Anselm Kiefer, between plants, stones and the wounds of war

Can a plant speak of Nazism? And a stone, of a war? In Anselm Kiefer's hands, these elements cease to be simple matter and become a way of telling stories. The German artist constructs his works from plants, stones, ash, straw or lead, materials he incorporates into his monumental showcases and combines with references to literature, myths, mysticism or history. 

Among all these references, there is one that returns again and again: that of Germany's darkest past and the legacy of Nazism, a theme that has traversed much of his artistic career and also his own life. Kiefer was born in 1945, a few months before the end of World War II, and has grown up with the need to understand and represent a past that for years was difficult to face. Now, this universe arrives in Barcelona with the showcases of Opus Magnum, which find in La Pedrera a unique setting with which to establish a new dialogue: Kiefer's materials and textures coexist with Gaudí's architecture. The Secret Life of Plants. Anselm Kiefer in the Grothe Collection is, moreover, the artist's first major monographic exhibition in the city and brings together more than seventy works, including paintings, photographs and twenty-three monumental showcases.