Across to White Cube Bermondsey to witness another theatrically immersive installation by Anselm Keifer. This is the latest in a series of exhibitions featuring the apocalyptic vision of the artist, and based loosely on the impossible novel Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. I loved the last installation by Kiefer (here), but this one not as much. There is still the hugely ambitious scale, the sheer sense of spectacle and storytelling, but this appeared to be much bleaker than the last, with more space given over to sculpture/installation than paintings which seemed to be more of an afterthought. As visitors enter they are confronted with rows of shelves containing DNA helixes, bones, dried poppy stalks, architectural models and display cases. It's as though we have discovered and entered a disused secret storage facility. The first room contains a vast painting and a dune of sand filled with detritus. The next a massive slab of broken concrete and barbed wire. The walls throughout the galleries are punctuated with quotes from Joyce's novel in script which never quite seem to make much sense. Keifer appears to be re-living memories from his youth growing up in Germany in the aftermath of the war amid the devastation and debris. It's not all doom and gloom though, there are seeds of hope among the devastation in the huge painting of sunflowers in full bloom emerging from the dark. There is also the room on the left which I entered before leaving which is full of huge, patinated lead books splayed across the floor with large, beautiful, textural paintings of landscapes with golden skies and trees in bloom full with foliage. A certain arcadia, a room of respite to reflect on the devastation wreaked across the other galleries of the exhibition and a chance to construct a new utopia from the devastation with the knowledge contained within the books.
Anselm Keifer: Finnegan's Wake
until 20th August
White Cube Bermondsey
144-152 Bermondsey Street
London
SE1
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