Seal My Ears Shut and I Shall Hear You Still — Anselm Kiefer

Gagosian is pleased to announce Anselm Kiefer: Seal My Ears Shut and I Shall Hear You Still. Opening on May 15 at 541 West 24th Street, the exhibition features a new group of paintings that advance Kiefer’s ongoing exploration of feminine archetypes and landscape as symbolic form. For the works on view, Kiefer drew inspiration from poet Rainer Maria Rilke, painter Caspar David Friedrich, and female figures from classical mythology who connect landscapes with allegorical narratives. Incorporating thickly textured layers that emphasize materiality and transformation to embody the luminosity, growth, and movement found in nature, the paintings are executed in oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac, collaged canvas, gold leaf, and sediment of electrolysis. That last material is a deep verdigris green produced when a bath of copper, salts, and fluids is exposed to electrical current—a process that is a physical realization of the artist’s long-standing interest in alchemy.