If there is one realm where the world’s complex disunity, the tension between the empirical and the ideal, can coexist, it is certainly the realm of art. This is especially true in reference to the work of Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945, Donaueschingen, Germany), whose practice has always involved wandering and division, generating a ceaseless fluctuation between unity and rupture. After all, when Kiefer emerged on the German art scene in 1969, he did so with a disruptive gesture: a series of works dedicated to the memory of World War II, forcing Germany to confront its repressed past. It was not merely a provocative act but also a critical intervention that cracked the collective amnesia of the postwar era and brought to light what had been buried under the weight of reconstruction.  He certainly did not escape criticism, especially from the American press, when he and Georg Baselitz represented the German Pavilion at the 1980 Venice Biennale. His colleague presented a tempera-painted wooden work titled “Model for a Sculpture” that bore too close a resemblance to a depiction of Adolf Hitler. This did nothing to dispel the prejudices of those who viewed Kiefer’s work with suspicion, particularly its references to Martin Heidegger’s controversial philosophy. “I don’t identify with Nero or Hitler, but I have to recreate some of what they did to understand their madness. That’s why I make these attempts to become a fascist,” read an article that same year titled “Venice 1980: Contemporary Art Made in Germany,” written by Axel Hecht and Werner Krüger and published in the magazine “Art: Das Kunstmagazin.”

Anselm Kiefer © photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio​

​

Monumentality, Materiality, and the Legacy of Joseph Beuys

This boldness is not unusual for Kiefer; it permeates his entire body of work. One might call it a rejection of historical, formal, and perceptual limits. The monumentality and density of his paintings, achieved through the use of unconventional materials such as lead, ash, straw, and earth, are never mere cosmetic effects. Rather, they are devices through which the artist explores the depths of time and memory. Kiefer is more drawn to the shamanic side of his mentor, Joseph Beuys, than the strictly conceptual one. From the outset, it has been the energetic potential rather than formal innovation that has fascinated him, leading him to navigate contemporary artistic experiences with ease and confront the anguish of drama and memory. His ability to engage with history and confront taboos merges personal and collective memories, thanks to the space offered by the canvas. The picture plane is continually interwoven with textural elements of strong symbolic significance. His characters, blended with sand, seeds, and sunflowers, draw from German literature and mythology. They range from Rumpelstiltskin, the small, goblin-like being with cunning and deceitful intelligence who turns straw into gold, to Margarete and Sulamith. These figures embody two opposing historical and spiritual universes and are the protagonists of the poetic transfiguration of the Holocaust in Paul Celan’s 1945 masterpiece, “Todesfuge”. They all evoke the power of fire as a demiurgic force, a metaphor for the manipulation and transfiguration that takes place in the artist’s work.

Anselm Kiefer. The women alchemist. Milan, Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi. Installation view. Photo © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio​

​

Art Will Survive Its Ruins: Kiefer’s Lectures and the Philosophy of Artistic Survival

But there is more to it than that. Art’s power lies in its remarkable ability to reinvent itself in other places and times despite adversity, trauma, and decay. Not by chance, the title of the book compiling Kiefer’s lectures at the Collège de France (2010–2011) is Art Will Survive Its Ruins. The complex nature of art, which cannot be fully understood through definitions or aesthetic theories, emerges in all its disruptive force in the major exhibition “The women alchemist,” dedicated to the German artist at Palazzo Reale in Milan. Curated by art historian Gabriella Belli and promoted by the Municipality of Milano-Cultura, the exhibition project consists of a new site-specific work specifically conceived for the Sala delle Cariatidi. This is a significant venue because it was devastated by the 1943 bombings and was never fully restored. It is a space that bears the dialectic between destruction and rebirth inscribed in its very architecture.

Anselm Kiefer. The women alchemist. Milan, Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi. Installation view. Photo © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio​

​

The Female Alchemists: Forgotten Figures of Science, Knowledge, and Transformation

The exhibition consists of 42 monumental canvases envisioned as a single piece. These works explore Kiefer’s central themes of collective memory, identity, destruction, regeneration, myth, and history. At the center is the figure of the female alchemist. The artist creates a female pantheon that highlights figures often excluded from the official narrative: Caterina Sforza, daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan; Isabella Cortese, credited with one of the most famous books of secrets of the Renaissance; Kleopatra, one of the very few women to whom Greek sources attribute an authorial role in the alchemical tradition; and Cristina di Svezia, daughter of Gustavo II Adolfo Vasa and Maria Eleonora di Brandeburgo, who transformed Stockholm into a center of European patronage; Margaret Cavendish, one of the few 17th-century female philosophers whose works intertwined metaphysics, poetry, and science; Mary Anne Atwood, a key figure in the 19th-century English ‘spiritual’ reception of alchemy; Perenelle Flamel, a wealthy benefactor, collaborator, and wife of the alchemist Nicolas Flamel; Marie Meurdrac, a self-taught chemist and pioneer of female scientific outreach; Anne Marie Ziegler, a court alchemist in Reformation Germany who was burned at the stake in 1575 for theories deemed wicked and arrogant; and Sophie Brahe, a bridge between courtly culture and the laboratory. The result is an imaginary field in which these figures reemerge as archetypes: pioneering scientists and custodians of empirical knowledge, bodily practices, and hybrid knowledge spanning medicine, cosmetics, and spirituality. Their stories also speak of exclusion, persecution, disguise, and recantation. For this reason, they become symbols of alternative, marginal yet fundamental knowledge.

Anselm Kiefer. The women alchemist. Milan, Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi. Installation view. Photo © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio

​

Alchemy, Matter, and the Transformation of Materials in Kiefer’s Painting

In keeping with Kiefer’s modus operandi, which can be interpreted as a contemporary form of alchemy, each canvas is an act of re-emergence, with faces and bodies rising from the magmatic chaos of elements piled on the surface. The alchemical motto, “Obscurum per obscurius, ignotum per ignotius” (the obscure through the more obscure; the unknown through the even more unknown), is not just a reference but a key to understanding the project as a whole. Like an alchemist, the artist transforms matter. However, while alchemy aspires to transmuting metals into gold and regenerating matter, Kiefer’s ultimate goal coincides with art itself. In other words, the “gold” is the artwork, yet it always remains beyond perception and understanding. This exploration yields visible fragments of an invisible, boundless reality. These fragments do not seek to represent, but rather to evoke, layer, and conceal. After all, for the artist, the creation of a painting is a constant back-and-forth between nothingness and something. It is an incessant oscillation between one state and another. It is an uncontrolled process that follows no rules and relies on moments of transition. In this context, materials become of crucial importance. Faced with certain substances, Kiefer recounts finding himself viewing them differently, as if seeking to transcend or spiritualize the elements. Such was the case with lead, the discovery of which in the pipes of an old house was a veritable shock, an attraction impossible to put into words because it seemed to move beyond the insurmountable limits of our reality. Lead contains a spark of light that seems to belong to an inaccessible world.

Anselm Kiefer. The women alchemist. Milan, Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi. Installation view. Photo © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio​

​

If we were to name that inaccessible world, we might call it “totality,” which is the sense of infinity that reconnects humanity with the deepest meaning of artistic creation. This meaning coincides with the sphere of being itself. “I have faith only in art, and without it, I am lost,” he argues. “I could not live without poetry or paintings, not only because I don’t know how to do anything else, but for almost ontological reasons. I distrust reality, even though I know that works of art are also an illusion in their own way.” Paintings and poems coexist within the same symbiotic dimension. This dimension does not imprison existence and its multiplicity within a single, complete whole. Far from it. Kiefer offers a promise of the absolute with an uncertain outcome. Yet, as it unfolds, it reveals signs of transformation. The artist exposes his works to the open air and elements, allowing natural forces to take precedence over human creation. This makes the contradiction, the constant oscillation between process and result, all the more evident.

Anselm Kiefer. The women alchemist. Milan, Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi. Installation view. Photo © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio​

​

Art as Ontological Resistance: Rilke and the Poetics of Transformation

There is a deeply lyrical passage by Rainer Maria Rilke that Kiefer mentions in his lectures and that captures this sense of transformation well. A few lines from Sonnets to Orpheus (Sonnet II, 13) read:

And if the world has forgotten you,

say to the silent earth. I flow.

To the rushing water speak: I am.

Perhaps there is no better way to end a reflection on Kiefer than with these lines. Like the exhibition itself, they are an invitation to experience a form of ontological resistance through art. They are a tenacious affirmation of life in opposition to its annihilation.

Anselm Kiefer. The women alchemist. Milan, Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi. Installation view. Photo © Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio​

​​

Kiefer. The Women Alchemists

Milan, Palazzo Reale – Sala delle Cariatidi 

From February 7th to September 27th, 2026 

Curated by art historian Gabriella Belli, promoted by the Municipality of Milano-Cultura and produced by Palazzo Reale and Marsilio Arte, with the contribution of Gagosian and Galleria Lia Rumma and supported by Main Sponsors Unipol and Banca Ifis, 

The exhibition is part of the cultural program for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.

It is difficult to talk about Mapplethorpe’s work without trivializing the widely explored photography theme of eroticism. There is also the risk of becoming mired in the complex issue of desire, especially when analyzed in the context of hypermodern society, which has transformed people from beings who desire into consumers. Immediate gratification, compulsive satisfaction, and consumption without shortage are factors producing a crisis of desire, about which Mapplethorpe may still have something important to tell us. The exhibition at Palazzo Reale in Milan brings together over 200 of the American photographer’s most powerful, iconic, and unconventional works. The exhibition includes a series of previously unseen shots and still manages to amaze. “The Forms of Desire” is the second act of a trilogy that began in Venice and will conclude in Rome. It forces viewers to confront the eroticism in the images, which fascinates and disturbs simultaneously. Provocation and aesthetic harmony converge, bringing the question of Eros back to its original meaning of vigorous momentum that transcends the distinctions between good and evil, drive and perversion. Eros is life: the sometimes disjointed and painful, yet always creative, tension that moves us all. It is the vital inspiration inherent in human beings as they attempt to negotiate spaces of coexistence with Thanatos, or death. Since the beginning of his career, Mapplethorpe has tried to reconcile dichotomies, such as order and disorder, consent and dissent, and anarchy and idealism. His gaze has always been turned toward the multifaceted nature of human beings and their physiological instability. His famous quote is: “I am trying to pick up on the madness and give it some order.”

Robert Mapplethorpe, Thomas, 1987 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission

​

Robert Mapplethorpe Biography: Early Life and Artistic Formation in New York

Mapplethorpe was born in Queens, New York, in 1946, into a large family. The six children were raised with a strict Catholic upbringing. After graduating from high school, he moved to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn to pursue a degree in advertising design. However, he soon changed his focus to drawing, painting, and sculpture. In 1967, he met Patti Smith, who would become one of the most important figures in his life. At the time, she was an art major at Glassboro State College in New York. The two decided to move in together and began a deep and formative relationship. Mapplethorpe became one of the interpreters of the 1960s and 1970s counterculture, a time when creativity became a political gesture and the arts merged into new languages of freedom and identity. “Everything changed when his friend, the filmmaker Sandy Daley, gave Mapplethorpe a Polaroid camera,” recounts Denis Curti, curator of the exhibition. “Between 1970 and 1971, with that camera in hand, Robert began exploring self-portraiture, focusing on homoerotic imagery and starting with himself. At the same time, he met Tom of Finland (the pseudonym of Touko Laaksonen), the first artist to give visual form to homosexual aesthetics. A deep friendship developed between them that forever transformed Mapplethorpe’s vision. Both explored themes of fetishism, leather and classical beauty applied to the male body. While Tom expressed this through the exaggeration of drawing, Mapplethorpe used photography to convey an almost marble-like precision. Together, they helped turn what had previously been considered purely underground material into art.”

​

​

Photography, Eroticism, and Classical Influence in Mapplethorpe’s Work

At the end of the 1970s, he had the courage to align his art with his lifestyle and sexual behavior, which was undoubtedly scandalous yet poetic. This undoubtedly caused outrage among those who considered homosexuality to be an unassailable taboo. The real scandal probably stemmed more from the fact that Mapplethorpe chose to work with absolute authenticity and testimony rather than representation using photography. This allowed him to escape the symbolic sublimation he could have exploited by choosing painting, for example. Nevertheless, painting was present as a cultural influence in the formal perfectionism of his portraits and flowers, his favorite subjects. He bravely continued to photograph them even knowing his death was imminent; he died of AIDS in Boston in 1989 at the age of 42. Sam Wagstaff, a wealthy collector and art expert, gave Mapplethorpe his first Hasselblad in 1975. The medium-format camera allowed the photographer to achieve the sculptural precision and perfect black-and-white tones for which he is widely known. Mapplethorpe noted that the camera worked well with black subjects because it produced a bronze-like effect. His compositions reflect the classicism of the great masters of the 16th- and 17th-centuries, such as Michelangelo Buonarroti, Antonio Canova, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jacques-Louis David. He borrows their symmetry of glorious bodies and perfect physical, muscular, and epidermal development. His subjects are reminiscent of the ephebes of Greek gymnasia and are captured in ideal poses. For Mapplethorpe, combining sculptures from the past with living models in pursuit of the perfect form meant reflecting art in life and photography. He argued, “I want my work to be seen first as art, then as photography.” His subjects of choice were athletes, bodybuilders, and dancers, all of whom were indiscriminate libidinal targets. In them, the sensuality of everyday life triumphs, as it does in his photographs of flowers and still lifes. In one of his first critical interviews with Gerrit Henry, published in 1982 in The Print Collector's Newsletter, Mapplethorpe said, “My approach to photographing a flower is not very different from my approach to photographing a cock. Basically, it is the same thing. It is a matter of light and composition. There is not much difference. The vision is the same.”

Robert Mapplethorpe, Thomas and Dovanna, 1986 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission​

Robert Mapplethorpe, Papavero, 1988 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission

​

Robert Mapplethorpe Exhibition at Palazzo Reale Milan: Sections and Highlights

The Milan exhibition is divided into several thematic sections that trace Mapplethorpe’s artistic evolution from his experimental beginnings to full maturity. It opens with rare collages from the late 1960s in which he combines cutouts, objects, and religious symbols to explore identity and the pleasure of artifice as tools for relating to others. A significant portion of the exhibition is dedicated to his muses, Patti Smith and Lisa Lyon. The portraits of Smith reveal an intimate and vulnerable bond, while those of Lyon explore an androgynous beauty that transcends gender codes and celebrates the body according to a neoclassical aesthetic. The self-portrait section reveals Mapplethorpe’s introspective side. Here, photography becomes a mirror of the artist, documenting his transformation from dandy poses in the 1970s to images marked by illness. The portrait section brings together famous figures such as Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and Isabella Rossellini. It presents the studio portrait as a space for encounter and transfiguration. In this space, physicality takes on an almost sacred dimension thanks to the rigorous control of light and composition. The nudes and flower photographs, on the other hand, celebrate formal beauty of classical origin, suspended between aesthetic perfection and erotic tension while challenging social conventions. The exhibition concludes with a dialogue with ancient statuary. Through the lens of his Hasselblad, Mapplethorpe restores vitality to marble forms, transforming stone into a sensitive, almost carnal presence. Creating such a comprehensive exhibition was possible thanks to the Mapplethorpe Foundation’s generous collaboration. Established by the photographer in 1988, a few months before his death, the foundation not only protects his work, but also funds medical research and projects related to fighting the virus and treating HIV.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Patti Smith, 1986 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission​

Robert Mapplethorpe, Collage, Untitled, 1968 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission

​

The Body in Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Mapplethorpe

Today, the body has experienced a different fate. Although it is exhibited with far greater frequency and ease than before, it no longer has the same disturbing power. As often happens with the most radical instances, the body has been progressively absorbed by the system. Its subversive force has been neutralized, and it has been transformed into a familiar, almost customary device. The nude is now fully integrated into our collective imagination and is no longer a gesture of rupture, but a codified language recognized and socially assimilated. However, reducing Mapplethorpe’s work to provocation alone would be a failure to grasp its deepest core. The heart of his research lies not in scandal, but in reactivating Eros as a vital, generative force. He does not understand Eros in a purely sexual sense, but rather as a primal energy capable of freeing the body from the specters of repression and, at the same time, liberating photography from its purely documentary function. From this perspective, Eros becomes a generative principle of form, a force that opens the subject to life, exposes them to relationships, and enables the creative act. Eros drives the artist to give form to the formless, transform lack into presence, absence into image, and emptiness into existence. Thus, the work emerges as the visible trace of an invisible tension, the concrete manifestation of a vital impulse that passes through the body, transfiguring it and delivering it from contingency to an iconic, timeless dimension.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Lisa Lyon, 1983 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission​

​

Robert Mapplethorpe: The Forms of Desire 

29 January – 17 May 2026 

Palazzo Reale, Piazza del Duomo 12, Milan 

Curated by Denis Curti 

An exhibition by Comune di Milano – Cultura Palazzo Reale

Marsilio Arte 

In collaboration with Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

​On the cover: Self Portrait, 1980 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission