The Forest and the River

Karl Ove Knausgaard has met the artist Anselm Kiefer in many places around the world, including the dark woods of Kiefer’s childhood home, and in his vast studio in Paris, where he lives and works. Seeking to understand what art does to us when we look at it, and from where it mysteriously arises, Knausgaard traces these meetings, over decades, with the artist whose name now towers above the person. How can images without people in them exude humanity? How can an empty landscape be charged with history? What is the relationship between an artwork and the artist? And who is Anselm Kiefer?