Poems, says Anselm Kiefer in the catalogue essay that accompanies this White Cube exhibition, “are for me like buoys on the high seas. I swim from one to another, and without them I would be lost in the middle of the ocean.” That ocean is the basis for these poetic new works, entitled collectively Des Meeres und der Liebe Wellen (The Waves of Sea and Love). The title is taken from a play by the 19th-century Austrian writer and poet Franz Grillparzer, retelling the myth of Hero and Leander which ends in Leander’s drowning. Kiefer has been exploring poetry and myth, and our response to them, for decades and here he plays on our primal and romantic feelings about the sea. But as always with this artist, this is only one of the many ideas that feed into his emotive, mysterious work.
The lower gallery is dominated by a modestly (for Kiefer) monumental canvas, Salz, Merkur, Sulfur (Salt, Mercury, Sulphur — the Three Principles of Alchemy, into which all matter could be divided). Heavily laden with his trademark layers of thick, cracked paint, and warped by chemical processes forming pale green crystals, the painting’s surface simultaneously evokes the churning sea and a barren, damaged landscape. It reminded me, oddly, of Edward Burtynsky’s epic photographs of land ravaged by industry. Hanging in the middle of the canvas is a lead model of a burning submarine, representing, possibly, man’s futile attempts to tame nature.
Ranged along the side-walls of this gallery are 24 large-scale black and white photographs of dynamic, rolling seascapes, waves crashing on shores. These have been subjected to several chemical processes, discolouring them and highlighting their status as objects (they are also adorned, if that’s the right word, with rusting gynaecological instruments). The miraculous alchemy of the photographic process and the madness inherent in trying to use it to capture, in static form, the constant movement of the sea, are laid bare. It’s quite funny, in a high-minded sort of way, as are the similarly treated images in the upstairs gallery, of Kiefer himself, swimming. This may not be intentional.
Also displayed in the lower gallery are several books, containing further seascapes overlaid with mathematical diagrams. We try, he seems to be saying, but we’ll never truly tame or understand this great natural force. The comparison with Turner is obvious, though one I suspect Kiefer would squirm at.
It’s easy to read too much into Kiefer. Fans of his well-known monumental canvases (like me) who found their breath taken away by his last White Cube exhibition, Karfunkelfee and The Fertile Crescent, will find this a quieter proposition; less physically impressive, but more demanding — the viewer feels impelled to unpick the many layers of reference and meaning. This is probably a mistake. Kiefer’s work should be felt, rather than dissected.
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To April 9; www.whitecube.com