ADDRESSING big themes in big ways, the German artist and sculptor Anselm Kiefer is an extraordinarily prolific and creative artist. 

Combining texts and photographic and painted images into massive multimedia and layered works, at their most powerful his output comes across more like visceral happenings than paintings.Kiefer’s preoccupations range through history, identity and memory and routinely reference epic mythology, poetry, philosophy and religion.

Such weighty and complex themes tend to result in huge paintings and installations, evidenced a few years ago in an excellent show of his work at the Baltic in Gateshead, which has the wall and floor space for such monumental art. Unfortunately, Tullie House hasn’t.

There is only one small gallery with a relatively low ceiling, so only two large paintings in the exhibition, Palette and The Norns (pictured right), hint at what the artist is capable of.

The other works are small and minor and in some cases too rooted in particular cultural contexts or overburdened with symbolism to mean much to the average gallery-goer today who may not have the background knowledge to decode them. 

An example is the series of photographs of Kiefer making illegal nazi salutes in late 1960s Germany — a punkish attempt to prick some consciences and stimulate a sense of collective guilt.

It’s reminiscent of Andy Warhol and stirred controversy in Germany at the time but is no longer of great artistic or political interest. 

The exhibition is part of an Arts Council initiative to improve access to modern art by showing internationally famous artists in smaller venues across the country and there are plans for exhibitions by Damien Hirst in Orkney, Robert Mapplethorpe in Aberystwyth, Jeff Koons in Norwich and Gerhard Richter in Plymouth. 

A laudable objective, as is the associated project of daily tours for young people.

The aim is to  encourage them to freely respond to the artworks, rather than receiving lectures on what they might mean.Yet most of the artworks in this exhibition are too small and too few in number to attract and engage the viewer.

To compound matters, they are a long way off exemplifying Kiefer’s best work.Runs until June 7, box office: tulliehouse.co.uk