Anselm Kiefer

Anselm Kiefer enrolled at the university of Freiburg to study law and French literature and at the same time also concentrated on painting. From 1966 until 1968 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe (Freiburg section) under Peter Dreher, whom he describes retrospectively as his most important teacher. This particular object case was produced during his time at the academy in Freiburg. The arm of a doll projects from inside the case, a piece of gold foil has been stuck to a piece of cardboard primed with white paint; three playing cards are visible - they have been either painted over, torn or covered by the gold foil. The twenty-two year-old student Kiefer arranged diverse everyday objects within a three-dimensional space and places them in an associative relationship with one another. He was already experimenting with the potential of a broad and varied range of materials and their specific qualities at this stage. Although the paper of the playing cards, the smooth surface of the doll’s arm and the swift application of the white paint all possess different qualities, they nevertheless enter into a symbiotic relationship with one another.