June 6 through October 6, 2002
At The Busch-Reisinger Museum (more about the Busch-Reisinger Museum)

Anselm Kiefer (1945 - ). For Khlebnikov: Little Mailed Fist Germany, 1980. Gouache on gelatin silver print, 81 x 58 cm. Courtesy of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Acquired through the Deknatel Purchase Fund, 1982.48

This selection of 10 works primarily from the 1980s by the German artist Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) highlights his use of photography-not as an end in itself but as a powerful raw material.

Combining his own, as well as appropriated, photographs with an array of opaque and substantive materials in multi-layered compositions, Kiefer transformed their pure reality and discovered surprising relationships and tensions. Featuring early gouaches, a suite of lead-and-photographic works, and a large book of photographs reworked with ash and acrylic, this exhibition is the first to concentrate on the artist's use of photography and provides a rare opportunity to examine the dramatic range and unexpected beauty of this intriguing aspect of Kiefer's work.

Press release