Following the recent discussion of excavation in Archaeological dialogues (18(1)), Rodney Harrison's questioning of the viability of excavation and depth as viable tropes for conceptualizing and communicating archaeology's epistemological processes is both timely and pertinent. Beginning where Harrison finished, his use of Anselm Kiefer's artistic work as a ‘framing’ device, brings me to some intriguing critical trajectories for understanding archaeology's modern condition and the possibilities for it at this moment through deeper engagements with contemporary art, and visual and material gesture and culture.