$20 general admission/ $15 members
Lipsey Auditorium, Knox Building  

The Buffalo AKG is proud to present Anselm, the critically acclaimed new film by renowned director Wim Wenders. Anselm explores the art and life of Anselm Kiefer, one of the world’s most prominent artistic voices. Two screenings of the film will be held in the Stanford and Judith Lipsey Auditorium in the Seymour H. Knox Building.

Peggy Pierce Elfvin Director Janne Sirén will deliver a presentation about the life and work of Anselm Kiefer before each screening!

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About the Film

Anselm explores the art and life of Anselm Kiefer, one of the world’s most prominent artistic voices. Kiefer (born in Cologne, Germany in 1945) has spent his long and prolific career exploring the intersection and convergence of different histories, philosophies, mythologies, and religious traditions. His thought-provoking, mesmerizing works, which are held in the collections of dozens of major art museums around the world, prompt us to ask foundational questions about identity and the human condition: where do we come from, who are we, and where we are going? Kiefer’s artistic practice—which encompasses painting, sculpture, and photography among other media—has been significantly impacted by Judaism and especially the writings of the German-born Israeli historian and philosopher Gershom Scholem (1897–1992) and Isaac Luria, a leading sixteenth-century rabbi and Jewish mystic in the Galilee region of Ottoman Syria. The infinite trauma of the Holocaust that extends through time and space has been with Kiefer through his life. In his words, “The impossibility of depicting on a painting that which cannot be seen recalls another impossibility: attempts to reverse the rupture between two halves of one culture, the German and Jewish, since those who carried this culture have perished by the hands of the other. I try in my way to reverse this irreversible and brutal self-mutilation, knowing that this, too, is impossible” (The Art Newspaper, November 30, 2011).

The Buffalo AKG has four works by Kiefer in its collection of modern and contemporary art, including der Morgenthau Plan, 2012, and Die Milchstrasse (The Milky Way), 1985–1987. The vast landscapes were installed on the third floor of the museum’s new Jeffrey E. Gundlach Building as part of its inaugural collection installation.

[Image: Film still from the documentary Anselm, 2023]