Anselm Kiefer's Dialogue with Augusto Rodin at Musée Rodin in Paris
Kiefer-Rodin
On show until October 22, 2017
Musée Rodin, Paris
The similar backgrounds, sources of inspiration and creative processes between Kiefer and Rodin reveal an instinctive originality. Drawn by the accidental, open to chance, they exploit all domains, manipulate all materials, heading off the beaten path and allow themselves a myriad of arrangements and daring transformations. Drawn by the debris and offcuts directly resulting from Rodin’s sculpture style, which he combines with relics of his own life and other unusual materials, Anselm Kiefer produces a series of entirely unprecedented displays. The artists take it all in, absorb and digest it to create new forms. Behind the glass, Kiefer watches for the spark of his metamorphoses with a keen eye. Similarly, the exhumed, tired and dirtied, sealed, broken and disembowelled moulds of Rodin’s works testify to a past life and a life yet to come. The form is imprisoned, preserved, ready to bloom, almost palpable, permeated, compelled and perpetually reinvented by the gaze of the observer.
Echoing this presentation, the museum displays are altered to exhibit entirely unknown plasters by Rodin for the first time that reflect the shared concerns of the two artists and the same aesthetic combat. Although Kiefer and Rodin play with all mediums and use every type of technique to understand and absorb the legacies of the past and quench their love of their trade, they above all glorify their shared cult through a common quest, the quest for truth with no embellishment.
