Isa Genzken
Models For Outdoor Projects
15 Jan - 17 Apr 2016
ISA GENZKEN
Models For Outdoor Projects
15 January - 17 April 2016
Isa Genzken, born in 1948, is one of the most important and most complex artists working in Germany today. A three-times documenta participant, the artist represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and took part in the 2015 Biennale. Isa Genzken is the recipient of numerous international prizes and awards.
«I do not want to take away space with my sculptures. I add space.» - Isa Genzken
In more than forty years of highly focused work, the artist has developed a unique artistic practice that is unmistakably her own, but that consistently defies easy classification. Spanning (almost) all media, her oeuvre is characterised by great complexity, variety and openness, not least in its use of consumer goods and industrial materials as tokens of contemporary reality. Her sculptural works and installations evolve into abstract, occasionally cerebral narratives.
Isa Genzkens’s works can be read as a distinctly contemporary take on the ideas of Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Pop Art and the readymade or objet trouvé. Central to her practice are the exploration of the definition of sculpture as well as the examination of her own position as an artist. Isa Genzken is an attentive, sensitive observer of structures and networks; she questions the deceptive, glitteringly mimetic functions of motifs and objects and is not afraid to hold a mirror up to viewer.
This exquisite exhibition at the Art and Exhibition Hall presents thirty-five models for outdoor projects – realised and non-realised – some of which were shown at All the World’s Futures, the central exhibition of the 2015 Venice Biennale. The display in Bonn, which has the look and feel of a mini retrospective of outdoor sculptures, is the first to complement this unusual group of works within the artist’s oeuvre with background information on the individual projects. A selection of photographs, plans, catalogues and archival material sheds fresh light the context of the projects.
Each of the outdoor projects was conceived in direct relation to the surrounding architecture, extant forms or the site as a kind of mirror reflection and/or complement or, alternatively, as an affectionate, occasionally humorous comment. Questions of perspective, proportion and position are always paramount. As models of an urban reality, Isa Genzken’s outdoor projects give visual expression to the artist’s reflections about spatial contexts.
Models For Outdoor Projects
15 January - 17 April 2016
Isa Genzken, born in 1948, is one of the most important and most complex artists working in Germany today. A three-times documenta participant, the artist represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and took part in the 2015 Biennale. Isa Genzken is the recipient of numerous international prizes and awards.
«I do not want to take away space with my sculptures. I add space.» - Isa Genzken
In more than forty years of highly focused work, the artist has developed a unique artistic practice that is unmistakably her own, but that consistently defies easy classification. Spanning (almost) all media, her oeuvre is characterised by great complexity, variety and openness, not least in its use of consumer goods and industrial materials as tokens of contemporary reality. Her sculptural works and installations evolve into abstract, occasionally cerebral narratives.
Isa Genzkens’s works can be read as a distinctly contemporary take on the ideas of Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Pop Art and the readymade or objet trouvé. Central to her practice are the exploration of the definition of sculpture as well as the examination of her own position as an artist. Isa Genzken is an attentive, sensitive observer of structures and networks; she questions the deceptive, glitteringly mimetic functions of motifs and objects and is not afraid to hold a mirror up to viewer.
This exquisite exhibition at the Art and Exhibition Hall presents thirty-five models for outdoor projects – realised and non-realised – some of which were shown at All the World’s Futures, the central exhibition of the 2015 Venice Biennale. The display in Bonn, which has the look and feel of a mini retrospective of outdoor sculptures, is the first to complement this unusual group of works within the artist’s oeuvre with background information on the individual projects. A selection of photographs, plans, catalogues and archival material sheds fresh light the context of the projects.
Each of the outdoor projects was conceived in direct relation to the surrounding architecture, extant forms or the site as a kind of mirror reflection and/or complement or, alternatively, as an affectionate, occasionally humorous comment. Questions of perspective, proportion and position are always paramount. As models of an urban reality, Isa Genzken’s outdoor projects give visual expression to the artist’s reflections about spatial contexts.