"Ave Maria" 2007

Anselm Kiefer made this piece, "Ave Maria", using paint and organic materials, and you can really see the process in the finished work. The surface is a landscape of textures and tones; dried flowers clustered at the bottom reach upwards into an ethereal expanse. Look at the base, it’s cracked and uneven. It is like parched earth, a kind of visual metaphor for dryness and maybe even spiritual longing. The paint seems thin in places, almost transparent, allowing the layers beneath to peek through. Then, elsewhere, it’s built up, creating a relief-like effect. The title, "Ave Maria," is written at the top, and the whole thing feels like a meditation on nature and spirituality, decay and the hope for renewal. It's an echo of Joseph Beuys' work, where materials carry symbolic weight, or maybe Cy Twombly’s mark-making which becomes a kind of language. It's a conversation between artists, a dance across time, where meanings are layered and always in flux.