Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 22nd March–21st July 2024

Salvatore Quasimodo’s poem ‘And suddenly it’s evening’ is inscribed onto the final wall of this exhibition of works by Anselm Kiefer (b.1945): ‘Everyone stands alone on the heart of the earth / pierced by a ray of sunlight / and suddenly it is evening’. The existential themes evoked in these lines – solitude, the joys and pains of living and the inevitability of death – are not unusual in Kiefer’s decades-long practice. However, this exhibition marks the first time his work been placed in dialogue with Renaissance architecture, specifically a building that he describes as one of his ‘favorite edifices in the world’ (p.22).[1] Kiefer has carefully selected and made works in response to the specificity of Palazzo Strozzi, even reconstructing certain rooms in his studio in Croissy-Beaubourg. The symmetry and harmony of the palace’s architecture are therefore not merely a backdrop for Kiefer’s works, but also a natural extension of their interpretative possibilities.

Comprising twenty-six paintings, installations, sculptures and photographs, displayed across eight rooms and a courtyard, Kiefer’s inaugural exhibition in Florence is grandiose. It takes its title from a monumental new canvas (Fig.19), which depicts the fall of the rebel angel. Covered in Kiefer’s signature gold leaf – another nod to the omnipresence of gilding in the early Renaissance – and non-traditional media, it is displayed in the courtyard; the weathered surface foreshadows its own destiny, exposed as it is to the elements. The work points to Kiefer’s belief in the perpetual transformation of art, but it also encourages visitors to draw parallels between themselves and the titular heavenly bodies by forging a connection between the earthly surface and the sky through the open structure. In the work itself, the figures appear in stratified clothes, their agonised faces merging with the turbulent mountainous landscape.

Yet the triumph of good over evil is not explicit in Engelssturz (Fall of the angel). Unlike its seventeenthcentury inspiration, Expulsion of the rebel angels (or St. Michael) by Luca Giordano (1689–1702; Museum of Cadiz), Kiefer’s Archangel Michael is more ominous than angelic. His countenance is rendered incomprehensible by the dark paint that also marks his body and wings. Were it not for him pointing towards his own name on the canvas, it would be all but impossible to say that the winged figure is indeed the righteous Archangel. In Luzifer (Fig.18), in the following room, Lucifer is manifested as a hollowed-out, upside-down coat, mid-ejection from heaven. A large wing – seemingly of a crashed plane –juts out from the canvas, which is also identified as the Archangel in a golden inscription below. In the exhibition catalogue, the curator Arturo Galansino writes about the wing as a symbol of both inventive genius and a tendency for self-destruction, alluding to the myth of Icarus. Here, the traditional distinction between Michael and Lucifer is absent; they are joined together on the canvas, questioning the idea of absolute ‘goodness’. Kiefer’s rejection of the Manichaean view of good and evil in Fallen angels is not surprising, given his intellectual interest in theodicy, which attempts to reconcile the existence of a benevolent God and the pervasiveness of human suffering.

However, Fallen angels is not only about inherent human flaws; it is also an ode to Renaissance humanism.Kiefer has asserted that ‘painting is philosophy’ (p.31), and a room in the exhibition is dedicated to the centrality of philosophical thought in his artmaking. Immediately recognisable is La Scuola di Atene (The School of Athens; 2022), in which Kiefer assembles Classical thinkers in the format of Raphael’s fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican (c.1509–11), animated by muddy, encrusted clothes. In Vor Sokrates (Before Socrates; 2022), the artist arranges pre-Socratic philosophers in a family tree, inscribing their names above their floating heads. These two works are displayed facing one another; their similar colour interplay and palimpsestic appearance insist on a continuation despite their separation. The artist combines both pre- and post-Socratic traditions in Ave Maria (Hail Mary; 2022), a clear demonstration of his interest in the philosophy of both matter and spirit.

Another strand informing Kiefer’s practice is literature and the relationship between word and image. Locus solus (The solitary place; 2019–23), a vitrine based on Raymond Roussel’s Surrealist tale of the same name, houses a mosaic of comically large teeth spread across asphalt and gravel, through which a camouflaged black snake slithers. A deceivingly fragile ‘emanation’ hanging above is in fact made of Kiefer’s favoured material, lead, which represents divine creativity in Lurianic Kabbalah, a sixteenth-century form of esoteric Jewish mysticism. Flanking this vitrine are two canvases based on James Joyce’s oneiric novel Finnegans Wake (1939), both of which depict deserted Kiefer has asserted that ‘painting is philosophy’ (p.31), and a room in the exhibition is dedicated to the centrality of philosophical thought in his artmaking. Immediately recognisable is La Scuola di Atene (The School of Athens; 2022), in which Kiefer assembles Classical thinkers in the format of Raphael’s fresco in the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican (c.1509–11), animated by muddy, encrusted clothes. In Vor Sokrates (Before Socrates; 2022), the artist arranges pre-Socratic philosophers in a family tree, inscribing their names above their floating heads. These two works are displayed facing one another; their similar colour interplay and palimpsestic appearance insist on a continuation despite their separation. The artist combines both pre- and post-Socratic traditions in architecture and phantom cities. All three works evoke a post-historical future in which humanity has been long eradicated after centuries of selfdestruction. Yet given Kiefer’s rejection of rigid dichotomies, these scenes could just as easily denote a beginning. They draw on an understanding of the Renaissance as an epoch that utilised the spectre of Classical Antiquity to reinvent the self.

Emerging from the brightness of this room, visitors enter the unexpected highlight of the exhibition: Verstrahlte Bilder (Irradiated paintings; Fig.20), a darkly lit installation of sixty works in a salonstyle hang, grounded by a mirrored table in the centre of the room. The paintings were created over a span of forty years; some have undergone a radioactive metamorphosis, giving them a discolouration that unites the room. In using such invasive methods, Kiefer has created a new spectacle, conflating the moment of destruction with that of creation. This is underpinned by religious notions of the Apocalypse ushering in a new world and the central role of the Archangel Michael.

Somewhat surprisingly, the exhibition ends with a reiteration of the photographic series that Kiefer presented at his degree show at the Academy of Fine Arts, Karlsruhe, in 1969, Heroische Sinnbilder (Heroic symbols; 2009). These controversial photographs, in which Kiefer performs the Nazi salute, are reprinted in large format, submerged in electrolysis and hung from a rod. Throughout his career, Kiefer has grappled with questions of nationhood and what it means to be German. When these images were published in a magazine in the 1970s, they deeply disturbed the general public. Here, their enlarged dimensions command introspection regarding collective guilt and responsibility.[2] As Kiefer often inscribes the titles of his works onto their surfaces, Galansino has opted to omit wall labels altogether. Although they could have been helpful for other works, especially considering Kiefer’s complex mythological and literary references, perhaps Heroische Sinnbilder would have been compromised by such interpretative material. Instead, visitors must come to their own conclusions about the evil of mankind and their complicity in it.

Inevitably Fallen angels cannot escape familiar narratives about the sins of humanity. And yet the exhibition’s emphasis on metamorphosis offers an unexpected intimation of hope. It is true that evening will always come, but not before we have experienced the transformative power of sunlight.

[1] Catalogue: Anselm Kiefer: Fallen Angels. Edited by Arturo Galansino and Ludovica Sebregondi. 192 pp. incl. 106 col. + 22 b. & w. ills. (Marsilio Arte, Venice, 2024), €40. ISBN 979–12–5463–181–2.

[2] See M. Wates: Disorders at the Borders: In Search of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the Paintings of Anselm Kiefer, Lausanne 2021.