The Seven Heavenly Palaces

The Austrian writer Christoph Ransmayr has contributed an inspired literary investigation of the work and life of this artist living near the French village of Barjac. He takes us through La Ribaute, the artist's studio compound, past glass houses and leaden installations, through poppy fields and dense scrub, through underground passages and containers filled with pictures and sculptures. Meanwhile, the photographer Thomas Flechtner has captured fleeting visual impressions of this creative terrain. Markus Bruderlin, Mark Rosenthal and Katharina Schmidt, each with a deep knowledge of Anselm Kiefer's work, have provided illuminating introductions to the individual chapters that go to make up this detailed compendium which, focusing on four major areas of Anselm Kiefer's work, offers the reader an insight into the specific emblematics used by this artist as well as into the process of his pictorial production and the many-faceted nature of his artistic output.