Anselm – 8

An artwork by master director Wim Wenders about the unique and overwhelming art of Anselm Kiefer, for my money the greatest living artist. The 3-D projection floats us into the world of Kiefer’s sculpture, architecture and deeply perspective paintings. We see hints of his artmaking technique: slabbing on paint (or tar?), pouring lead, blowtorching vegetal matter. There is little information about how he can produce so much large art: a library of lead books, an acre of leaning towers, enormous paintings that fill the walls of the Doge’s Palace, etc., etc. Through recreations and archival footage we see the younger Kiefer challenging Germany’s WWII amnesia. Best of all, we see Kiefer in the long halls, the stubbled fields and the sunflower patches that become subjects of his art. The camera never moves outside his art. It rests when Kiefer does. This is a definitive, even essential, document.