Anselm Kiefer's Metaphorical Islands at Lorcan O'Neill Rome

Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945, Donaueschingen) returns to Lorcan O'Neill Gallery in Rome after seven years with 'The Consciousness of Stones,' a tribute to German writer Hans Henny Jahnn. The exhibition features monumental paintings that depict an archipelago of islands as metaphors for seeking renewed awareness amid ideological drift. Kiefer's works blend myth, literature, and collective memory, referencing Prometheus and Scylla and Charybdis. The opening piece, 'Die Vierzehn Nothelfer,' invokes the Fourteen Holy Helpers against contemporary atrocities. A contemplative bronze sculpture, 'Melancholia,' based on Albrecht Dürer's engraving, stands in the atrium, symbolizing knowledge and elevation from existential desolation. The dense, rocky painted landscapes evoke Jahnn's dichotomous vitalism, though the absence of hidden depths tempers Kiefer's lyricism. The exhibition runs at Lorcan O'Neill Gallery in Rome.