Having crossed the threshold that separates the outdoor of Piazza del Duomo from the interior spaces of Palazzo Reale, accessible through a wide stone staircase that raises the viewer just enough to make irresistible a fleeting glance of the square from above, one arrives in a vast eighteenth-century hall immersed in soft light. To enter, one must pass through a foyer only a couple of steps long and slip through a half-open door veiled by a light blue curtain, a brief transition that inevitably reshapes one’s bodily sense of scale as soon as one encounters the enormous canvases painted by Anselm Kiefer, arranged to form a fragment of architecture reminiscent of folding screens, or walls bending in on themselves.
Anselm Kiefer, “Le Alchimiste”, installation view, ph. credit Ela Bialkowska, OKNO, courtesy Palazzo Reale Milano
The exhibition, entitled “Le Alchimiste” (The Alchemists), curated by Gabriella Belli and open until September 27, 2026, presents within the setting of the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale in Milan a series of forty-two monumental paintings of recent production, created in the artist’s studio in Croissy-Beaubourg, the Parisian atelier where he has worked since 2009. Kiefer interspersed the conception and production of the works with several visits to the site, considering the relationship between the canvases and the exhibition space, marked by a fascinating and troubled history. Previously known as the “Hall of Mirrors,” the space was built in 1778 and decorated in 1838 by Francesco Hayez with a fresco as large as the entire vault, now lost due to the aerial bombings from1943 that caused the collapse of the ceiling. The palace remained roofless for five years, during which the weather further deteriorated the interiors, already eroded by flames and blackened by smoke. The hall still bears the marks of its history and appears crystallized in an undefined time generally associated with the concept of memory, symbolically culminating in the numerous statues of the caryatids, petrified female bodies of which only the bust with their limbs severed, with metal armatures protruding from within.
From left to right: Anselm Kiefer, “Anne Marie Ziegler”, 2025. Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf, silver leaf, electrolysis sediment, lead, steel, charcoal and canvas collage on canvas, 570 × 280 cm; “Camilla Erculiani”, 2025. Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf, electrolysis sediment and canvas collage on canvas, 570 × 280 cm, © Anselm Kiefer, ph. credits Nina Slavcheva, courtesy Palazzo Reale Milano
Upon arrival, the hall was populated by a crowd of photographers and videomakers intent on capturing the prestigious artistic event. A rather Fellinian scene which, as one might imagine, proved inevitably evocative. And, indeed, the exhibition itself, explicitly defined as site-specific, as if to establish a certain superiority over transportable and reconvertible art, was undoubtedly evocative. Now I would like to dwell on the etymology of the word “evocative”, as my curiosity compels me to determine whether this term may be of any use in continuing the account of the exhibition. Evocative, according to an authoritative dictionary that rarely disappoints my expectations, is defined as a phenomenon of consciousness whereby an idea, a desire or a behavior is imposed from the outside. The dictionary maintains, within the reassuring walls erected by parentheses, that its extreme form exhibits hypnotic characteristics, adding that this depends on a non-objective evaluation and on impressions that are neither rational nor critical of the phenomenon.
Anselm Kiefer, “Le Alchimiste”, installation view, ph. credit Ela Bialkowska, OKNO, courtesy Palazzo Reale Milano
Seeking evidence, confirmations and certainties when visiting an exhibition is of little consequence, especially when it is a fine exhibition that can at times usefully distract and initiate a pleasurable dialogue between thought and the material upon which the gaze rests. The arrangement of the works encourages such an experience, offering the possibility of choosing one’s own path and losing oneself among the paintings, prescribing a game of hide-and-seek between people and artworks, among the artworks themselves, and inevitably within oneself. Among the first comments overheard from members of the public who appeared to be passionate connoisseurs of the German artist’s work, one notes astonishment at the copious presence of golden surfaces, and equal astonishment at the return of figuration, a characteristic of Anselm Kiefer’s early period, later abandoned and now rediscovered. As for the peculiarity of gold in Kiefer’s canvases, this glittering and shining, I must admit I did not feel astonishment, and I would venture to suggest that in his earlier production it was simply covered by a layer of dirt. From the gold, but not only from it, figures emerge, and they alone cannot fail to carry with them a sense of wonder, if that is indeed the appropriate term. They burst forth resoundingly; they do not contemplate stillness and bring with them everything that surrounds them: chaos, matter, nature. Who are these figures? Were they summoned by the artist to break the placid bond with a landscape, deep yet motionless, or rather immobilized? To reunite sky and earth, or to tear apart the bond that places the human being in between?
From left to right: Anselm Kiefer, “Isabella d’Aragona”, 2025. Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf, silver leaf, electrolysis sediment, dried flowers, straw and canvas collage on canvas, 570 × 280 cm; “Lady Margaret Clifford of Cumberland”, 2025. Emulsion, oil, acrylic, shellac, gold leaf, electrolysis sediment, steel and clay on canvas, 570 × 280 cm, © Anselm Kiefer ph. credits Nina Slavcheva, courtesy Palazzo Reale Milano
Each figure has been granted the same amount of space, that one of the colossal canvases nearly six meters high and three meters wide, mounted on wheeled supports that usually orbit within the artist’s studio before being exhibited. The wheeled structures intersect to resemble something like folding screens for giants that hide and reveal one another simultaneously. Each figure bears a name, inscribed in the upper section of the canvas in the characteristic cursive handwriting that distinguishes the textual component of works that are overwhelmingly visual and, though concise, provides a semantic foothold amid the hegemonic movement of matter within Kiefer’s paintings. The text follows a precise criterion in relation to the work and specifies, without leaving room for doubt, whom the viewer is observing. They are, indeed, the alchemists who give the exhibition its title, defined as illustrious female figures forgotten by history and relegated to the background. My suggestion is that they are not here to restore an order long past its expiration date, nor to reconstruct a fair and just balance with their more celebrated male counterparts, because that is no longer possible; nothing in the world will change what has been. Memory can prove to be utopian, precarious and fragile; defending it at all costs risks diverting attention from caring for the suffering voices that haunt our present, subordinating them to an idea of justice, equity, of consolation for conscience.
Anselm Kiefer, “Le Alchimiste”, installation view, ph. credit Ela Bialkowska, OKNO, courtesy Palazzo Reale Milano
Kiefer identifies in alchemy the possibility of generating new relationships from the union of elements of different materials in such a way as to obtain unpredictable outcomes, resulting in a discovery about oneself or about what surrounds us. Yet it is reductive to define these figures solely as “alchemists”, a term that is not universally familiar and that is moreover associated with occultism, an esoteric knowledge that for many is unsettling and even dangerous, capable of overturning the ordinary way of looking at things and even transforming them. The alchemists are therefore scientists, naturalists, philosophers of various kinds and scholars of multiple branches of this knowledge; they are proto-pharmacists, cosmetologists, chemists; they are economists, diplomats, soldiers, activists and politicians; entrepreneurs, musicians, playwrights, writers, librarians and finally alchemists in the proper sense of the term, that is, experts in the art of transmuting metals, much like Kiefer himself who, at this moment, puts his knowledge into practice not so much to recount their stories as to place the viewer before a suggestion that cannot leave them indifferent.
Info:
Anselm Kiefer. Le Alchimiste
07/02/2026 – 27/09/2026
Palazzo Reale Milano, Sala delle Cariatidi
Piazza del Duomo, 12 – Milano MI
www.palazzorealemilano.it
Born in Bologna, he studies fashion design and multimedia arts at the IUAV in Venice. He believes in the possibility of crossing boundaries between disciplines and that art can have an active role in breaking down inequalities and uniting people by creating communities.
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