Anselm Kiefer (1945), a German-born master of neo-expressionism in the world of art, will hold his first exhibition at an art museum in Daejeon.

The CNCITY Foundation announced that Anselm Kiefer's solo exhibition "Autumn Herbst", which is considered one of the most important artists in post-war art history, will be held at Heredium in Dong-gu, Daejeon on September 8th.

In this exhibition, for the first time, Kiefer will present 18 works inspired by the poems of his beloved Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926). Rilke's three poems, Herbstag (1902), Herbst (1906), and Ended des Herbstes (1920), will be the central themes throughout this work.

The exhibition, which runs until January 31, 2024, is the first contemporary art exhibition to be held in Heredium and will be held in collaboration with Frieze Seoul - one of the world's second-largest art fairs, and Thaddaeus Ropac - a gallery with excellent abroad reputation.

Neo-expressionism is an expressionist painting movement centered on Europe and the United States in the 1980s due to the reaction to conceptual art and minimalism that prevailed in the 1970s, and Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz are considered to be the representative neo-expressionist writers. New expressionist works are characterized by being out of order of the framework and freely developing an individual's symbolic system by using plenty of colors and objects.

Born in Germany and currently active in France, Anselm Kiefer has held individual and group exhibitions at prestigious museums around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and the Pontifidou Center in Paris. In particular, at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, an exclusive exhibition was held in the Palace of Venice to commemorate the 1,600th anniversary of the founding of Venice, attracting much attention. Prior to this, in 2007, Kiefer became the first living artist to have the honor of having his work permanently installed at the Louvre Museum, in France.

Heredium, where the exhibition will be held, presents various art and cultural activities and performances by recreating the Daejeon branch building of Dongyang Development Co., Ltd., which was built to exploit the economy during the Japanese colonial period. Director of Heredium, Ham Sun-jae remarked, "Kiefer's works symbolically represent the ruins of Western civilization after World War II, and have a philosophy of a new beginning blooming in ruins and emptiness”. “This philosophy is also in line with the new birth of Heredium, which has changed from a place of exploitation to a space of communication. This exhibition will create an opportunity to promote the possibility of art development in Korea at home and abroad”, he further stated.

Meanwhile, in this exhibition, actress So Yoo-jin also contributed her talents by participating in the audio docent recording. With her unique soft and pleasing voice, So Yoo-jin gave out an in-depth explanation of Anselm Kiefer's work. In addition, various events such as docent programs and performance programs for children hosted by professional educators are also in the preparation process.

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