On September 11, 2001, German artist Anselm Kiefer was in Vienna where his second wife was giving birth to their son. He was in a taxi when he heard what had happened in New York. He couldn't believe the news: 'I thought it was science fiction.'
The odd thing about this - pretty much universal - response is that if there's one person who might be expected to have shrugged it off, it's Kiefer. After all, he's spent a lifetime working on the ash-and-dust theme of fallen societies. A few years ago, when filmmaker Sophie Fiennes (sister of actors Ralph and Joseph) made a documentary on him, it was titled Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow. The inevitable decline of empires is both his chosen subject and his constant prediction; and, in the 1980s, he'd painted a plane flying into a skyscraper.
'Yes, yes,' he says, excitedly, one recent morning in Hong Kong, when reminded of it. 'When you see the twin towers, you feel it was demanding a horizontal.' A strange comment, of which more later. Perhaps he feels the same about Hong Kong's buildings? 'Over Hong Kong will grow grass, that is clear,' he replies, eyes gleaming behind his glasses at the prospect.
There's certainly a touch of the mad monk about Kiefer, if monks were allowed to marry (twice) and have five children.
For this interview, he's sitting - intermittently, as he's not keen on discussing his work and prefers wandering about, humming - in an upstairs room at White Cube, which is presenting his first exhibition in China. As Kiefer has insisted the lights be switched off and it's pouring outside, the ambience is gloomy but pleasantly intimate. Some of his work is on the walls, however, which means a third party is looming large over the conversation: Chairman Mao.
'I'm still fascinated by China,' Kiefer explains. 'The first time I went was in 1993, for three months. When I was asked to do a show in Hong Kong, I was re-activating the mystery of Mao.'