Anselm Kiefer paints the new curtain at the Vienna State Opera.

The great German artist Anselm Kiefer will paint the new curtain of theWiener Staatsoper, theVienna State Opera, commissioned for the 2023-2024 season. The artist was selected by a commission consisting of Daniel Birnbaum, Bice Curiger, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, and his name was announced by Wiener Staatsoper director Bogdan Roščić, Museum In Progress director Kaspar Mühlemann Hartl, and Hans-Ulrich Obrist himself. Kiefer will create a work entitled Solaris (for Stanislaw Lem) that can be viewed by the public before and after performances and during breaks until the end of June 2024. The musical support program for the presentation has been provided by the Vienna State Opera’s stage orchestra.

Kiefer’s work is part of a cycle called Eiserner Vorhang, which has been produced by Museum In Progress in collaboration with the Vienna State Opera since 1998. Each year, a large image (176 square meters) created by a different artist is attached to the large fire curtain of the Staatsoper by means of magnets.

The work Solaris, the title of which is taken from the 1961 novel of the same name by Polish writer Stasnislaw Lem, later translated into film by Andreij Tarkovsky, will reflect Anselm Kiefer’s research into cultural memory, identity and history. Kiefer’s works always include references to mythology, alchemy, Christian symbolism, and the writings of philosophers and writers from the recent and distant past. The language of matter plays an essential role in his works, which often feature a sedimentary geological texture. Symbolic connections emerge from lead, concrete, earth, dried plants, glass, barbed wire and the inclusion of objet trouvé such as books, scythes and model ships. Many of Kiefer’s works can be interpreted in the context of Germany’s torn postwar identity.

Anselm Kiefer was born in Donaueschingen, Germany, in 1945. In 1992 he moved to France, where he lived and worked between Paris and Barjac near Avignon. The artist studied law, literature and linguistics before attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and later in Düsseldorf, where he was a student of Joseph Beuys. He was selected for the West German Pavilion at the 39th Venice Biennale in 1980 and since then his works have been shown in major solo exhibitions around the world. Kiefer received the Praemium Imperiale in 1999. In 2007, he became the first living artist since Georges Braque to create a commissioned work for the Louvre in Paris. Wim Wenders’ documentary Anselm - The Rush of Time, screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, is dedicated to him.

Anselm Kiefer paints the new curtain at the Vienna State Opera.

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