Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow

Anselm Kiefer, a student of Joseph Beuys at the Staatliche Kunstakademie of Düsseldorf in the early 70s, is recognized as one of the most important artists of his generation. He transformed painting and sculpture by using huge frames and unusual materials, tackling themes ranging from historical memory to literature, from religion to myth. In 2004, he created the installation “The Seven Heavenly Palaces” for the opening of the Hangar Bicocca in Milan, where it is permanently housed; in 2007 he exhibited at the Grand Palais in Paris, inaugurating the “Monumenta” project. Also in 2007, “Die Grosse Fracht” (The Great Freight), which the artist produced for the Biblioteca San Giorgio, Pistoia. For several years, British director Sophie Fiennes followed him through the labyrinthine spaces of the Barjac complex in southern France, where he has chosen to live and work since 1993, transforming over 35 hectares of land into an imposing, mysterious total work of art. Filmed in Cinemascope and accompaned by György Widmann and György Ligeti’s suggestive music, the film shows the artist at work with his assistants, amid lead, cement, ash, earth, glass and gold; an exclusive document of the last moments of his sojourn on the site, before moving to Paris.