The Saint Louis Art Museum is currently hosting Anselm Kiefer's first major U.S. museum exhibition in two decades. Titled 'Becoming the Sea,' the show features 40 works spanning the past 50 years, with nearly half created in just the last five years. Five massive site-specific canvases dominate the museum's historic 1904 Sculpture Hall, creating an immersive experience for visitors. The exhibition explores Kiefer's signature Neo-Expressionist style through the lens of Rustbelt Romanticism, connecting his German heritage with American industrial landscapes. This free show runs through January 25 and represents a significant cultural event for the Midwest.
At the heart of the exhibition is a dialogue between two great rivers—the Rhine of Kiefer's childhood and the Mississippi of his adult imagination. The feminine spirits of Indigenous North American Anishinaabe and Wabanaki peoples merge with references to Wagner's Rhinemaidens from his Ring cycle. German-Jewish poet Paul Celan stands beside American Beat poet Gregory Corso, whose verse inspired the exhibition's title. Kiefer's visual language collapses cultural distinctions into a singular universe of awe, using a palette of brilliant gold and aquamarine to transform the muddy Mississippi into glittering spectacle.
The monumental diptych 'Missouri, Mississippi' (2024) stretches over 30 feet high and serves as a centerpiece of the exhibition. In its upper portion, a nude water nymph rests against the curves of the Missouri River, with the words 'St. Louis' draped across her knee like a golden scarf. Below, turbulent waves crash against a dam beneath a saffron sky, based on Kiefer's 1991 visit to the Melvin Price Lock and Dam in Alton, Illinois. The painting captures both divine leisure and industrial grandeur, reframing the Midwestern landscape as a site of mythic power rather than 'flyover country.'
In the museum's East Building galleries, Kiefer's green-and-gold ensemble feels more intimate and approachable. 'Der Rhein' (2024) depicts the Black Forest's thick branches forming a brocade over the river, while 'Dans ce vert linceul' (2024) shows a supine figure in a nightshirt holding yellow-petaled twigs, quoting French Romanticist Gérard de Nerval. The 'Die Frauen der Antike' (2018-25) sculpture series honors female artists and martyrs including Sappho and St. Eulalia. Positioned near a window overlooking Forest Park, these white gowns create an eerie dialogue with the changing seasons outside.
The exhibition's tactile quality, created through electrolysis and charcoal sediment, mirrors the oxidized nature of the Rustbelt itself. While the three-story works in Sculpture Hall can feel somewhat one-note and self-aggrandizing, the overall experience offers a powerful reimagining of industrial decline as creative inspiration. The show's populist appeal feels especially meaningful following the deadly tornado that struck St. Louis in May, which destroyed 5,000 trees in Forest Park. Just outside the museum entrance, piles of branches serve as a sobering reminder of nature's power and loss.
'Becoming the Sea' was curated by Min Jung Kim with assistance from Melissa Venator, and made possible by generous donors offering free admission. The exhibition challenges viewers to see the Mississippi region through fresh eyes, transforming dismissed landscapes into magnificent spectacles. Whether visitors leave less afraid of the future depends on their response to Kiefer's visionary imagery and their own relationship to art. The show successfully reclaims Rustbelt identity from the margins of American culture, positioning it as a source of mythic and artistic power.
