Isa Genzken
Encyclopedia
Isa Genzken is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Berlin
.
from 1971–1973, and Arts Academy Düsseldorf
http://www.kunstakademie-duesseldorf.de from 1973-1977. Genzken married German visual artist Gerhard Richter
in 1982. They separated in 1995, and divorced in 2003.
and Minimalism
and often involves a critical, open dialogue with Modernist architecture and contemporary visual and material culture. Using plaster, cement, building samples, photographs, and bric-a-brac, Genzken creates architectonic structures that have been described as contemporary ruins. She further incorporates mirrors and other reflective surfaces to literally draw the viewer into her work. The column is a recurring motif for Genzken, a “pure” architectural trope on which to explore relationships between “high art” and the mass-produced products of popular culture.
Between 1986 and 1992 Genzken conceived her series plaster and concrete sculptures to investigate architecture. In 2000, a series of rather roughly patched together architectural models were inscribed with Fuck the Bauhaus. Later, in the series New Buildings for Berlin, which was shown at Documenta
11, Genzken designs architectural visions of glass high-rises.
The project entitled Der Spiegel 1989-1991, is a series of deceptively simple images comprising of 121 reproductions of black & white photographs selected and cut from the influential German newsweekly Der Spiegel
. Presented in a non-sequential but methodical manner, each image is glued against a piece of white card and individually mounted in a simple frame. Whilst the images themselves remain caption-less, the dates in the series' titles offer clues about the artist's intentions.
One of Genzken's best known works, Rose (1993/7), is a public sculpture of a single long-stemmed rose made from enamelled stainless steel that towers eight metres above Leipzig
’s museum district. The artist's first public artwork in the United States, her replica Rose II (2007) was installed outside the New Museum as part of a year long rotating installation in November 2010.
Genzken has also produced numerous films, including Zwei Frauen im Gefecht, 1974, Chicago Drive, 1992, Meine Großeltern im Bayerischen Wald, 1992, and the video Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death, 2003.
Since the end of the second half of the 1990s, Genzken has been conceptualizing sculptures and panel paintings in the shape of a bricolage of materials taken from DIY stores
and from photographs and newspaper clippings. She often uses materials that underline the temporary character of her works. As part of her deep-set interest in urban space, she also arranges complex, and often disquieting, installations with mannequins, dolls, photographs, and an array of found objects. New Buildings for New York are assembled from found scraps of plastic, metal and pizza-box cardboard. The assemblages from the Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death series, originally comprising more than twenty sculptures that were created following the attacks of September 11, are combinations of found objects – action figures, plastic vessels, and various elements of consumer detritus – arranged on pedestals in architecturally inspired, post-destruction scenes. Elefant (2006) is a column of cascading vertical blinds festooned with plastic tubes, foil, artificial flowers, fabric and some tiny toy soldiers and Indians. For her installation Oil, the artist transformed the German Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale
into a futuristic and morbid Gesamtkunstwerk
.
in 2007. In 2003, she had already participated in the Venice Biennale and, in 2002, Documenta
11 in Kassel, Germany. She was the subject of a major retrospective in 2009, jointly organized by the Museum Ludwig
, Cologne and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Other solo exhibitions in the past decade include Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2008); the Camden Arts Centre
, London (2006); the Photographers' Gallery
, London (2005); the Kunsthalle Zürich
(2003); and the Lenbachhaus
, Munich (2003). Artist Dan Graham
included Genzken's work in his "Deep Comedy" show at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, in 2008. Her recent shows included collaborative work with Kai Althoff
and Wolfgang Tillmans
, in whose exhibition space "Between Bridges" she exhibited in 2008. She is the subject of Elizabeth Peyton
's painting Isa (Isa Genzken 1980) (2010).
Genzken is represented by David Zwirner
, New York; Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne http://www.galeriebuchholz.de/; Chantal Crousel, Paris; and Hauser & Wirth, London.
, Cologne) in 2002.
, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art
, Pittsburgh; the Generali Foundation
, Vienna; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
, Washington, D.C.; the Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis; the Museum Ludwig
, Cologne; the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden; and the Van Abbemuseum
, Eindhoven.
Isa spending time in New York on September 2005 (photo at right).
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Education
Genzken studied fine arts and art history at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts from 1969–1971, the Berlin University of the ArtsBerlin University of the Arts
The Universität der Künste Berlin, UdK is a public art school in Berlin, Germany, one of the four universities in the city...
from 1971–1973, and Arts Academy Düsseldorf
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, formerly Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, is the Arts Academy of the city of Düsseldorf. It is well known for having produced many famous artists, such as Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Thomas Demand, and Andreas Gursky...
http://www.kunstakademie-duesseldorf.de from 1973-1977. Genzken married German visual artist Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter
Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist. Richter has simultaneously produced abstract and photorealistic painted works, as well as photographs and glass pieces, thus undermining the concept of the artist’s obligation to maintain a single cohesive style.- Biography :Gerhard Richter was born in...
in 1982. They separated in 1995, and divorced in 2003.
Work
Although Isa Genzken's primary focus is sculpture, she uses various media including photography, film, video, works on paper and canvas, collages, and books. Her diverse practice draws on the legacies of ConstructivismConstructivism
Constructivism may refer to:* Constructivist epistemology, the philosophical view* Constructivism in international relations* Constructivism , a philosophical view on mathematical proofs and existence of mathematical objects...
and Minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and often involves a critical, open dialogue with Modernist architecture and contemporary visual and material culture. Using plaster, cement, building samples, photographs, and bric-a-brac, Genzken creates architectonic structures that have been described as contemporary ruins. She further incorporates mirrors and other reflective surfaces to literally draw the viewer into her work. The column is a recurring motif for Genzken, a “pure” architectural trope on which to explore relationships between “high art” and the mass-produced products of popular culture.
Between 1986 and 1992 Genzken conceived her series plaster and concrete sculptures to investigate architecture. In 2000, a series of rather roughly patched together architectural models were inscribed with Fuck the Bauhaus. Later, in the series New Buildings for Berlin, which was shown at Documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
11, Genzken designs architectural visions of glass high-rises.
The project entitled Der Spiegel 1989-1991, is a series of deceptively simple images comprising of 121 reproductions of black & white photographs selected and cut from the influential German newsweekly Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
. Presented in a non-sequential but methodical manner, each image is glued against a piece of white card and individually mounted in a simple frame. Whilst the images themselves remain caption-less, the dates in the series' titles offer clues about the artist's intentions.
One of Genzken's best known works, Rose (1993/7), is a public sculpture of a single long-stemmed rose made from enamelled stainless steel that towers eight metres above Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
’s museum district. The artist's first public artwork in the United States, her replica Rose II (2007) was installed outside the New Museum as part of a year long rotating installation in November 2010.
Genzken has also produced numerous films, including Zwei Frauen im Gefecht, 1974, Chicago Drive, 1992, Meine Großeltern im Bayerischen Wald, 1992, and the video Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death, 2003.
Since the end of the second half of the 1990s, Genzken has been conceptualizing sculptures and panel paintings in the shape of a bricolage of materials taken from DIY stores
Do it yourself
Do it yourself is a term used to describe building, modifying, or repairing of something without the aid of experts or professionals...
and from photographs and newspaper clippings. She often uses materials that underline the temporary character of her works. As part of her deep-set interest in urban space, she also arranges complex, and often disquieting, installations with mannequins, dolls, photographs, and an array of found objects. New Buildings for New York are assembled from found scraps of plastic, metal and pizza-box cardboard. The assemblages from the Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death series, originally comprising more than twenty sculptures that were created following the attacks of September 11, are combinations of found objects – action figures, plastic vessels, and various elements of consumer detritus – arranged on pedestals in architecturally inspired, post-destruction scenes. Elefant (2006) is a column of cascading vertical blinds festooned with plastic tubes, foil, artificial flowers, fabric and some tiny toy soldiers and Indians. For her installation Oil, the artist transformed the German Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
into a futuristic and morbid Gesamtkunstwerk
Gesamtkunstwerk
A Gesamtkunstwerk is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms or strives to do so...
.
Exhibitions
Genzken’s first solo exhibition was held in 1976 at the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf, and her first solo show in the U.S. was mounted by Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, in 1989. Genzken represented Germany at the Venice BiennaleVenice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
in 2007. In 2003, she had already participated in the Venice Biennale and, in 2002, Documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
11 in Kassel, Germany. She was the subject of a major retrospective in 2009, jointly organized by the Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein....
, Cologne and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Other solo exhibitions in the past decade include Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2008); the Camden Arts Centre
Camden Arts Centre
Camden Arts Centre is a contemporary visual art gallery, dedicated to engaging living artists from across the world. Positioning the artist at the centre of the programme, Camden Arts Centre strives to involve the public in the ideas and work of today's artists.The exhibition and education...
, London (2006); the Photographers' Gallery
Photographers' Gallery
The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London in 1971, and was the first independent gallery in Britain that was devoted entirely to photography. Exhibitions in the gallery have included showcases of work by André Kertész, Danny Treacy, Taryn Simon, Ori Gersht, Cuny Janssen, and David King. The...
, London (2005); the Kunsthalle Zürich
Kunsthalle Zürich
The Kunsthalle Zürich is a contemporary art exhibition centre in Zurich, Switzerland. It is located on Limmatstrasse, near the city centre. The current director is Beatrix Ruf.A number of temporary exhibitions are organized each year...
(2003); and the Lenbachhaus
Lenbachhaus
The Lenbachhaus in Munich houses an art museum and is part of Munich's "Kunstareal" .- The building :The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter Franz von Lenbach between 1887 and 1891 by Gabriel von Seidl...
, Munich (2003). Artist Dan Graham
Dan Graham
Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....
included Genzken's work in his "Deep Comedy" show at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, in 2008. Her recent shows included collaborative work with Kai Althoff
Kai Althoff
- Life and work :Kai Althoff was born in Cologne, Germany. He is a multimedia artist and a painter.He has shown work in exhibitions including the 2004 Venice Biennale, Drawing Now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Chère Paintre, Liebe Maler, Dear Painter at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and A...
and Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans is a German Fine-art photographer and artist. His comprehensive and diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer and also the first...
, in whose exhibition space "Between Bridges" she exhibited in 2008. She is the subject of Elizabeth Peyton
Elizabeth Peyton
Elizabeth Joy Peyton is an American painter who rose to popularity in the mid-1990s. She is a contemporary artist best known for stylized and idealized portraits of her close friends and boyfriends, pop celebrities, and European monarchy...
's painting Isa (Isa Genzken 1980) (2010).
Genzken is represented by David Zwirner
David Zwirner
David Zwirner is a gallerist and art dealer and owner of the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City. In 2010 Zwirner was listed at number four in the ArtReview annual "Power 100" list.-Early Life:...
, New York; Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne http://www.galeriebuchholz.de/; Chantal Crousel, Paris; and Hauser & Wirth, London.
Recognition
The artist won the International Art Prize (Cultural Donation of SSK Munich) in 2004 and the Wolfgang-Hahn-Prize http://www.wolfgang-hahn-preis.d (Museum LudwigMuseum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein....
, Cologne) in 2002.
Collections
Genzken's work is included in the collections of many institutions internationally, including the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, located in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is an art museum founded in 1895 by the Pittsburgh-based industrialist Andrew Carnegie...
, Pittsburgh; the Generali Foundation
Generali Foundation
The Generali Foundation was established in 1988 by the Generali Group Austria as a private and non-profit-making art association for the promotion of contemporary art...
, Vienna; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the...
, Washington, D.C.; the Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis; the Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig
Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from PopArt, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein....
, Cologne; the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden; and the Van Abbemuseum
Van Abbemuseum
Van Abbemuseum is a museum of modern and contemporary art located in central Eindhoven, Netherlands, on the east bank of the Dommel river. Established in 1936, the Abbe Museum is named after its founder, Abbe Henri. Abbe was a lover of modern art and wanted to enjoy it there from Eindhoven...
, Eindhoven.
Isa spending time in New York on September 2005 (photo at right).