Saturday 25 April 2026 – Exhibition ANSELM KIEFER, LE ALCHIMISTE – Palazzo Reale, Milan

The guided tour of Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition ‘Le Alchimiste’ (The Alchemists), held in Milan’s Sala delle Cariatidi, takes us on a journey of discovery through the exhibition that the great German artist dedicated to those women whose research laid the foundations of scientific thought and Western culture.

Housed in the Sala delle Cariatidi, which was given a new lease of life after the bombings of 1943 as a venue for historical events, such as the exhibition of Picasso’s Guernica in 1953, the exhibition ‘Le Alchimiste’ pays homage in its title to a series of female figures who engaged in medical and alchemical experiments between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Among them are Caterina Sforza, daughter of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Isabella Cortese, Maria la Giudea, Marie Meudrac, Rebecca Vaughan, Mary Anne Atwood and Anne Marie Ziegler.

Each woman is depicted in a large canvas in which alchemical symbols and rarefied figures emerge from a dense, layered pictorial layer that ultimately establishes a parallel between artistic creation and the generative power of alchemy. The artist thus immerses the viewer in a reflection that encompasses all the areas that have always been of interest to him: art, myth, science and philosophy.

The guided tour of Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition “Le Alchimiste” in the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale in Milan will immerse you in an exciting and monumental site-specific work that one of the most important and profound interpreters of contemporary art has dedicated to Milan on the occasion of the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic Games.