Anselm Kiefer in Venice

Anselm Kiefer in Venice

In summer of 22, I went to Venice for the Biennale, not for the first time. It was good, of course, it always is, at the primary venues of the Jardinière and the Arsenale. The focus of the Biennale itself was work by women artists. I was a little skeptical of this, since it automatically excluded half of the artist population, but the quality was very high. But the draw for me was the Anselm Kiefer, uh, ‘thing’ at the Palazzo Ducale’s Sala dello Scrutinio on St. Marks square (separate from the Biennale, but one of the many other exhibitions going on in the city). Mr. Kiefer, whom I had of course heard of, but didn’t really have a sense of what he did, captured a gigantic ballroom at the top floor of the astoundingly ornate Palace to create his ‘thing’.

Not exactly a painting, although it did mostly consist of this thick, goopy stuff that might be called paint. On walls perhaps 40 feet high, hundreds of feet in length, Kiefer spent his covid pandemic time creating a one-of-a-kind, site-specific visual experience that is probably already being destroyed after the 6-month duration of the Biennale. It isn’t something you could move.

I don’t know how to describe it. It is a spectacle, but whether you like it or not has nothing to do with your experience. I have never seen anything like it, and probably never will again. I felt like I was seeing something remarkable. Strangely, for one of the year’s most important art world pieces, there was essentially no advertising in the city. If I hadn’t heard about it before going, I probably would not have known it even existed. Thank you, Anselm Kiefer.

Rachel Campbell-Johnston had this to say, “I defy you to step into the Sala dello Scrutinio and not be stopped, awestruck, in your tracks. Vast apocalyptic scenes, their surfaces encrusted with paint, straw and ash; splashed with lead; sheened with gold; stuck with pieces of wood, cloth and metal (anything from old workers’ tools through battered supermarket trolleys to an entire lead sarcophagus) overwhelm you. An ocean of waves rushes towards you. A burning building cuts its stark silhouette against flames. Angels rise in glory. A burnt forest stretches endlessly into the distance. It is as though you are standing amid some historical tempest, amid a great, brooding darkness riven with bright flaring.”