Anselm Kiefer, a German global star of contemporary painting, was born in 1945 in Donaueschingen. He has presented an impressive, independent body of work through the artist books supervised by Heiner Bastian at Schirmer/Mosel. In these books, mystical themes and content are combined with Kiefer's contemporary techniques such as photography, collage, and material imagery to create an aesthetic overall impression, where delicate, lyrical material qualities merge with coarse, almost violently appearing elements, resulting in a depiction of a devastated world. Text often enters the sequences of images in a menacing manner and also serves as the book title. "Anselm Kiefer. Books" accompanies an exhibition that addresses Kiefer's engagement with the book as a theme in his art. Books take the form of hand-painted and collaged manuscripts as well as books in the form of Sku.