The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is presenting "Anselm Kiefer: Becoming the Sea," an exhibition of 40 works by the German artist dating from the 1970s to the present, including 20 recent pieces and five monumental site-specific paintings. Curated by museum director Min Jung Kim, the show features Kiefer's characteristically vast, heavy works built from materials like tar, melted lead, and steel, displayed without stanchions and with minimal labels to encourage immersive viewing. The exhibition was inspired by a conversation between Kim and Kiefer about the confluence of rivers—the Rhine in his native Germany and the Mississippi and Missouri in St. Louis—and makes use of SLAM's grand 1904 World's Fair building.
This exhibition matters because it offers a rare, deeply experiential encounter with Kiefer's work, allowing viewers to engage with the physical and conceptual layers of his art in a space that feels purpose-built for it. It also underscores SLAM's longstanding commitment to 20th-century German art, as the museum holds the largest collection of Max Beckmann paintings and two earlier Kiefer works. By foregrounding the artist's material transformations and his engagement with history, myth, and literature, the show reaffirms Kiefer's position as a major contemporary figure whose work continues to provoke and mesmerize.