Anselm Kiefer’s work is never still. It carries the weight of history into the present and insists that myth, scripture, and memory remain alive in the materials of our time. In this series, Kiefer draws from the Book of Exodus, but he refuses to treat the text as a closed story. Instead, he layers it with lead, ash, paint, and straw, creating surfaces that embody both ruin and renewal. What emerges are not illustrations of sacred passages, but allegories that ask how displacement, loss, and the search for deliverance continue to shape us.

In En Sof (2020–22), the Kabbalistic term for the infinite becomes image and matter. A ladder rises through the center, echoing Jacob’s ladder, yet its rungs are fragile, a reminder that ascent is never certain. Here, transcendence is both promise and risk.

Wolkensäule (Column of Clouds) (2009–21) translates the pillar of cloud into lead and pigment, making visible what is usually fleeting. The work suggests guidance and impermanence at once, turning the divine sign of Exodus into a meditation on protection and fragility.

In Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead (2020), the narrative of Pharaoh’s defeat at the Red Sea becomes strangely modern. A suspended naval vessel evokes contemporary war, tying the ancient account of deliverance to the ongoing violence of human history. Lead here is both literal and symbolic, a metal of gravity and transformation.

Parabole turns to allegory itself. The word suggests a story that conceals and reveals, that uses the ordinary to point beyond itself. Kiefer’s layers of paint, metal, and organic matter create such a parable. Decay becomes part of meaning, and fragments carry the weight of memory.

Together, these works trace the thresholds between text and image, matter and spirit, history and myth. They remind us that destruction and renewal are never far apart, and that the search for meaning persists through fragments, scars, and the possibility of ascent.’s syncretic approach to materials reflects his understanding of history, literature, and mythology as dynamic forces shaping the present. In this newer body of work, Kiefer blends Hebrew inscriptions from the Book of Exodus with diverse cultural and symbolic references, creating metaphysical allegories that explore loss and deliverance, dispossession and homecoming, while bridging temporal, cultural, and spiritual thresholds.

In En Sof (2020–22), Kiefer evokes the infinite—En Sof being the Kabbalistic term for the unknowable, boundless source of creation. Central to the work is a ladder that connects the terrestrial and celestial, echoing Jacob’s ladder in the Hebrew Bible. Here, the ladder becomes both a hopeful ascent and a precarious journey, reflecting humanity’s fragile striving for transcendence.

This theme of guidance and impermanence continues in Wolkensäule (Column of Clouds) (2009–21). The pillar of cloud, drawn from Exodus, symbolizes divine navigation and protection through uncertainty. Kiefer transforms this ethereal metaphor into something tangible and monumental, using materials like lead, ash, and textured paint to evoke cycles of creation and destruction, permanence and transformation.

In Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead (2020), Kiefer revisits the Exodus narrative of the Red Sea’s parting and the destruction of Pharaoh’s army. A suspended modern naval vessel, a symbol of industrial weight and human conflict, connects ancient myth to contemporary struggles. The use of lead, central both materially and symbolically, emphasizes dualities of weight and transformation, destruction and renewal.

Finally, Parabole reflects Kiefer’s meditation on allegory itself. Drawing on the parable’s tradition of using earthly imagery to reveal deeper truths, Kiefer constructs visual narratives that transcend the literal. His materials, lead, ash, straw, and paint, embody decay and regeneration, reinforcing the idea that meaning emerges through rupture, layering, and transformation. Like a parable, the work remains open-ended, revealing its wisdom in fragments and inviting viewers to contemplate the intersections of history, myth, and memory.

Together, these works embody Kiefer’s ongoing exploration of the connections between past and present, the physical and the metaphysical. By layering biblical narratives, spiritual symbolism, and contemporary imagery, Kiefer creates a dialogue that reflects humanity’s enduring search for meaning amid cycles of destruction, transcendence, and renewal.