Anselm Kiefer

A painterly dialogue with humanist values at the Doge’s Palace in Venice

Can there be such a thing as a public art founded on universal values? This was the question that the German artist Anselm Kiefer (born 1945) tackled while conceiving his installation for the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Invited to participate in the celebration of the city’s 1600th anniversary, Kiefer developed a project specifically for the Chamber of the Ballot, an immense room inside the Gothic palace: a series of paintings in dialogue with the heroic values inscribed in the chamber’s 33 artworks by the Italian masters Tintoretto, Andrea Vicentino and Palma the Giovane. The series, These writings, when burned, will finally cast a little light, takes its title from the writings of the Venetian philosopher Andrea Emo. This volume gathers a series of philosophical and art historical responses to Kiefer’s installation, featuring essays by Janne Siren, Gabriella Belli and Hans Ulrich Obrist, among others.