Alkahest 2009

Anselm Kiefer made this, Alkahest, sometime after he was born in 1945. I imagine him here in his studio: the whole thing reads like a stage set, a little absurd, a little melancholy. The silver paint has been poured, dripped, and manipulated, almost like it's in conversation with the alchemical quest alluded to in the title. I love how Kiefer lets the paint behave, pool, and solidify into something between sculpture and painting. That ribbon of silver paint unspooling, almost escaping from the can...it makes me wonder what he was thinking about, working on it. Is it about transformation, or the impossibility of it? He’s in dialogue with other artists, for sure. All that grey and silver! It has something of Gerhard Richter’s photo paintings. It shows that artists are always picking up each other's ideas, riffing off each other, and changing them in small or big ways. This kind of painting acknowledges a journey and welcomes our interpretations, even when they are uncertain.