument, no?
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@drollere Couldn't the title be ironic?
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Recall the recent Hockney exhibit at the Met. The work is not in the same category as Kiefer's. The double portraits might withstand a distant comparison, but as for the rest...it doesn't appear Hockney and Kiefer are engaged in the same activity.
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Intriguing profile of a man moving through and at home with our culture, but seemingly dissociated from many foundations of human interaction.
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Well matched critic with author. So much vibration between them if you are familiar with both.
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Howling with laughter at some of the dialogue. The Heidi song, for instance. I love the way Knausgaard draws out each interaction with the artist. I am only mid-way through this piece, but I know I will forget to write this if I don't do it now. I don't know if it is intentionally funny but it is a pleasure to read.
Can't wait to read more of his work.
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Was Knausgaard hinting that Kiefer has memory issues— and that the toxicity of the lead he’s used — and has been burned by— may be an issue? Probably a question more for Dr Lisa Sanders but I am surprised that the French version of OSHA hasn’t made an issue of all that lead filled air— even in such a large studio. I wear nitrile gloves when painting with cadmium reds and yellows so maybe I am overly cautious. Still...
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@I Am Curious You are overly cautious. I have used cadmiums without protection for 50 years with no ill effects.
Thank you, thank you for publishing pieces like this one. What a fascinating look into the mind and world of an artist whose work I did not know. His paintings are, to say the least, thought provoking, and make me want to know more. Sadly, I was unable to make it through the bleakness of Knausgaard’s magnificent My Struggle, but clearly he was the perfect writer to give insight into the complexity of Kiefer, the man, the child, the student, celebrity and above all, artist. Fascinating. A welcome relief from politics, pandemics, and anarchy and a reminder that art and literature matter.
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@Olivia If you ever get the chance to see his work in person, seize it. Scale is essential to the experience.
And his range goes from the delicate to the monumental and back again.
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Thank you for the profile, especially amid all the headlines which pummel the spirit, everyday. It set my morning on a good course.
Ars longa, vita brevis.
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The writing of Knausgaard brings to life the man/artist Kiefer...I wondered if Kiefer, and his art, is a reflection of his Nazi involvement days...there is a dark, brooding madness presented in his work...that causes the viewer to be riveted both visually and emotionally....
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@Wayne M
He was born in 1945. He was not "involved" with the Nazis in the sense you mean.
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Yes, yes. Sick.
In a 1990(?) hour long UK TV profile of Kiefer, he was asked by Melvyn Bragg (apropos US critics misreading his work) whether he was a 'Nazi' or an 'anti-Nazi'. His answer was impressive, and on a personal level, a great help when a few years later I went from the UK to head a South African university art school just after the end of Apartheid.
Kiefer replied that he was neither 'Nazi', nor 'anti-Nazi', because he was born in 1945. He coiuld not say what he would have been if he'd been born twenty years earlier, but equally he could not describe himself as an anti-Nazi because that was not only too easy, but would be an insult to those who actually opposed the Nazis at the time. Intelligent and honest!
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This was such an enriching read. More of this please, a respite from the furious chatter.
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@TK I could not agree more!!!
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Yes, it was the ultimate $$$$$$$$$$$$.
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Is it just me or did this article read like satire- private planes, cigars, village sized studios and a generally oversized ego. Bigger is not always better in my humble opinion
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reveling in mail ridiculousness and fondren ego inflation.
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Yes
It is a satirical charade on the Vanity
Fair
Just like Warhol and Beuys or Dalí, Ego seems to do well with a public hungry for celebrities.
Who would have thought, that as a young man in postwar Germany, it is a good idea to keep people guessing whether you are a Nazi or an artist.
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@downtempo
Ah, you caught the sneaky little points. I don't think it was satire per se, just a clear reporting of what was said and done. That little vignette of the aristocratic kaffe klatch was priceless.
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The art world, which I have been in for about as long as this artist, is such a wonderful place. Full of falsehoods, deception, money-motivations to humble Wall Street, empty vessels for novelists to fill with their own notions, fog in which to hide things too obvious, acquiescence when in doubt for fear of looking the dolt, myth making for one and all, where deKooning’s are hidden behind potted plants on the sideboard, where the ‘brave’ artist has a corporate resume with the required initials. I could go on...
Some of you know this, and some willfully don’t.
Despite all this, the search for a sincere voice never dies.
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@Billy Evans bravo, truth to power!
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@Billy Evans That's right. Because there's the art world, and then there's art.
This piece touched on both, in word and picture.
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@Billy Evans Art is a commodity, a bit special in kind , and Piero Manzoni might have illustrated such thing well by sticking it all in a can. Irony sure helps navigate oneself in this funny sea.
This is a completely insane and delightful, if somewhat troubling, read. I can’t decide if it is an antidote to the rest of today’s news or of a piece with it; certainly the apocalyptic atmosphere seems similar.
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How’s that for tautology!
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@Woke
You win today's prize!
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Good profile of Kiefer and Knausgaard. The work of each is fascinating and important in its own way, but for some reason I dislike both of them.
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@Bill Lowenburg Liking them isn't necessary, of course. I agree, they aren't even an acquirable taste. But just as some people can't learn to like beer...more for me! They're both, as people who in order to be who they are have to be very public, but who they are is very private, and so can't help but express their misery to us. The least we can do for them is to find them distasteful, lovingly. Strange fascination; celebrity culture or insight? We humans urgently need to get over ourselves.
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Thank you, thank you, thank you! This is a perfect matchup, and it revitalizes (and, to be honest, rehabilitates) for me the relevance of the NYT as an identifier of great Art in today's world.
Art that silences you in its presence, instead of subjecting you to a political reeducation lecture! I am free to imagine...
Thank you!
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Hilarious and relation of ego trippers.
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The bare planked floor of a large empty room, in the middle above the center line, a wood fire, a snake weaves itself across the floor.
This was my first encounter with A. Kiefer. I don't remember where I saw it exactly, I have spent much of my adult life wandering around art museums and galleries, but I was moved by the austerity and sense of aloneness that this painting evoked.
I have been a Kiefer fan since then: the thick dark paint, the dead flowers, the sheets of lead, molten lead or gold coursing down mountains, dead flowers[again], [the original lead he used he obtained when they replaced the roof of the Cologne Cathedral, or so I've heard] all of it still holds me in its thrall.
Now I suppose I will have to read something of the Finnish [he he he] author Karl Ove Knausgaard. Some times it helps if share interests...
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As a real artist (I’m a painter) I object to the term “artist” being applied to writers. Similarly, musicians are musicians- not artists. Calling everyone an artist dilutes the meaning of the term.
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Uh, no, it doesn't. Art is about creativity. Art is Life; Life is Art. Anyone who creates is an artist. How others may perceive creative work is a different question altogether.
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@LisaH
I am both a visual artist and a musician. All musicians are technicians by necessity (for that matter as are most visual artists) but when musicians write/produce their own work we refer to them as artists.
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@LisaH - well, come on. it's a word with multiple meanings. look it up in the dictionary: "a person who produces paintings or drawings as a profession or hobby; a person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as a sculptor, novelist, poet, or filmmaker; a person skilled at a particular task or occupation: a surgeon who is an artist with the scalpel; a performer, such as a singer, actor, or dancer; [with modifier] informal a habitual practitioner of a specified reprehensible activity: a con artist."
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Amazing long piece. What a great introduction to Kiefer, but also Knausgaard!
"He turned all his studios into artworks themselves, so it was as if he lived in his art, I thought. If Kiefer was similar to any mythological figure, it must be King Midas: All he touched turned into art. If that was a blessing or a curse, only he could know."
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No, no, it is lead.
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If this man is considered the greatest living artist, it is a sad commentary on the state of art in 2020.
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@J O'Kelly
Why?
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To me the question 'do you know the works of Anselm Kiefer?' is and indication of whether I would like to know a person. I don't mean this in a pretentious way, because who, after all is Kiefer? Just some obscure German artist and why should anyone care? But like Karl-Ove, I have been fascinated by Kiefer my whole adult life and I am so grateful for this profile because I knew nothing about him personally...and now that I do know these things I might be a little less 'enchanted' with the works but thoroughly impressed that a truly dedicated artist, with a refined, sophisticated, philosophically rich vision still works among us. When I go to the Whitney Biennial I am always disappointed because most contemporary artists lack this kind of gravitas. They are light as feathers whereby Kiefer is as dense as lead.
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Woke to three inches of fresh snow and this article. Very nice way to start the day.
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I’ll look at his paintings with a little less awe after this. Beautiful writing and a fair negotiation of the connections between the painter and his origins and the author and what he needs and wants. And, hey look, for some reason the first 2 comments are from the same Canadian city.
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Joy!! How wonderful to meet with this in NYT! It needs a Knausgaard this to convey a Kiefer. So grateful for both!
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I’ve always enjoyed Knausgaard’s explorations if art. His utter lack of pretension is refreshing.
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@Ellen Owens 100% agree. Never pretension with Knausgaard.
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