A monumental work by the German artist Anselm Kiefer, reaching no less than 24 metres in length, will be given pride of place in an exhibition of landmarks opening next spring in Amsterdam. In an unprecedented collaboration, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum will join forces to exhibit Anselm Kiefer—Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, which runs from 7 March until 9 June 2025.
This ambitious exhibition will include 25 significant works by Kiefer, including vast paintings, intricate installations, film, and rarely seen works on paper. The part of the show in the Van Gogh Museum will focus on Kiefer’s continuing interest in the art and legacy of Vincent van Gogh. Kiefer’s interest in Van Gogh dates back to 1963, when the young artist undertook a travel scholarship to retrace Van Gogh’s steps through the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. The trip, which Kiefer has said was crucial for his development as an artist, permanently established Van Gogh as one of the primary and abiding influences on his work.
The exhibition will include seven major works by Van Gogh, such as the Wheatfield with Crows from 1890, presented alongside Kiefer’s monumental pieces that deal with similar themes of nature, renewal, and the passage of time. These juxtapositions promise a dialogue across centuries, inviting visitors to explore the complex interplay between Van Gogh’s vivid, expressive vision and Kiefer’s brooding, layered investigations into history and memory. It includes a new, never-seen work by Kiefer, with its monumental scale and thematic ambition sure to surprise and overwhelm the audience. It will be presented next to 13 early works by the artist—a rare, unprecedented view into Kiefer’s formative period and development.
The collaboration between the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk Museum is a first in their respective histories, reflecting the deep connections between their collections. Where the Van Gogh Museum will highlight the painter’s influence on Kiefer, the Stedelijk Museum will give a broader overview of his work, showing the diversity of his artistic practice, which covers five decades.
Kiefer’s work engages with weighty themes of memory, destruction, and renewal, often drawing on German history, mythology, and literature. His use of materials like lead, ash, straw, and broken glass lends his work a raw physicality that is both poignant and powerful. “This exhibition will be a conversation through time and space,” said Emilie Gordenker, Director of the Van Gogh Museum. “It not only underlines Van Gogh’s influence on Kiefer, but also the joint topics that link their work—nature, mortality, and humanity.”
As Stedelijk Museum Director Rein Wolfs underlined: “Kiefer’s ability to weave history and emotion into his work aligns beautifully with the Stedelijk’s mission to present art that challenges and inspires. In this way, collaborating with the Van Gogh Museum offers audiences a rare and profound cultural experience.” The exhibition title, Sag mir wo die Blumen sind (Tell Me Where the Flowers Are), borrows a haunting refrain from a post-war German ballad. It perfectly echoes Kiefer’s preoccupation with themes of loss and regeneration, which run through much of his work, and Van Gogh’s poignant exploration of beauty and fragility in nature.
A rare opportunity to see two towering artistic legacies in dialogue, Anselm Kiefer—Sag mir wo die Blumen sind promises to be one of the most significant exhibitions in 2025. It will enable visitors to trace the threads linking Kiefer’s brooding, textural landscapes to the vivid emotional vision of Vincent Van Gogh—artists divided by time but united by their search for meaning amidst chaos.
The exhibition combines twenty-five works by Anselm Kiefer, including paintings, installations, film, and works on paper, from the two museums. The presentation at the Van Gogh Museum will demonstrate the enduring influence of Vincent van Gogh on Kiefer’s work. In 1963, Kiefer won a travel scholarship and followed Van Gogh’s route from the Netherlands to Belgium and France. Van Gogh and his work have remained a vital source of inspiration for him. The exhibition presents seven key works by Van Gogh, alongside previously unseen paintings and thirteen early drawings by Kiefer. Paintings, such as Van Gogh’s Wheatfield With Crows (1890), will be juxtaposed in the same space as Kiefer’s monumental works with the same theme.
“Anselm Kiefer has been engaged with Van Gogh’s work from his early years. Sometimes, the inspiration is almost literal, as in the use of sunflowers and the composition of his landscapes. Kiefer’s recent work – displayed here for the first time – shows how Van Gogh continues to make his mark on his work today.” – Emilie Gordenker, Director of the Van Gogh Museum.
The presentation at the Stedelijk Museum focuses on Kiefer’s close ties to the Netherlands, particularly the artist’s connection with the museum, which has been pivotal to his career. The Stedelijk acquired Innenraum (1981) and Märkischer Sand (1982) early in the artist’s practice and staged an acclaimed solo exhibition of his work in 1986. This exhibition is an unprecedented opportunity to see all the works in Stedelijk’s collection, together with Kiefer’s recent paintings and two new spatial installations. The titular work Sag mir wo die Blumen sind is an immersive painterly installation, measuring over 24 metres in length, which the artist is currently completing to fill the space around the historic staircase of the museum. The second installation, Steigend, steigend, sinke nieder, is made from photographs and lead, an important material that recurs throughout Kiefer’s work, alluding to the heavy weight of human history. The exhibition will also feature films by and about Anselm Kiefer, including the unknown film Noch ist Polen nicht verloren (1989), which he made in Warsaw shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
“The Stedelijk has a long relationship with Anselm Kiefer and has played an important role in accepting the artist’s work. That connection will be expressed in the two special spatial installations he will show in our building, which will be an immersive experience. Seeing these installations amid several of his iconic works from the 1980s will be truly remarkable. In this way, Kiefer looks back at the past and towards the future.” – Rein Wolfs, Director of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
The exhibition title, Sag mir wo die Blumen Sind, is taken from the 1955 protest song Where Have All the Flowers Gone by American folk singer and activist Pete Seeger, which became famous when Marlene Dietrich performed the song in 1962. Kiefer’s expansive new installation for the Stedelijk Museum Sag mir wo die Blumen sind combines paint and clay with uniforms, dried rose petals and gold, symbolising the cycle of life and death with humanity’s human condition and fate playing a central motif. The flowers of the title are also a reference to the Sunflowers (1889) by Vincent van Gogh and to recent landscapes by Kiefer, which will be seen for the first time in the exhibition.
Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945, Donaueschingen, Germany) was born in the closing months of World War II, and as a boy, he played in the debris of post-war Germany. In the late 1960s, Kiefer was one of the first German artists to address the country’s fraught history in monumental, acerbic works for which he sustained intense criticism in his homeland. In the Netherlands, his work first gained recognition among collectors and museums like the Stedelijk. Later, Kiefer would be hailed for breaking the silence surrounding Germany’s past. His work reflects on history, mythology, philosophy, literature, alchemy, and landscape.
In collaboration with the Van Gogh Museum, Kiefer/Van Gogh will be displayed at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from 28 June to 26 October 2025.
Anselm Kiefer – Sag mir wo die Blumen sind 7 March – 9 June 2025 Tickets will go on sale from 7 January 2025. Van Gogh Museum, Museumplein 6, 1071 DJ Amsterdam, Netherlands