Rosemarie Trockel, Copy Me (2013), via Gladstone Gallery
On view at Gladstone Gallery in New York is an exhibition of new work by German artist Rosemarie Trockel, featuring a series of wool paintings and wall sculptures, as well as ceramics, drawings, videos and collages, alluding to the short but dense history of twentieth century abstraction and conceptualism.
Rosemarie Trockel (Installation View), via Gladstone Gallery
Born in 1952 in Schwerte, West Germany, Trockel lives and works in Cologne and teaches at teh Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She was heavily influenced by the work of Joseph Beuys during the time when she was studying in Cologne, and she first exhibited at the Cologne gallery of Monika Sprüth, which only exhibited women artists at the time, in a male-dominated industry. Trockel is considered an important female member of the international contemporary art movement, addressing issues of sexuality, feminism, socio-political hierarchies, and the human form.
Rosemarie Trockel (Installation View), via Gladstone Gallery
In this exhibition, as has thematically run through her entire body of work, Trockel explores the idea of the female identity, the separation between fine art and craftsmanship, and the anonymity versus presence of the artist within the produced work. She has utilized displacement of materials from context in order to transform the ordinary into “fine art.â€
Rosemarie Trockel (Installation View), via Gladstone Gallery
Besides the wall sculptures made of acrystal, Perspex and acrylic paint (cast from cuts of meat), and the painterly wool works, the exhibition also includes a large-scale steel and plastic sculpture in the shape of two sofas, entitled Copy Me. Trockel has repeatedly used the motif of copying throughout her career, “as an effort to challenge predetermined conceptions of representation.â€
Rosemarie Trockel (Installation View), via Gladstone Gallery
Throughout the exhibition, Trockel utilizes the concept of misrepresentation or decontextualization – using yarn to paint, casting and placing everyday objects out of context, and replacing the human with the animal. In this way, she affect’s the viewer’s original perception of familiar objects in attempt to open the mind to new uses and realities.
The exhibition at Gladstone Gallery will remain on display through December 21, 2013.
Rosemarie Trockel (Installation View), via Gladstone Gallery
—E. Baker
Related Links:
Exhibition Page [Gladstone Gallery]
