Margarethe 1981

Anselm Kiefer made "Margarethe" with oil, straw and mixed media. It's an evocative, uneasy kind of landscape. The first thing I notice is the straw, standing vertically and piercing the grey ground, it is coarse and brittle. Look at the way Kiefer uses it to build up the surface, how it rises and falls, casting shadows that seem to deepen the color. It is almost sculptural, like he's wrestling with the materials, forcing them to convey something raw and visceral. The impasto is thick in places, thin in others, and the textures are so varied that you could spend hours just tracing them with your eyes. Then there is that scratched-in writing. It's the title, but also like a half-erased memory. Kiefer reminds me a little of Antoni Tàpies, who also incorporated unconventional materials into his paintings, but Kiefer's work feels more rooted in history and memory. Art is about engaging with the world, and there's a sense of searching for meaning, even if that meaning remains elusive.