LONDON — Demonstrating “influence” between artists is a thorny enterprise. Facet-by-side comparisons can typically reveal how one particular person or motion’s technical apply or iconography was taken up and/or additional developed by one other, furthering artwork historic development — but affirmation bias can underpin curatorial efforts, leading to an optimistic assertion of direct affect the place coincidence could also be extra at play.
Kiefer / Van Gogh on the Royal Academy faces an entirely completely different problem: connecting two essentially completely different artists, certainly one of whom professes to be influenced by the opposite. The present acknowledges the titular artists’ dissimilarity from the outset, with its first caption stating that “Kiefer’s monumental works may not appear to have much in common with van Gogh.” Basically, Kiefer is extra a sculptor, articulating enormous-scale impasto patterns and floor texture utilizing straw and different detritus in monochrome sludge sometimes punctuated by gold, whereas van Gogh is, effectively, one of the completed and technically particular person painters — to not point out colorists — in artwork historical past. Kiefer, who was born in Germany simply earlier than the top of World Struggle II and grew up within the shadow of the Holocaust, is anxious with the best issues of life and loss of life, and is well known by the artwork institution. van Gogh’s issues had been smaller in scope and extra private — he made native landscapes and portraits whereas affected by debilitating psychological sickness — and he acquired no recognition till after his loss of life. And Kiefer’s few tiny line drawings in comparison with van Gogh’s expert work point out a major gulf in draftsmanship functionality between the 2.
Vincent van Gogh, “Shoes” (1886), oil on canvas
Although the 80-year-old large of latest artwork is given equal itemizing within the title with the Nineteenth-century post-Impressionist legend — the present is supported by White Dice, which occurs to be exhibiting the previous concurrently — the main focus is squarely on the previous’s adoration of the latter all through his 60-year profession. The present begins with the primary journey grant Kiefer acquired as a scholar, which took him all through the Netherlands, Belgium, Paris and Arles — what curators Julien Domercq and Natasha Fyffe name “following in van Gogh’s footsteps.” Moderately than exploring “influence,” although, the exhibition is actually about Kiefer, who simply occurs to essentially, actually like van Gogh. For within the exhibition’s three galleries, the latter is short-changed: The complete width of the partitions within the first and final are dominated by Kiefer’s monumental items, which dwarf the only van Gogh work in every room: 1887’s “Piles of French Novels” and 1886’s “Shoes.”
The important thing to understanding “influence,” or extra fittingly within the case of Kiefer’s relationship with van Gogh, “affinity” or “inspiration,” is thru phrases greater than photos, significantly the previous’s private interpretations and responses. The caption for van Gogh’s humble sneakers, for instance, cites the up to date artist’s ideas: “This painting of well-worn shoes is for Kiefer a portrait of sorts in their owner’s absence, a relic of journeys past and at the same time a symbol of what is to come.” Once more, the grandiosity of Kiefer’s issues is at odds with the modest immediacy of van Gogh’s topics, painted from the easy objects round him.
Equally, the curators make some try to hyperlink the 2 through iconography, particularly of the sector, although these makes an attempt are both generic or undermined but once more by elementary variations of their views. “For both artists, a painting of a field is not merely a view, wheat or earth, but is imbued with a deeper meaning,” the exhibition supplies state — is that this not the case for many artists? Certainly, the textual content itself admits their variations: “Kiefer believes a landscape also stands as a silent witness of human history, while for van Gogh it was a conduit to express intense feelings and emotions.”
Anselm Kiefer, “The Last Load” (2019), emulsion, oil, acrylic, and straw on canvas
The center room is populated by work chosen from van Gogh’s time in Arles, ostensibly to determine a kinship with Kiefer, who traveled there, via sense of place. We’re instructed that the work right here had been “selected to speak to Kiefer’s sensibility”; such slippery wording means that the curators may need needed to pull one thing collectively with out his direct enter. Curiously, this choice contains items like van Gogh’s portrait “L’Arlésienne” (1890), presumably solely as a result of he made it in Arles, as portraiture has by no means been a main curiosity of Kiefer’s, or 1890’s “Snow-covered Field with a Harrow (after Millet),” an icy rendering of certainly one of van Gogh’s 21 “versions” of Jean-François Millet’s works. Truly, might we now have an exhibition on Millet / Van Gogh as a substitute, please?
It’s debatable that imparting a complete understanding of van Gogh’s influence on Kiefer requires the presentation of huge numbers of each of their work (even when so, it’d require extra of van Gogh than is represented right here) and the steering of Kiefer’s phrases. Certainly, the captions quoting Kiefer’s pondering present minimal perception: “In van Gogh, there is always something more, not in the sense of something extra or a bonus, the ‘something more’ is everything, the beyond-subatomic smallest that can no longer be represented and only grasped through mathematical abstraction as well as the biggest – beyond all light years.” Substitute “van Gogh” with actually any artist, and these might be the phrases of a pretentious scholar explaining why X artist is simply, like, the very best ever, in a approach you’ll by no means perceive.
The catalog accompanying the exhibition comprises extra of Kiefer’s musings, mixed with correctly illustrated works by van Gogh that really do the latter justice. Let’s face it, the Royal Academy was by no means going to get the Museum of Trendy Artwork’s “Starry Night” (1889) to pair with Kiefer’s large dried-pasta model. The result’s that the catalog itself is much extra informative — making the exhibition itself, curiously, moderately redundant.
Vincent van Gogh, “Piles of French Novels” (1887), oil on canvas
Set up view of Kiefer / Van Gogh, that includes works by Anselm Kiefer
Set up view of Kiefer / Van Gogh, that includes works by Anselm Kiefer
Kiefer / Van Gogh continues on the Royal Academy (Burlington Home, London) via October 26. The exhibition was organized by the Royal Academy in shut collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and was curated by Julien Domercq and Natasha Fyffe.
