Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945)

Olympia is a poignant work charged with various timeless themes. Drawing from theology and Germanic mysticism, the work also tackles notions around identity, history and man's relationship with nature. Following the collective disruption of the artistic pre-war tendencies through the Second World War, German art struggled to find a form of expression which mirrored and confronted the historical disarray and horror, that was passeded onto those artists emerging in the post-war period. Particularly poised against the influx of American Abstract Expressionism and Pop-art, it is in the works of Anselm Kiefer that we find a unique and original artistic style which instituted a new spirit and established a distinctive German viewpoint in art. Within the same artistic sphere as those European artists, such as Baselitz, Penck or Beuys, Kiefer attempts to dissect this post-war legacy and to establish what it means to be a German artist after 1945. Within the densely orchestrated works by Anselm Kiefer, as exemplified by Olympia, we are able to find a poetic and evocative artistic basis in Post-War European art.