Anselm Kiefer Donaueschingen (Germany), 1945 | Lives in Barjac (France)
1945 Anselm Kiefer is born on March 8 in Donaueschingen. 1966 After a year of studying law, he begins to study art with Peter Dreher at the Albert-LudwigsUniversität in Freiburg. 1969 Kiefer continues to study at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe. He takes the series of photographs entitled Besetzungen (Occupations), in which he depicts himself performing a Nazi salute in several different places in Europe. He holds his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie am Kaiserplatz in Karlsruhe. 1970 He enrolls at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he meets Joseph Beuys. 1973 He creates the famous series of wooden interiors usually known as The Garret Paintings that use his studio in Höpfingen, Odenwald as a motif. He exhibits at the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne. 1977 He holds a one-man exhibition at the Kunstverein in Bonn. He participates in documenta 6. 1978 Kiefer exhibits at the Kunsthalle in Berne. 1979 A one-man exhibition of his work is held at the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. 1980 He takes part in the Federal German Republic's Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with the Verbrennen, verholzen, versenken, versanden exhibition. 1981 He exhibits at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, an exhibition that later travels to the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London.
1982 He participates in documenta 7 in Kassel. 1984 He presents his work at the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf in a show that will later travel to the Musée d Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. 1986 He exhibits at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. 1987 He inaugurates an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago that will travel later this year and the next to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. He participates in documenta 8 in Kassel. 1989 He concludes Zweistromland/The High Priestess, an approximately sixty-ton piece he had begun in 1985 that features 200 pounds of lead arranged on 8-metre-long shelves.
1990 Kiefer is awarded the Wolf Foundation Prize in Painting, Jerusalem. 1991 He exhibits at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. 1993 He moved to Barjac, France. 1993 Kiefer exhibits at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York. The works on display include 20 Jahre Einsamkeit, an enormous pile of his works created between 1971 and 1991. He presents his work at the Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo, an exhibition that will later travel to the Kyoto National Museum of Art and the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art.
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page © FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, Bilbao 2007
1995 Kiefer begins to create a series of monumental paintings on the cosmos. He exhibits at the Kukje Gallery in Seoul. 1996 The Centro Cultural Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City organizes an exhibition of his work. 1997 He begins to paint a series of paintings that depict archaic desert architectures. He exhibits at the Correr Museum in Venice and the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples. 1998 The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía shows his work in Madrid and the Metropolitan Museum of Art organizes a retrospective exhibition of his work on paper in New York.
1999 Kiefer receives the Praemium Imperiale for painting from the Japan Art Association. 2000 He exhibits at the National Gallery in London. The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao holds an exhibition of works from the artist's private collection. 2001 Kiefer exhibits at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, of which he is an Honorary Academician. 2002 He is named Officier de l Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic. 2004 He exhibits at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples. 2005 He inaugurates the Heaven and Earth exhibition at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth, which will travel to the Musée d Art Contemporain in Montréal, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in the following months.
2006 He participates in the exhibition entitled Homenaje a Chillida at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, where the Pasajes: Beuys, Darboven, Kiefer, Richter exhibition is also on display later that year.
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page © FMGB Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, Bilbao 2007