Dat Rosa Miel Apibus 2009

Anselm Kiefer made this sculpture, Dat Rosa Miel Apibus, using a variety of materials like metal, paper, and what looks like concrete, bringing a kind of rough poetry to the space. It's as if he's not just creating an object but staging an event, a collision of textures and tones. The surface has a battered quality, those thick impastoed surfaces building up a geological, almost archaeological feel. You can see how Kiefer attacks and builds the work through accretion and destruction, a sort of a call and response that feels simultaneously ancient and immediate. The planes punctuate the surface like memories clinging to a wreck, a conversation between the ephemeral and the eternal. The sculptures of Brancusi come to mind, in their ability to speak of both monumentality and vulnerability, and of course, the Arte Povera artists of the 1960's who brought a similar sensibility and a broad range of nontraditional materials into their work. Ultimately, Kiefer doesn’t resolve the tension. Instead, he embraces it, suggesting that true understanding resides in the questions we ask, not the answers we find.