Review: Anselm Kiefer - Walhalla

Walhalla is Anselm Kiefer's latest exhibition and, currently situated at White Cube Bermondsey, it is really rather brilliant.
The White Cube have the following to say about it:

Titled ‘Walhalla’, the exhibition refers to the mythical place in Norse mythology, a paradise for those slain in battle, as well as to the Walhalla neo-classical monument, built by Ludwig I King of Bavaria in 1842 to honour heroic figures in German history.

This gives you the context, but does nothing to describe the atmosphere.

You enter a corridor, something that wouldn't be out of place in a field hospital set up during some hellish war: dark, metallic beds line the walls on either side, which, you notice as you get closer, are sometimes labelled with the names of figures from Norse mythology or Germanic folklore. Branching off from this corridor are a series of rooms, some housing paintings, others instillations.

The instillation work is fascinating in its ability to raise questions about well known narratives and subvert any expectation you have about the idea of what 'Valhalla' might be. Everything is grimy, harsh, toxic: you think about what being slain in battle might mean in the contemporary world. Meanwhile, when you depart for the more brightly lit rooms housing the mixed-media paintings, the rawness of the work, combined with their sheer scale, makes for a powerful, almost overwhelming, experience. The diversity of this body of work in terms of technique is at the same time held together by unifying ideas, materials and shapes that echo through all of the rooms. Kiefer has taken an idea and explored it inside and out. The result is jaw-dropping.

Walhalla is one of the best exhibitions I've seen this year, both in terms of scope and ideas, and in its aesthetics and realisation. It is really worth the trip out to Bermondsey to go and explore it for yourself: my brief description here has not done it justice. You only have until February, so get a move on!

5/5 - A mythic combination of installation, sculpture and painting: go and lose yourself in the stories

White Cube Bermondsey
144-152 Bermondsey St
London
SE1 3TQ 

23 November 2016 – 12 February 2017