German artist Anselm Kiefer views the artist as alchemist, one who manipulates earthen elements to unleash their latent power. As such, lead, with its ability to become gold, has proved a particularly important touchstone in Kiefer’s work. Produced after the artist’s first trip to Israel, Jerusalem, 1986, is an enormous canvas in two parts, created first by pouring hot lead over a previously rendered landscape painting. Several months later Kiefer ripped up sections of the hardened lead, scarring the surface and complicating its texture to reveal hidden layers and variations in color. Like its namesake city, the visible markings of the final work embody a turbulent history, conjuring both a complicated reality and an ephemeral ideal that sustains it.

–Glenstone Editors, from the Glenstone Field Guide