Art by Isa Genzken: Well-encoded messages from the heart of art

Isa Genzken has been practicing art since 1969 and has worked as a professional artist since 1977 – that's nearly 50 years of artistic creation, five decades, half a century. Since her early beginnings, she has never allowed herself to be restricted in her diversity and thirst for discovery.

Thus, over this half-century, a diverse and complex body of Genzken art has emerged; sculptures and installations, films and photographic art, paintings, works on paper and artist's books in the unique Genzken style.

This style has undergone some development over these 50 years. Art historians see Genzken's early works as primarily influenced by Minimalism and Conceptual Art ; however, even in his early days, Genzken refused to be confined to a single concept, but resolutely maintained the freedom to develop further, both within a single work and overall.

Genzken does not make art for art's sake , but art for and from life; therefore, the use of different materials and objects is characteristic of her work.

Wood and plaster, epoxy resin and concrete and many other “art” materials, everyday objects and consumer goods, clothes and busts and toys and much more are processed using almost every conceivable technique, often until a work that is unfathomable at first glance is created:

The unfathomable diversity in the work and creations of Isa Genzken

In 1973, Genzken produced serial, geometric images such as “The form develops from the fact that each of the five colors touches every other color” and completed an artist's book with Berlin architectural and street scenes in silver gelatin print.

She also performed “Two Exercises” at the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf, but not as a performance, because according to Bruce Nauman’s instructions for mental exercises (whom Genzken had met previously) no audience was allowed to be present.

In May 1974, a stage performance entitled “Two Women in Combat” followed, performed during the opening of the exhibition RABE by Lothar Baumgarten and Michael Oppitz at the Konrad Fischer Gallery. In 1975, Genzken worked on parallelograms and ellipsoids, a series of slender, wall-leaning wooden sculptures and parallelogram paintings for her first solo exhibition at the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf, which was only completed in 1976.

In 1977, further ellipsoids were created in the hall of the Düsseldorf Art Academy because the figures had become too large for Genzken's studio at the academy. A teaching position at the academy enabled Genzken to travel to New York and Los Angeles, where she met the artists Dan Graham, Lawrence Weiner, Michael Asher , and the musician Kim Gordon (later lead guitarist of "Sonic Youth").

The award of the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Scholarship freed Genzken from any worries about her personal livelihood for two years in 1978 and gave her the time to continue working on her ellipsoids in peace.

In 1979, Genzken produced her first Hyperbolo (Grey-green Hyperbolo 'Jülich'), photographed Hi-Fi equipment and cars for advertisements, as well as a colorful series of shop windows of “dry goods stores and music shops” during a New York trip, and moved in with Gerhard Richter .

In 1980, Genzken traveled to New York to photograph the ears of female passersby. In Germany, she received a commission with Richter for a joint in-situ artwork for the König-Heinrich-Platz subway station in Duisburg (which, due to construction delays, would not be completed for another twelve years; Berlin Airport and Stuttgart Station thus have worthy predecessors).

Since Genzken received an art prize in 1980 along with a scholarship from the Berlin Academy of Arts, she was able to continue her work on ellipsoids and hyperbolos.

In 1981, a collaboration with the aerospace company Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm led to the production of the “Grey-Black Hyperbolos MBB” . It is the only work in the series of ellipsoids and hyperbolos made of epoxy resin, and is approximately 10 meters long.

In addition, she continued her work on wooden ellipsoids and hyperbolos and photographed rock bands performing in nightclubs during a visit to New York. In 1982, Genzken further developed the ellipsoids, for example, into the “Red-Yellow-Black Double Ellipsoid Twin” : mo.ma/2qwEZDB (photo from 1982, taken in Genzken's studio in Düsseldorf).

The expansion of the ellipsoids reaches a preliminary climax in the 28-meter-long “red-gray open ellipsoid” . While the exhibition belonging to the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff scholarship is running at the Institut Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, Genzken travels to Paris to attend the opening of the exhibition “Art Allemagne Aujourd’hui” at the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris.

Like many other contemporary German artists whose names today evoke a rapturous look on the faces of art lovers. In this globally acclaimed overview of contemporary German art, the swimming pool-length ellipsoid is exhibited alongside Raoul Dufy's mural "La Fée Electricité" (1937), and Isa Genzken , in illustrious company, conquers Paris: mo.ma/2qxUaMX next to Joseph Beuys.

In June 1982, Genzken married Gerhard Richter, created the first vertical hyperbolo called “Rossi” and developed her only readymade, the “Weltempfänger”.

During the 40th Venice Biennale in the summer of 1982, Genzken exhibited ellipsoids, hyperbolos and a series of ear photographs as part of Aperto 82 (a part of the event organized by Tommaso Trini).

Her works will be installed in a former shipyard (the Cantieri Navali) on the Giudecca island group south of Venice. At documenta 7 in Kassel, four of Genzken's ellipsoids, installed at the main documenta venue (the Museum Fridericianum), will be exhibited simultaneously.

In 1983, Genzken began modeling sculptures from clay, including in the plaster workshop of the Düsseldorf Academy, mo.ma/2F8vCgQ (the image shows Genzken working on the “Rhine Bridge” in her Düsseldorf studio). At the end of 1983, Genzken moved to Cologne together with Gerhard Richter.

In 1984, Genzken continued working in the plaster workshop of the Düsseldorf Academy, e.g. on first plaster sculptures such as “My Brain” , and experimented with cast sculptures such as “Garbage Mountain” (plaster is poured over arranged objects, which are removed after the plaster has hardened; the finished plaster sculptures are then sometimes decorated with miniature objects or photos of people to illustrate the scale and a possible architectural function).

In addition, Genzken travels to New York for the exhibition “An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture” (works by 165 artists from 17 nations at MoMA), where she meets the Cologne art dealer Daniel Buchholz , who would become her lifelong gallerist and friend (while in the artist's marriage things are already falling apart in a media-effective way, Genzken and Richter separate for the first time in 1984).

In 1985, Genzken ventured into architectural territory with his plaster sculptures, or rather, named the not-so-huge sculptures as such; following architectural elements like the “Bank” ( mo.ma/2COl0WT ), concrete sculptures of building types, rooms, churches, and facades soon followed (Gallery, mo.ma/2qxc9Dg, Pink Room, mo.ma/2CK2FJt , both 1987).

The concrete sculptures were completed in terms of form and size in a work commissioned by the public for the Skulptur Projekte Münster 1987: “ABC” , an intentionally meaningless gateway made of two house-high reinforced concrete squares, on which Genzken mounted two even more functionless window-like steel frames.

ABC was installed on the grounds of the University of Münster; the artist had integrated the large sculpture into the university library complex in such a way that it seemed to belong there. If it remained unclear whether ABC was intended to beautify wartime remnants or was a harbinger of future expansions, that was probably precisely the artist's intention – a “typical Genzken” .

Art historians consider ABC to be one of the most unforgettable sculptures in public space created in the second half of the 20th century; unfortunately, the staff of the University of Münster saw things differently and ensured the destruction of the enigmatic sculpture in 1989.

But Isa Genzken was probably too busy to be annoyed; in 1987 she also had her first institutional presentation in New York ( “Juxtapositions” ) and the first exhibition with her future gallery Daniel Buchholz in Cologne ( “Weltempfänger” ).

In 1988, the often consistently thorough Genzken devoted herself to “basic research” ; in addition to paintings of her studio floor, which was applied to the canvas using frottage technique with oil, she also returned to the window theme already addressed in ABC with the “Large Window” (a custom-made glass window that leans against another window) (which would occupy her until the windows became the exhibition theme in “Everyone Needs at Least One Window” a little later), created several proposals for public sculptures and continued working on her architectural concrete sculptures.

In October 1988, Genzken embarked on her first museum tour with seventy works; in parallel, in 1989, Genzken turned her basic research inwards to the artist's head, whose X-ray images were photographed and processed into black-and-white X-ray images, and she also began to collect images from the news magazine Spiegel.

In 1990, Genzken created concrete windows and other concrete objects , and began painting on aluminum with synthetic polymer paint. He also installed the Window to the World (a large metal frame called “Camera”) on the roof terrace of the Meert-Rihoux Gallery in Brussels and accepted a one-year visiting professorship in sculpture at the Berlin University of the Arts.

In 1991, further white-on-black X-ray images followed; “Spiegel I” with 121 framed photos from the magazine was completed; the three-part sculpture “Family” was created (among other things, from transparent epoxy resin on a metal grid structure, the basis for many works until the mid-1990s); Genzken constructed a model for a Holocaust memorial in Boston for a competition; created the concept for the public project “Clothesline for Frankfurt” (between two bank buildings in downtown Frankfurt, unrealized) and took on a one-year teaching position for sculpture at the Städelschule in Frankfurt.

In addition, she exhibits concrete sculptures at an exhibition of the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff scholarship recipients at the Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and, as part of the “Crossroads” project of the Art Gallery of York University (6 artists are invited to create site-specific sculptures), “Two Lines” (between three dormitories) on the university campus in Toronto in the autumn of 1991.

“Chicago Drive” in Chicago (during her stay for the installation of her midcareer retrospective “Everyone needs at least one window” at the Renaissance Society) painted MLR paintings (presented in March 1992 at the Daniel Buchholz Gallery), and cast concrete cubes inspired by Chicago's architecture.

She continues her work with epoxy resin; sends the exhibits “Window” , “X” , 4 X-ray images and an MLR painting to documenta 9; installs the “Mirror” “My Grandparents in the Bavarian Forest” at her grandparents’ house .

In 1993, Genzken first collaborated with the artist Wolfgang Tillmans , resulting in the photo series “Atelier” (which, however, was created in Cologne Cathedral: bit.ly/2CDF0at ), designed her first cast rose sculpture after being commissioned to create a public sculpture by publisher and art collector Frieder Burda, and parted ways with Gerhard Richter.

At the 45th Venice Biennale, a large, two-part epoxy sculpture, which Genzken had created specifically for the exhibition, is being shown.

In 1994, Genzken experimented with kinetic works, “Hoods” , “Red-Blue Column” and “Red-Green Column” , made lamp paintings followed by lamp sculptures “Heads in Aspic” (for which she cast various plaster sculptures in epoxy resin and mounted them on metal posts) until the date of her divorce from Richter

Her new works will be exhibited at the Daniel Buchholz Gallery in Cologne; at the beginning of winter, Genzken will travel to New York and photograph architecture and cityscapes of the mega-city until February 1995.

In 1996, Genzken moved from Cologne to Berlin, rented a studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, where she completed the three bound collage books “I Love New York, Crazy City” and added the collage series “Love as a Being” from clippings from pornographic magazines.

Both works premiered in the exhibition “MetLife. Isa Genzken” at the Generali Foundation in Vienna from September 1996; a total of more than forty works in various media were shown. In 1997, Genzken created her first sculptures in assemblage technique, “Gay Babies,” from new, largely useless household items; for the Skulptur Projekte Münster 97, Genzken’s sculpture “Full Moon” installed on the banks of the Aasee lake in the city center.

In 1998, Genzken created “ Columns” sometimes named after friends, produced a series of collage objects from his own clothes, and printed the photo series “New York, New York, NY.” “Der Spiegel I” in Berlin .

The year 1999 passed similarly, and in 2000 Genzken moved into her studio in Berlin's Charlottenburg district, which she still uses today. In this studio, one of those spacious old Berlin buildings nestled between a factory, an office, and a residential building, Genzken finally found her window with a wide view: across the Berlin city motorway, she could see the greenery of a 12-hectare listed cemetery and an allotment garden area roughly five times its size, which, with advancing climate change, has a good chance of being preserved as a much-needed cooling surface.

Above all, the studio is located very close to the plaster casting workshop of the Berlin State Museums, so Genzken can "around the corner" or commission them as special orders and integrate them into her work.

In her new studio, Genzken continues her work on the “Columns”, spends a month in New York in the fall, where she prepares her exhibition in the AC Project Room in a rented studio near Wall Street (several architectural models such as “Deutsche Bank Proposal”, which also tell of previous stays in New York) and develops a design proposal for an inner-city bridge for a competition of the city of Berlin with the architect Roger Bundschuh.

The musical notes on the balustrade, which magically compose the song “Das ist die Berliner Luft” , were unfortunately withheld from Berlin's city center, but Genzken will incorporate them into a series of wall sculptures entitled “Notes” .

That was a brief and more than incomplete overview of the topics Isa Genzken explored up to the turn of the millennium . A few more years remain to be discovered; between 2000 and today, Isa Genzken has not only worked prolifically, but has created “long series of her best works”...

With her entire body of work, which perfectly follows the changes of life, Isa Genzken has set standards that only highly gifted artists with a tremendous feel for the spirit of the times can achieve.

Keywords: Artistic expression, The free style of independent artists, Art and reality, Isa Genzken sets standards