On the occasion of Anselm Kiefer’s recent survey at the Saint Louis Art Museum and site-specific installation of monumental paintings in the museum’s 1904 Cass Gilbert-designed grand hall, Michael Auping visited the museum and spoke to Kiefer about the artist's history with the St. Louis museum, the significance of the Rhine river to his oeuvre, and what it means to be an artist “exploring his context and time.”

On the occasion of Bruce Nauman’s exhibition, Begin Again, the artist spoke with Michael Auping about his new work. Apropos the show’s title, their conversation covered not only the present, but aspects of the artist’s early life and career. Along the way, details and connections enlighten how art and life are intimately woven together in Nauman’s process. His feelings about Rothenberg’s passing are also touched on in a discussion of a series of unusual drawings he made after her death. All in all, it is a wide-ranging and unusually personal interview with the artist.

It’s easy to think of Richard Serra as a hard-ass with a good education, pushing his radical and strident ideas forward, using an industrial material that weighed tons. A cross between Brancusi and a longshoreman. However, if you were fortunate, or knew him long enough, you could get glimpses of his soft side.