When we visted the Doge’s Palace in Venice, we were fortunate to be able to view an exhibit by the German artist Anselm Kiefer. It was such an interesting exhibit, and enormous. They took up entire wall spaces within the palace. I thought they were really interesting. And then we saw where at the end of the exhibit, per Kiefer’s wishes, the exhibit will be burned. After researching, this is what I found about Kiefer:
One of the greatest living 20th century painters, the German artist Anselm Kiefer is most famous for his exploration of taboo themes from German history, notably the Holocaust, in order to come to terms with the country's Nazi past. His fine art painting is characterised by a heavily worked, depressive style and is executed on a very large, heavyweight scale. Natural materials - including clay, straw, ash, lead, even blood - are often incorporated in his work, along with signatures and names of historically important individuals and places, associating him with a type of contemporary art called "New Symbolism." The surfaces of his canvases are sometimes deliberately "distressed" by burning them with a blowtorch or defacing them with axes, hammers or acid. Originally an exponent of conceptual art, Kiefer switched to painting and joined the Neo-Expressionism movement.
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