One part, in the Goodman's north gallery, radically recycles nearly 300 of Mr. Kiefer's paintings, prints, drawings and photographic works from the past two decades. These have been stacked into a bedraggled pyramid that climbs from floor to ceiling, festooned with uprooted sunflowers and other plants, dusted with dirt and wedged with big clods clay (the organic matter being from Buchen).

A sandwiched-together retrospective, this conglomeration appears to include many ghosts of Kiefers past: unfamiliar early work, straw paintings, woodblock prints rolled up like carpets ready for the dustbin, lead-covered canvases as well as the plain shirtlike dresses featured in the artist's "Lilith" series from his 1990 exhibition at Goodman. It resembles the aftermath of a performance piece -- which it is, having originated in a spontaneous "action" as the artist was clearing out his Buchen studio. It also suggests the prelude to a bonfire, a funeral pyre marking the end of one phase and the beginning of another -- which it also is, in a way. Despite rumors that Mr. Kiefer would be burning paintings at his opening or, alternatively, at the dinner, "20 Years of Loneliness" is for sale, although the gallery said its price has not been yet been set. Clearly the figure will be considerably less than the total value of the artworks used in the piece, some of which are finished, exhibited works.

In the work's second part, on view in the Goodman south gallery, gritty earth tones and actual earth are replaced by pristine Communion white-on-white, perhaps symbolic of a kind of rebirth or resurrection. Here are two white wood tables piled with chaotically stacked, chunky handmade books, some open, some closed, their pages mostly blank and spattered with small yellowish stains. The books are unfinished versions of the kind that the artist used to fill with murky landscape photographs coated with sand; the stains, the gallery staff says, are the artist's semen. Among the handmade books are several large accountants' ledgers, similarly stained.

"20 Years of Loneliness" reminds one that Mr. Kiefer began his career as a performance and Conceptual artist: one of his early pieces consisted of photographs of the artist executing the Nazi salute in different European capitals. Like other works of Conceptual Art, this latest Kiefer is finally more interesting to think about than to look at, and meanings radiate in several directions, along lines both comedic and serious.

From one vantage point the piece reads like a giant Drop Dead to the 80's, its booming art market and its many Kiefer-worshipping collectors (although there were plenty of the last at the dinner). Loneliness? Why not "20 Years of Rising Prices"? The work also seems like a desperate play for attention, given the fact that in recent years Mr. Kiefer's critical stock has dropped considerably.