Kiefer, Rembrandt, Kiefer

The Rijksmuseum asked Anselm Kiefer, one of the best-known German artists of our times, to create an artwork inspired by Rembrandt’s Night Watch. The painter, sculptor and arranger was given plenty of leeway to develop new approaches towards the understanding of traditional and contemporary art according to the currently temporary presentation of his famous predecessor, the present artistic milieu in the Netherlands and his own experiences, associations and concepts. Since its inception, this venue with its longstanding museum tradition has preserved the essential stages of Dutch artistic and cultural history.
This experimental installation is an attempt to use the possibilities of the museum’s present provisional situation in order to bring about a direct confrontation with contemporary strategies of artistic development. From 7 May 2011 onwards, Kiefer’s perplexing installation La berceuse (for Van Gogh), which has already begun to inspire controversial discussions, will also be on display in the Night Watch Gallery of the Philips Wing. Only then will it be possible to visually document this artistic dialogue and to analyse the intellectual and formal consequences.