Anselm Kiefer fell in love with Palazzo Strozzi at first sight. During a school trip to Florence in the late 1960s, a teenage Kiefer was immediately taken by what he describes as the palace’s “minimal allure”, noting its pure symmetry and modest adornment in his diary at the time. Ironically, “minimal” could never be said of the body of work Kiefer would produce over the next fifty years, becoming, in the process, a giant of contemporary art with works of immense scale and ambition. Now a new exhibition, Fallen Angels, sees the German artist return to the Palazzo that made such a lasting impression, with a combination of old and new works that reflect the building’s unique position within the Florentine Renaissance.
Unlike the lavish opulence of the Sala dello Scrutinio at Venice's Palazzo Ducale (where Kiefer exhibited in 2022), Strozzi’s so-called minimal aura offers Kiefer a more harmonious intervention. In the central courtyard, Engelssturz (Fall of the Angel, 2022-23), a seven metre high work created specifically for the space, depicts Archangel Michael against a golden backdrop, pointing towards the open sky as vanquished rebel angels, rendered three dimensional by discarded items of clothing that protrude from the canvas, lie at his feet. Typically for Kiefer, who embraces metamorphosis in his paintings, the work is brazenly left exposed to the elements, where, over the course of the exhibition, its gold leaf and tactile surface will continuously transform.
