Sternenfall [Falling Stars]

Anselm Kiefer was born two months before his country surrendered to the Allied Powers. Much of his early work directly tackled Germany’s recent history, an inherited past that many of his contemporaries preferred to forget. Later, Kiefer’s interests moved beyond issues of national guilt and identity to address humanity’s cosmic significance, as demonstrated by Sternenfall. The overwhelming scale of the piece immediately draws viewers into its orbit. Its dark, heavily textured surface recalls the craggy face of planets or moons, and the constellations traced throughout it extend the celestial theme. At the base of the canvas, shards of glass rest like stars fallen from the sky. Taking a page from his mentor, the iconoclastic Joseph Beuys, Kiefer frequently incorporates unorthodox materials such as blood, hair, dirt, or concrete. One of the most important German artists to emerge after the war, Kiefer left his native country following its reunification in 1991. He relocated to the tiny town of Barjac in southern France, where he built a studio that is itself considered a postindustrial work of art.