Kiefer honors forgotten female alchemists in war-scarred Milan ballroom with monumental exhibition

MILAN — German contemporary artist Anselm Kiefer pays tribute to one of Milan’s most majestic yet melancholy spaces inside Palazzo Reale with the site-specific exhibition titled “The Women Alchemists,’’ previewed on Tuesday as part of the city’s cultural programming for the 2026 Winter Olympics

The artist was inspired by the crumbling caryatids, or sculpted female figures that served as architectural supports, inside the palace’s Sala delle Cariatidi, a ceremonial hall severely damaged in a 1943 Allied bombing during World War II.

Kiefer said he was immediately inspired by the room and the fragmented female figures, left as a memorial to the destruction of war.

“I quickly came to the idea of the women alchemists, that is, women who were equal with men, who experimented with medicine exactly as men,’’ said Kiefer, 80, one of Germany’s most acclaimed postwar artists known for monumental works that examine history, memory and collective trauma.

He set to work on 42 panels, some six meters (nearly 19 feet) tall, each featuring a female alchemist whose contributions to early chemistry and medicine were lost to history, elevating male achievement instead.

Despite the subject matter, the artist insisted his was not a feminist exhibition.

“I am half woman. How can it be feminist?’’ he asked a packed conference room, to applause.

The show’s curator, Gabriella Belli, clarified that the show was “an act of important recognition, and not necessarily an act of justice or feminism.’’

Kiefer initially wanted to hang the paintings high on the wall above the fragile caryatids, but that wasn’t allowed.

Instead, the paintings zig-zag across the ballroom floor like ornamental screens, creating a pathway for visitors to reflect on the lives of the 38 women depicted, including Milan’s own Caterina Sforza, whose father was Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan from 1466-1476.

The images play off the original wall mirrors by the artist’s intention, creating “an interaction between what is hidden, and what is revealed,’’ Kiefer said. He achieved the effect by recreating the museum space in his studio, placing mirrors in their corresponding positions.

Kiefer represents each of his female alchemists in full figure, contrasting with the crumbling half-bodies of the caryatids.

The imposing canvases invite reflection in the swirls of thick paint, dominated by a blueish-green, gold, black and silver. The female alchemists, often seen as witches, are depicted with three-dimensional plants that formed the basis of their work, and books where they recorded their results. There are clouds and shrouds, denoting their mystery.

“Kiefer is an alchemist in the way he approaches art,’’ said Belli, the curator. “For him, painting is always birth, destruction, regeneration, birth, destruction, regeneration. This is the process of alchemy, which is the transformation of matter.''

“The Women Alchemists” runs Feb. 7-Sept. 27, part of the city of Milan’s cultural calendar to accompany the Games that also includes the rare opening of a room in the Sforza Castle featuring a wall painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

Kiefer has a long history with Italy and Milan. His installation, “The Seven Heavenly Palaces,” is a permanent exhibition across town in the Hangar Bicocca, making the similarly monumental “The Women Alchemists” exhibition a powerful counterpoint.

Still, the city’s top cultural official, Tommaso Sacchi, said there are no plans at the moment to keep the exhibition on permanent display.

“I am not here to announce the complete donation of the works to Palazzo Reale,’’ Sacchi joked.