Edited and co-ordinated by Honey Luard
Editorial assistance by Alex Bennett
Designed by (Studio) Jonathan Hares
Texts by Brian Dillon and Rod Mengham
 
Printed by Druckerei Odermatt AG, Switzerland
310 x 240 mm, hardback 
130 pages, colour illustrations throughout
ISBN 978-1-910844-63-2 
Published by White Cube, January 2024
 
This publication marks Anselm Kiefer’s monumental solo exhibition, ‘Finnegans Wake’ (June – August 2023), which completes a trilogy of shows held at White Cube Bermondsey, London. Reflecting the spiralling energies of the eponymous novel by James Joyce, Kiefer’s exhibition treated Jocyean language as a conduit for material experimentation, realising large-scale paintings and immersive sculptural installations.

An essay by Brian Dillon examines the influence of Joyce’s literature on Kiefer’s practice, tracing affinities between both artist and writer. An in-conversation between Kiefer and Rod Mengham further constellates the resonance of Joyce and considers the artist’s engagement with temporality, language and material.

Designed by (Studio) Jonathan Hares, the publication guides the reader through the exhibition’s profusion of diverse matter and experiments in structure. Featuring extensive reproductions of the works on view, the catalogue offers a detailed record of the ambitious scale, referential complexity and sensorial depth that distinguishes Kiefer’s work.

Find out more about Anselm Kiefer's exhibition, ‘Finnegans Wake’ at White Cube Bermondsey in 2023. 

Brian Dillon is an Irish writer based in London. His books include Affinities, Suppose a Sentence, Essayism and In the Dark Room. His essays and criticism have appeared in Artforum, frieze, The New Yorker, The New York Times and Guardian. 

Rod Mengham is Reader in Modern English Literature in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge and Emeritus Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, UK. He is the author and editor of books on 19th- and 20th-century fiction, 20th-century poetry, violence and the avant-garde, as well as language and cultural history.