When you step into the magnificent Sala delle Cariatidi hall of Palazzo Reale in Milan, bearing the scars of war and time, the heavy, alchemical scent and texture created by over 40 colossal canvases instantly permeate your senses. Curated by Gabriella Belli as part of the cultural program for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, the exhibition “Le Alchimiste” (The Alchemist) meets viewers between February 7 and September 26, 2026, as one of the most ambitious and dark projects Anselm Kiefer has been working on since 2023.
This time, Kiefer turns his brush and materials toward female alchemists and thinkers who played a key role in the birth of modern scientific thought, yet whose contributions were meticulously obscured and forgotten by male-dominated historiography. Names such as Caterina Sforza, Isabella Cortese, Maria la Giudea, Marie Meudrac, Rebecca Vaughan, and Mary Anne Atwood materialize anew on Kiefer’s canvases woven with lead, ash, straw, and burnt pigment layers. Tangentially intertwining themes of mythology, memory, and transformation, the artist approaches alchemy not merely as an effort to turn lead into gold, but as a spiritual rebirth of knowledge and matter.
Integrating with the scarred walls of Palazzo Reale, these monumental canvases transform the visitor from a passive spectator into an explorer tracing ideas forgotten in the dark corridors of history. Continuing in Milan until the end of September, this monumental gathering stands as a magnificent elegy written in ash and lead, dedicated to the female minds history sought to erase.
