Isa Genzken, Untitled (2018), via Art Observed

With a career spanning over four decades, German artist Isa Genzken has constantly worked along the shifting fault-lines of art and design, architecture and media, technology and the individual.  With a body of work that constantly seems to absorb and incorporate the physical materials in her close proximity, assembling them through a range of techniques and practices that flirt with any medium that may cross her mind, from sculpture, painting and collage, to drawing, film, and photography.  Deeply attuned to both the legacies of the twentieth-century avant-garde and the materials and forms of twenty-first-century global society, Genzken’s work interrogates the impact of our increasingly commodified and interconnected culture on our everyday lives.

Isa Genzken, Sky Energy (Installation View), via Art Observed (more…)

Isa Genzken, Untitled (2017), via Art Observed

For sheer conceptual punch and visual intensity, few works from the career of Isa Genzken carry in the way that her Schauspieler pieces manage.  Arrangements of various mannequins, from young children to adult bodies are arranged in the artist’s works from this series, each dressed in various fineries and strange arrays of various clothing. Work tools, ponchos, colorful fabrics and sunglasses adorn her figures, creating various scenes and scenarios that always keep the body and its relationship to the world around it in full view.  For her most recent show in Berlin, on view at König Galerie through the end of the weekend, Genzken has presented a selection of works from this series, continuing her razor-sharp investigation of the phenomena of modern reality. (more…)

Isa Genzken, Rose III (2016), via Art Observed

Giving considerable real estate in its Los Angeles complex to the works of German artist Isa Genzken, Hauser Wirth & Schimmel has embarked on a striking reflection on the artist’s personal history, her engagement and adoption of elements of the conceptual project embraced in Los Angeles during the late 20th Century, and the evolution of her craft over the past 40 years.

Isa Genzken, I Love Michael Asher (Installation View), via Art Observed

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Isa Genzken, Mach Dich hübsch! (Installation View), via Art Observed

Isa Genzken is one of Germany’s most notable contemporary artists. Born in 1948, her work spans sculpture, installation, film, photography, collage, and painting, and she has continued to drive the German arts community forward with an inventive approach to digital media and created computer-designed sculptures that dates to the 1970’s.  Drawing on influences of American minimalism and conceptual art, alongside pop art, Genzken’s ready-mades and mannequin-based works also enter into conversation with Dadaist and Surrealist influences. (more…)

   
Revolution in the Making (Installation View), all photographs courtesy Thisbe Gensler, via Art Observed

This past month has seen the much-anticipated opening of Hauser Wirth & Schimmel’s new gallery space in Los Angeles’ Arts District. The scale of the former flourmill—totaling over 100,000 square feet of exhibition spaces, book store, Printed Matter Lab, courtyard and garden, forthcoming restaurant, as well as offices—rivals the real estate of many museums, as do its curatorial aspirations.  Swiss couple Iwan and Manuela Wirth have partnered with former MOCA curator Paul Schimmel, a definitive fixture of Los Angeles art history and pioneering figure in its contemporary art scene. In his opening remarks during the press opening, Schimmel described his vision of the gallery as a community-driven, public-oriented space that would proffer a seamless urban experience for the creative downtown demographic, not only focused on changing the traditional relationship of the gallery to its public, but also between art and life.  In partnering with Hauser & Wirth, lauded for its museum-caliber exhibitions and dedication to scholarship and publications, Schimmel announced this new institution’s role in serving and revitalizing the arts of Los Angeles. (more…)

Isa Genzken, Nefertiti Sculpture (2015), via Art Observed

David Zwirner has opened the front door on its elusively large, hangar-style exhibition space on 19th street for a show of new sculptural work by Isa Genzken, continuing the artist’s ongoing interests in the intersections of fashion and sculpture, and an engagement with the  human form in a particularly explicit manner.  The show is the artist’s third with the gallery in 10 years. (more…)

Isa Genzken, Installation View (2012), courtesy Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth is currently showing Isa Genzken’s mixed media readymade assemblages, a variety of figural sculptures. Isa Genzken was born in 1948 and currently resides and works in Berlin. She was previously married to Gerhard Richter, with whom she has collaborated over the years. Genzken is a mixed media sculptor whose work draws on aspects of constructivism and minimalism, also taking inspiration from architecture. Her work is often compromised of media associated with building materials, used in conjunction with readymades.

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Sotheby’s staff preparing for the sale. Photos on site for Art Observed by Aubrey Roemer unless otherwise noted.

After Tuesday night’s multi-record breaking sale at Christie’s, last night’s Contemporary Evening Sale at Sotheby’s seemed to hold a somewhat lower energy, possibly a result of the second consecutive week of auctions and fairs wearing on the collectors. Yet the sale totaled $266 million—within Sotheby’s pre-sale estimate of $215–300 million—a number considerably higher than last May’s Contemporary Evening Sale total of $128 million. Seven of the artworks sold at more than $10 million, and there was an overall sell-through rate of 80.7%. In a post-sale press conference, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art, Alex Rotter, commented “the market is very healthy with active bidding.”

Tobias Meyer giving a press talk about the sale. (more…)

Installation shot. All images courtesy of Gallery Buchholz Berlin.

German artist Isa Genzken presents a new constellation of works Hallelujah at the Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin, Germany. Genzken works primarily in sculpture but is known to also employ other media such as film, photography, works on paper, and collage in her works. Her practice, known for drawing on the legacy of Minimalism, often involves a critical dialogue with Modernist architecture as well as contemporary culture.

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Installation image, all photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at the Palais de Toyko is Fresh Hell, a group exhibition curated by British-born New York-based artist Adam McEwen.  Shedding a bit of dark humor on the city of Paris, McEwen brings together medieval sculpture and conceptual work from artists long forgotten as well as contemporary artists, pondering just what sort of position and creative endeavors an artist can make in today’s world. The works deal with morbidity, decay, and notions of ‘the end,’ making Death the principle theme.

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Isa Genzken, Mona Isa III (Elefant), 2010. All images via Galerie Chantal Crousel

In her Mona Isa exhibit at the Chantal Crousel, Isa Genzken draws on iconic historical images and common modern objects to create a collection of works that bring a new relevance to both the monumental and the everyday. Taking from the concept of objective abstraction, even in her sculptures, Genzken’s work brings the surface meaning of an image or object into question.

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Picture Industry (Goodbye to All That), Installation view, Regen Projects II, Los Angeles. All images courtesy of Regen Projects.

Currently on view at Regen Projects, Los Angeles, is the group show Picture Industry (Goodbye to All That), curated by artist Walead Beshty. ‘Picture Industry’ refers both to the physical setting and the conceptual pretext within which the show is presented, with Los Angeles as the focus in terms of both place and content. Included in the exhibition are works by Tauba Auerbach, Thomas Barrow, Carol Bove, Troy Brauntuch, Tony Conrad, Abraham Cruzvillegas, De Rijke / De Rooij, Liz Deschenes, Isa Genzken, Wade Guyton, Robert Heinecken, Karen Kilimnik, Imi Knoebel, Michael Krebber, Glenn Ligon, Erlea Maneros Zabala, Albert Oehlen, Manfred Pernice, Seth Price, Richard Prince, Josephine Pryde, R.H. Quaytman, Eileen Quinlan, Miljohn Ruperto, Michael Snow, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Charline Von Heyl, Kelley Walker, James Welling, Christopher Williams & Christopher Wool.

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Isa Genzken’s Wind II (Michael Jackson) (2009)
plastic foil, colour prints on paper, mirror foil, spray paint, perspex, tape, metal
174 x 230 cm

Currently on view at Galerie Daniel Buchholz through January 30, and running concurrently with an exhibition at Gallery Neugerriemschneider also in Berlin, is a collection of new works by the German artist Isa Genzken (b. 1948). Displaying provocative sculptures and collages blending paper, metal, paint, fabric and ceramics, the exhibition is the artist’s ninth solo show at the gallery since 1987.

Installation view of Isa Genzken’s Wind (2009)

Embodying the artist’s idiomatic style of arranging chintzy, ready-made materials, Wind constitutes a series of textured, totemic structures replete with fanciful juxtapositions. While the sculptures exude playful irony in their myriad associations, the artist’s saturated approach also levels a more serious critique at our contemporary society fueled by excessive consumerist urges.

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Jeff Koons’s giant rabbit at the Covent Garden in London via Hypebeast

A giant helium-filled Jeff Koons balloon made its UK debut on October 8th, the inflatable rabbit floated above central London, it will be displayed in Covent garden [The Independent]
Coinciding with the Frieze fair, the 10th Turbine Hall commission launches, Baldessari’s retrospective opening the same day, Hayward Gallery presents Ed Ruscha, Turner Prize coming up and many other shows and openings, turn London into the center of attention [Guardian UK]
Frieze art fair excites not merely the International art scene, but also the social diaries of those who like to mingle with the rich and famous [Guardian UK] the contemporary art event even has installations to turn its visitors into the subjects of the artwork. [The Independent] Only displaying works by contemporary living artists, Frieze has been considered 1-dimensional in the past. Frieze helps London take over the art world in October [The Independent]- but not without competition, as FIAC, the Parisian fair, is to begin next week and may steal the battle as art collectors in today’s economic climate are forced to pick which fairs they will be attending [The Wall Street Journal]

Unrecognized work by Leonardo Da Vinci via Antiques Trade Gazette

A drawing sold at auction for $19,000 in the late 1990s is now attracting attention for its authorship, if by Leonardo Da Vinci, a theory that recent research strongly suggests, the work could be worth as much as $147 million [Bloomberg]
The Wapping Project in London, often compared to Tate Modern, is expanding with the opening of the Wapping Project Bankside- a new gallery reminiscent of a New York loft to feature film, video and photography almost “a stone’s throw” from Tate [The Moment]
The Whitney Museum of American Art’s plans for a second Renzo Piana location have advanced [The New York Times]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week … (more…)

Detail from Isa Genzken’s “Kinder filmen III” (2005), part of “Sesam, öffne dich!” currently showing at Museum Ludwig.

Isa Genzken’s “Sesam, öffne dich!” moves to Museum Ludwig from a show at Whitechapel Gallery which drew over 50,000 visitors. The exhibition features Genzken’s mixed media pieces from as early as 1970, spanning thirty years of her unique fusion of paint, photography, found art, and architectural installation. Co-curated by Kasper König and Nina Gülicher, “Sesam, öffne dich!” closes at Museum Ludwig on November 15.

Further detail from Isa Genzken’s “Kinder filmen III” (2005), at Museum Ludwig.

Related links:
Museum Ludwig – Exhibitions
Isa Genzken – Open Sesame! [Whitechapel Gallery]
Isa Genzken [Re-title]

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