KIEFER / VAN GOGH: MATTER, MEMORY AND LIGHT

The exhibition Kiefer / Van Gogh, currently on view at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (June 28–October 26, 2025), creates an unprecedented dialogue between two giants of art history: Vincent Van Gogh, the post-impressionist master, and Anselm Kiefer, a leading figure of contemporary German art. Previously presented at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, where it attracted over 340,000 visitors, this London version places iconic works from both artists in a powerful, immersive display.

Kiefer’s monumental works — such as The Starry Night (2019, 8.4 meters wide) and The Crows — reinterpret Van Gogh’s beloved themes like wheat fields, cypress trees, and starry skies through raw and symbolic materials: ash, lead, straw, gold. This artistic confrontation reflects on memory, war, and the artist’s role in the face of history, while paying tribute to the tormented spirituality of the Dutch painter.

But it is the more modest formats that offer the exhibition’s most moving moments: graphite drawings, Kiefer’s travel journals, and Van Gogh’s small landscapes. Here, the dialogue becomes more intimate, almost whispered, between two artists separated by a century but united by their pursuit of the sublime and the tension between beauty and tragedy.