Frankfurt - Anselm Kiefer, a German sculptor who has been awarded the German Book Trade Peace Prize this year, on Friday called peace "an unachievable utopia."

Kiefer, 63, who lives has lived in France since 1993, is the first artist to be given the annual 25,000-euro (34,000-dollar) prize, which is usually given to book authors who promote international understanding.

Gottfried Honnefelder, chairman of the Boersenverein, the German book publishers' and book-sellers' association, said the award showed that artists were also in a sense writers.

He said Friday the prize rules allowed the award to anyone active in literature, scholarship or the arts.

The award is not to be handed to Kiefer until Sunday in Frankfurt on the final day of the city's book fair.

"There is no such thing as final peace," Kiefer told reporters. "Peace is a utopia, something that can never be achieved. It has to be created every day anew in our heads. It is a struggle."

Kiefer's anti-war art includes warplanes made of battered lead which are now exhibited in the Louisiana museum, one of Europe's top contemporary art galleries, north of the Danish capital Copenhagen.

The judges said in June they chose an artist for the prize because Kiefer's art portrays ruin and destruction and some of his installations include books.

Kiefer said Friday he wrote a diary daily and had nearly become a writer instead of an artist. (dpa)