It is the first time in over 50 years that the Louvre has allowed a living artist to mess with the interior.
In 1953 George Braque painted a ceiling of Henri II’s former antechamber and now Anselm Kiefer will have a permanent installation in a stairwell the links the Egyptian and Mesopotamian antiquities.
Kiefer’s installation consists of the his large painting Athanor and two sculptures Danae and Hortus Conclusus.
The Danae piece consists of a large depetaled sunflower emerging from a pile of Kiefer’s signature lead books.
Who is Danae? In greek mythology she is the daughter of the King of Argos. She was locked away in a tower by her dad who was told by an oracle that he would one day be killed by the son of his daughter. Unfortunately for the king, Zeus found his way into the tower disguised as a shower of gold and impregnated Danae. She had a son, Perseus, and her dad threw them both out to sea.
Amy Serafin’s piece in the New York Times The Louvre Now Accepts the Living
Jorg von Uthmann has a piece on Bloomberg.com Zeus Seduces Chaste Princess in Kiefer’s Giant Mural at Louvre
Image is of Kiefer’s Library installation that lives at Hamburger Bahnhof, a former railway station that is now a museum of contemporarty art, in Berlin.