Anselm Kiefer: Il Mistero delle Cattedrali, White Cube - review

The grandeur is not limited to the works' physical size: Kiefer forces portentous imagery and themes from mysticism and history into dramatic collision on the canvas and the plinth. Predominant here is alchemy, and specifically an obscure Twenties text by Fulcanelli, arguing that hidden alchemical codes are found in Gothic cathedrals.

Kiefer is not renowned for humour but his sculpture, Merkaba (2011), is amusingly sardonic, the best of an otherwise underwhelming room of sculptures. Merkaba is the chariot of God in Judaism, particularly potent in Kiefer's beloved Kabbalah. Here, it becomes a rickety tandem bicycle with three weighing scales holding sulphur, mercury and sodium.

The paintings dominating the cavernous central space find Kiefer at his best, bringing his learning to bear on German history in four huge canvases depicting Albert Speer's Tempelhof airport, which would have been the gateway to Hitler's dreamed-of state of Germania.

Now closed, it still stands, a loaded symbol: built on land once belonging to the Knights Templar, evocative of the Nazis' obsession with mysticism, a lasting emblem of Hitler's nightmarish vision.

Foreboding paintings capture the airport's desolate interior space and the exterior theatrical arc and neo-classical columns in a darkened landscape, with the forms etched into cracking paint accompanied by symbolic sculptural elements - dried-up sunflowers, sulphur loaded into a pram and tiny Stuka bombers.

Kiefer uses salt and lead, suggesting that art, like alchemy, alters base materials into valuable and enticing objects. But as Kiefer grapples with Tempelhof, he suggests that the weight of Nazi history resists transformation.

Until February 26 (020 7930 5373, whitecube.com)

Anselm Kiefer: Il Mistero Delle Catterdrali
White Cube
144 – 152 Bermondsey Street
SE1 3TQ