- 1960s pilgrimage shaped Kiefer’s artistic vision
- Exhibition title references anti-war protest anthem
- Shared sunflower/crow motifs reveal creative lineage
- Mixed-media installations challenge viewers philosophically
- 39 works span 5 decades across two museums
Two Amsterdam institutions forge an unprecedented partnership to examine Anselm Kiefer’s five-decade dialogue with Vincent van Gogh. The German artist’s adolescent journey retracing Van Gogh’s travels emerges as foundational to his practice, with sketchbooks from that formative trip displayed publicly for the first time. While Van Gogh’s vibrant sunflowers initially seem worlds apart from Kiefer’s leaden sculptures, their shared fascination with cycles of decay and rebirth creates unexpected resonances.
Kiefer’s monumental Sol Invictus installation dominates the Stedelijk’s atrium, its inverted sunflower raining seeds onto a lead tome – a stark contrast to Van Gogh’s life-affirming bouquets. Curators highlight how both artists used agricultural motifs to explore existential themes, with Kiefer’s straw-embedded canvases recalling Van Gogh’s textured wheatfields. “The materials become time capsules,” explains Van Gogh Museum curator Edwin Bakker. “Straw decays, lead oxidizes – these transformations mirror Van Gogh’s dynamic brushwork.”
Visitors encounter visceral contrasts between the museums’ collections. The Van Gogh Museum displays Kiefer’s 2019 The Crows alongside Van Gogh’s final 1890 masterpiece of the same subject. While Van Gogh’s swirling skies pulse with movement, Kiefer’s birds perch on charred telephone poles against ashen horizons – both artists using corvids as harbingers of societal unease. This thematic continuity surprises many attendees, given the 129-year gap between the works’ creation.
The exhibition’s centerpiece installation incorporates 4.7 tons of materials including decaying florals and molten metals. Kiefer splatters paint across 19th-century military uniforms suspended above petal-strewn staircases, visually linking floral beauty to human conflict. A wall inscription from Pete Seeger’s protest song – Who will ever learn? – underscores Kiefer’s belief that art must confront historical repetition. Recent geopolitical events, including rising far-right movements, lend urgency to these questions.
Dutch collectors’ early support proves pivotal, with the Stedelijk showcasing rarely seen 1970s acquisitions like Journey to the End of the Night. This lead bomber sculpture predates Kiefer’s international fame, demonstrating his longstanding material innovation. Archivists note that 68% of loaned works come from private Netherlands collections, affirming the country’s role in nurturing Kiefer’s career.
As visitors exit past sunflower installations shedding real seeds, the exhibition’s core paradox lingers: Can art simultaneously memorialize trauma and cultivate hope? Kiefer offers no easy answers, but the museums’ spatial dialogue suggests creativity itself bridges darkness and light.
