A Chipperfield pavilion for one Anselm Kiefer painting
After nearly two decades in storage, Anselm Kiefer’s Schwarze Flocken is finally on public view in Germany. To house it, the Würth Group built a pavilion in Künzelsau designed for this single work.
The painting was bought directly from the artist’s studio in 2008 by industrialist and collector Reinhold Würth. At 11.2 metres high and 7.1 metres wide, it was too large for the Würth Collection’s existing exhibition spaces, prompting a 2025 commission to British architect David Chipperfield, working closely with Kiefer.
The pavilion opened on 13 October in the sculpture garden beside Museum Würth 2, northeast of Stuttgart. Kiefer specified key elements himself, including the room’s proportions, the doorway’s size and position, and the wall colours, while Chipperfield’s Berlin office turned those requirements into a 140 sq. m concrete building.
For artists and anyone interested in painting, the story is not only about scale but about looking. The architecture slows down the viewer, isolates the canvas and frames its material presence: oil, emulsion, shellac, earth and branches on canvas.
The title comes from a poem by Paul Celan, the Romanian Jewish poet whose parents died in Nazi camps. That reference places Kiefer’s work within his long engagement with German history and memory, while the new setting makes the act of viewing part of the work’s meaning.
Source : The Art Newspaper