Anselm Keifer’s show at Gagosian, entitled “Exodus,” features extremely large paintings based on the Hebrew book of Exodus. I stood in front of the one above for the longest time, drawn in by the glass-filled walls on either side but then never really landing in the space before the back wall. I loved the disorientation. “The penumbra between life and death,” as Roger Cohen calls it in a recent article on the artist’s work.
We fell in love with Keifer’s work after spending an afternoon in the large warehouse/gallery devoted to him at Mass MoCa. There the paintings fill the walls, three high, salon style. Gagosian has given him an ultra luxurious amount of room. Enormous paintings on enormous subjects mounted in an enormous space. I am still wow struck by the experience of being in this space with these works.
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Love Keifer. The scale invites an immersion, and the context and reference inform not only his creation but your experience. I still carry with me the experience of walking through his “Women of the Revolution” at Mass MOCA. Immersion!
It was one of the best parts of all they things we saw. The scale of the work was matched by the scale of the ideas.