Anselm Kiefer: History, Memory, Becoming

Anselm Kiefer’s art confronts the weight of history while probing the possibilities of memory, myth, and renewal. In this lecture, Janne Sirén, the Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, explores Kiefer’s lifelong engagement with painting, sculpture, and installation as a means of grappling with Germany’s past and the human condition at large. Through an examination of major works in the exhibition Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea as well as his vast studio estate La Ribaute in Barjac, France, Sirén will reflect on the artist’s use of material, scale, and symbolism to forge meaning at the threshold of destruction and creation.