ART-PRESENTATION:Isa Genzken-Make Yourself Pretty!
Isa’s Genzken influential work is characterized by radical innovation and includes works in almost every conceivable medium. Its foundations are in sculpture, but over time Genzken has explored an increasingly broad artistic terrain. In the past 40 years, she has produced series of works in a variety of media and modes: architectural models, photographs, paintings, collages, drawings, installations, films, and artist’s books. Her works vary in appearance from extremely sober to exuberant, but always have strong personal touch.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin Archive
The exhibition “Make Yourself Pretty!” presents in Berlin for the first time the broad spectrum of Isa’s Genzken work, from her early films, drawings, ellipsoids and concrete sculptures to complex narrative collages and everyday items integrated into montages. The presentation highlights topics such as modernity, the human body, portraits, city culture and architecture. As an artist, Isa Genzken is prepared to risk it all in her quest for artistic regeneration. In her radical manner she develops diverse works, which are concerned with the topic of beauty in the sense of the essential and absolute. Based on the category of sculpture, her work distinguishes itself through constantly further developing imagery and unlimited use of media and materials. In the ‘70s, she produced sculptures designed on the computer, and thereby referred back to American Minimalism and Conceptual Art. In the long, elegantly slender wooden sculptures, so-called “ellipsoids” and “hyperbolos”, one radical step followed another, sculptures made from bare plaster or concrete, collage books, complex narrative assemblages of industrially produced materials and everyday items, various film formats, photography, paintings, architectural models and outdoor sculptures. She describes her way of working with two quotes: “I like to put things together that were previously unconnected. This connection is like a handshake between people”. And: “I love being daring”. Her art is playful and sometimes brightly-coloured but anything other than superficial. With her feel for materials and their arrangements she creates pieces that make you think. Her power of innovation and her ideas are rich in autobiographical elements and subtle comments on society, and they serve as a point of reference and source of inspiration for generations of artists.
Info: Curators: Beatrix Ruf & Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, Berlin, Duration: 9/4-26/6/16, Days & Hours: Wed-Mod 10:00-19:00, www.gropiusbau.de
