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Jill Krementz covers Isa Genzken at MoMA

November 22, 2013, 9:59 am
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Genzken's work has been part of the artistic discourse since she began exhibiting in the mid-1970s, but over the last decade a new generation has been inspired by her radical inventiveness.
Isa Genzken Retrospective
November 23, 2013 to March 10, 2014
MoMA

MoMA is the perfect setting for the Isa Genzken retrospective. Her installations and MoMA's environment are seamless.
Isa Genzken (German, b. 1948) is arguably one of the most important and influential female artists of the past 30 years. This exhibition, the first comprehensive retrospective of her diverse body of work in an American museum, and the largest to date, encompasses Genzken's work in all mediums over the past 40 years.

Although a New York art audience might be familiar with Genzken's more recent assemblage sculptures, the breadth of her achievement — which includes not only three-dimensional work but also paintings, photographs, collages, drawings, artist's books, films, and public sculptures — is still largely unknown in this country. Many of the nearly 150 objects in the exhibition are on view in the United States for the first time.

The exhibition is organized by Sabine Breitwieser, MoMA's former Chief Curator of the Department of Media and Performance Art; Laura Hoptman, Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture; Michael Darling, Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Jeffrey Grove, Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Dallas Museum of Art; with Stephanie Weber, MoMA's Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art.

The exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue and a full-scale film program, will travel to Chicago and Dallas following NYC.
The past 10 years have been particularly productive for Genzken, who, with a new language of found objects and collage, has created several bodies of work that have redefined assemblage for a new era. These groups of sculptures range from smaller, diorama-like works to room-filling installations.
The entrance to the sixth floor galleries. The wall is covered with photographs of Isa Gentzken and with posters from her various exhibitions.

Visitors are greeted by a dozen mannequins--Schauspieler (Actors), 2013-- many of which are gender neutral.
Sabine Breitwieser, Former Chief Curator of MoMA's Department of Media and Performance Art, was the "initiating Curator of the show." Ms. Breitwieser is now the Director of Museum der Moderne in Salzburg.

The large photograph is a blowup of the artist's 1980 "Ear Project."
MoMA curator Laura Hoptman is one of the four organizing curators of the exhibition.
Michael Darling and Jeffrey Grove with Isa Genzken.

Michael Darling is the Chief Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and Jeffrey Grove is Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Dallas Museum of Art.
Some of the clothes are Isa's own while others were found or purchased.
This multipart installation, completed over the past year, is on view for the first time.
Paul Jackson, Senior Publicist, and Margaret Doyle, Director of Communications. Visitors wandering among the ensemble are meant to feel like actors in a theater or on a film set, hence the title of the work: Schauspieler (Actors).
Whether or not this mannequin is making artist Walter Robinson feel like an actor or that he needs to spend more time at the gym — that is the question.
Many of the mannequins are accesorized with a wide range of hats and even a playful monkey.
Anna Belgiorno-Nettis, 23, and Janelle Grace, 27, Publicity Coordinator in Communications.
Ellipsoids and Hyperbolos, 1976–82

To create this series of large-scale wood sculptures, Genzken relied on two elementary geometric principles. The volumes called Ellipsoids represent two mirrored curvatures that converge at their outer poles and touch the floor at only one center point. The Hyperbolos, on the other hand, are volumes composed of two mirrored curvatures that radiate infinitely from a single central meeting point.

In an approach both rare and prescient for the time, Genzken designed these works with the help of a customized computer program that calculated their proportions. She then planed and lacquered them by hand.
The sculptures are so large the artist had to work on them in the hallway outside her studio at the Düsseldorf Academy where she was working and teaching.

Contemporary critics associated the sculptures with canoes, arrows, and even gigantic toothpicks— figurative readings that made them stand out in an artistic milieu dominated by the reductive formal language of minimalism.
In 1980, during one of her frequent trips to New York City, Genzken photographed, with permission, the ears of female passersby in the streets of Manhattan. "Not a single woman said no," she later recalled, "because I didn't ask for their face but for something largely anonymous."

The photograph on view, shown here, represents an exception to the project's rubric because it features Genzken's own ear, photographed by the artist Gerhard Richter.

Genzken met Richter in Düsseldorf as a student in 1972, and several years later they began a relationship that would culminate in marriage in 1982. During their almost fifteen years together, their interests converged at certain junctures.
Weltempfänger (World Receiver), 1988-89 Multiband radio receiver

This work, a stock multiband radio receiver unaltered by the artist, is Genzken's only true readymade— a term coined by the early twentieth-century artist Marcel Duchamp to describe prefabricated, often mass-produced objects elevated to the status of art by the mere act of an artist's selection and designation.

Genzken once declared, "A sculpture must be at least as modern as the most modern hi-fi systems." When first exhibited, the Weltempfänger was shown with a group of Ellipsoid and Hyperbolo sculptures as well as a series of Ear photographs—a contextualization that suggested the conceptual affinities between all these works, which describe the intersection of aural and visual perception.
Parrallelogramme, 1975
The works in the foreground are: New Buildings for Berlin, 2004
Glass and silicone on wood pedestal, four parts

In the background, on the walls: Two gelatin silver prints and thirteen chromogenic color prints, 1998/2000
In the early 1990s, Genzken began to experiment with epoxy resin as a sculptural material. Casting it around steel armatures, she was able to create large-scale architectural structures in the form of translucent windows and doors.

Capturing and reflecting the ambient light, they exemplify Genzken's continuing fascination with architectural forms and their interaction with space and the environment.

Fenster is the largest interior work from the series.

It incorporates concrete and resin, a combination that emphasizes the sculpture's play with the contrast between structural solidity and transparency.
MoMA Director Glenn Lowry with Michael Darling and Jeffrey Grove.
This magnificent 1992 sculpture, not surprisingly, is titled X.
Peter Reed, Senior Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs at MoMA. The young woman with eye-glasses is Masha Chlenova, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture. Ian Wallace worked on the catalogue. Stephanie Weber is Curatorial Assistant, Media and Performance Art.
Gallerist David Zwirner. By the mid 2000s, Genzen's work had attained large visibility not only in Europe, but also in the United States where, in 2005, she joined the David Zwirner Gallery.Ann Temkin, Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture.
Anne Umland, Leah Dickerman (Painting and Sculpture), and Cora Rosevear.

Ms. Rosevear is singled out in the catalogue's acknowledgments for being "the first curator in the United States to propose an American museum exhibition to Isa Gentzken, way back in 1976. She was a friend to Genzken during her formative years, and her counsel during this project was essential."

Anne Umland organized the spectacular Magritte exhibition, also on the 6th floor. Do not miss it.
The artist in front of X-Ray, 1991, a Gelatin silver print printed in 2013.

Between 1989 and 1991, with the help of a doctor who gave her access to professional equipment, Genzken produced thirty such x-ray prints in various sizes. They depict the artist drinking wine, smoking, and generally breaking the rules that usually govern hospital environments.

Considered to be self-portraits, they are made from x-ray scans rather than negatives.
Michael Darling plants an affectionate kiss on the artist.
Isa Genzken and Laura Hoptman.
Filmmaker and art historian Amei Wallach whose beautiful new documentary Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here, has been showing at Film Forum. Ilya Kabakov is a seminal Russian-born artist whose work is definitely crucial not only to Russian art, but also art history at large.

Paintings by the Russian artists are currently on view at Pace Gallery until December 21st.
As you approach the next gallery be sure to take a look at the three books in the partition.
I Love New York, Crazy City, 1995–96
Paper, gelatin silver prints, chromogenic color prints, and tape, in three books
In 1995 Genzken spent several months in New York with the idea of potentially settling there permanently. Moving constantly from hotel to hotel around Manhattan and without a studio space, Genzken had to work accordingly: she walked through the city with a camera, taking hundreds of photographs of its architecture and street life.
At one point, she started pasting the photographs into scrapbooks alongside the prosaic souvenirs of her stay—hotel bills, notes to friends, cocktail napkins, invitations to nightclubs, and the like—creating a record of her activities and, in her words, a "guidebook" to New York City " for people who wanted to experience New York differently: a lot crazier, more multifaceted and beautiful."
Fuck the Bauhaus, 2000
Plywood, cardboard, plastic, shells, and tape

With this installation, Genzken simultaneously pays tribute to, and rebukes the legacy of, the Bauhaus— a legendary, influential German prewar art and design school.

One of the core principles of what became known as the Bauhaus style in architecture was the subordination of form to function and, accordingly, the removal of unnecessary ornament.

Made from construction-site netting, stones, seashells, a cardboard pizza box, and a Slinky, among other materials, these lavishly decorated architectural maquettes are Genzken's wry response to the Bauhaus tenet of rational and austere functionality as well as an excellent example of her use of found and mass-produced objects to make a three-dimensional sculpture.
There is a small mechanical Hawaiian doll on the floor, so keep your eyes open.
Spielautomat (Slot Machine), 1999–2000

The Slot Machine is a three-dimensional collage that can be read as a compact self-portrait.

The sculpture is adorned with images of Berlin and New York as well as of her close friends (note the artist Kai Althoff applying eyeliner at lower right and the artist Lawrence Weiner toward the bottom of the sculpture).

Crowning the work is a portrait of Genzken made by her friend the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. Genzken first exhibited the work in 2000 as part of the exhibition Urlaub (Vacation) in Frankfurt, a context in which it made specific reference to the casinos common to beach resorts in northern Germany.
It is this work that is featured on the cover of the 335-page exhibition catalogue. The lavish publication contains comprehensive profiles of the artist by all four organizing curators, an essay by Lisa Lee, a detailed chronology of the artist, and 130 well reproduced plates.

Warning: Do not drop on your foot.
The Schwule Babies (Gay Babies) are made from a combination of household appliances that come from two highly gendered realms: the kitchen and the toolshed. Aluminum baking tins, sieves, and whisks mingle with chains, rakes, and wrenches.

The resulting sculptures, as their collective title suggests, are assemblages that playfully take on issues of gender and sexuality. Painted with a mix of spray paint and colored lacquer, they call to mind the flamboyant, fluorescent style of techno dance culture centered in Berlin.
Der Amerikanische Raum (The American Room)

2004 Desk, office chairs, filing cabinet, lamp, spray paint on ceramic and plastic figurines, plastic flowers, plastic and metal lockboxes, metal bowls, dried pine needles, painted glass ornaments, perforated metal sheets, colored cellophane, plastic security cards, and tape.
Simultaneously alluding to a commemorative hall of heroes and a corporate CEO's office,"The American Room" is one of the first examples of the room-size sculptural installations that characterize the artist's most recent practice.

It is also one of a series of installations on the theme of American power. Reflecting on the interrelation between nationalism, globalism, and consumerism. Eagles, the national bird of both the United States and Germany, are included in two of the sculptures.
Genzken included universally recognizable symbols of American culture such as the miserly Walt Disney character Scrooge McDuck.
Scrooge McDuck holding a fistful of dollars.
Empire/Vampire: Who Kills Death, 2003–04, displayed on multiple pedestals.

Following a 2003 trip to New York City, Genzken wrote a screenplay entitled Empire/Vampire, ostensibly about two New York architectural icons: the Empire State Building and the neo-Gothic Chrysler Building, which Genzken interpreted as a vampiric presence.

Shortly thereafter, she began a series of diorama-like assemblage sculptures on the subjects of war and urban mayhem that she christened Empire/Vampire: Who Kills Death.

At the time, the possibility of an American-led war in the Middle East—a controversial response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001—loomed large in the public consciousness. The Empire/ Vampire project evolved into two series of sculptural assemblages and a single-channel video projection, also on view in this gallery.
Seen at roughly eye level, the sculptures allow viewers to immerse themselves in the miniature dramas taking place in each composition.
Genzken purposefully sought out cheap mass-produced materials like shoes to create scenes that evoke the chaos and violence of terrorist attacks and the American invasion of Iraq.
More destruction.
An up-close look at a snail and a Buddha resting on a bed of sunflower seeds.
The last gallery: Kinder Filmen; or Ground Zero, 2005
Church (Ground Zero), 2008
Da Vinci, 2003
Synthetic polymer paint on air plane window frames, four parts

This sculpture represents the airplane windows of the 9/11 aircraft.
Soon (inside) (Ground Zero); 2008
Synthetic polymer paint on mirror and plastic, eleven parts
As I've mentioned, keep your eyes peeled for installations at floor level. The title of this installation is Kinder Filmen III, VI, VII, XI, XII; 2005. You can spot ceramic figurines, utility carts with wheels, an electric fan, fabric hats, books, pens, and printed paper. I'm sure you'll find even more. That's why you should go for yourself. I'm just giving you a head start.
Spray paint on umbrellas and orange rubber gloves, and coils of lit-up beads are among the artifacts here and pictured below.
Utility cart with wheels.
Shotglasses on a tray at bottom.
David Zwirner strolling through the final gallery.
As you exit the exhibition, there is an installation on the floor so be sure to look down.

Sabine Breitwieser is with Stuart Comer, her successor at MoMA.		The artist as she was leaving the press preview on her way to a small luncheon in her honor.
As you leave the museum I suggest you take the escalator down rather than the elevator so you can see Gentzen's "Oil XI" first exhibited in the German pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale.

The sixteen-part installation, with its accumulation of roller-board suitcases, calls to mind a transit station that has suddenly been abandoned, perhaps due to an unseen threat.

The artist's intention is to evoke the Zeitgeist of a world in the grips of the War on Terror.
Closer looks at pieces of abandoned luggage.
Three astronauts, identified as NASA employees by the insignia on their uniforms, float overhead, as if exploring the ruins of a devastated culture.
As always with a major exhibition, there was a private evening reception for invited guests hosted by Glenn Lowry and the trustees.

The artist did not attend.
Arriving early for the evening reception I stayed warm by waiting next door in the museum's film lobby. I had the good fortune to hang out with one of my favorite curators, Christophe Cherix, MoMA's Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, who, like me, was waiting for the doors to open at 7 PM.

It is in this building that the first comprehensive U.S. retrospective of Genzken's films, including a recent feature-length venture, will be on view in the weeks ahead.
While we were waiting Glenn Lowry arrived with Anna Marie Shapiro, one of MoMA's Life Trustees and Monsieur Cherix good-naturedly assisted them with their coats; there's a discreet closet for "special guests" behind the counter.
Anna Devere Smith whose series "Nurse Jackie"
is in Season Six.		Chris Apgar, Managing Director at Wells Fargo and MoMA trustee, with MoMA's Cora Rosevear.
Susan and Glenn Lowry. Susan, a serious horticulturist, is completing work on a book about the gardens of New Jersey. Why New Jersey? "Because nobody's done New Jersey. All they think of when they consider the Garden State is the Turnpike. That's it. There's so much more."
New Yorker Art Critic Peter Schjeldahl.Peter Schjeldahl and his colleague Andrea Scott in front of my favorite installation. Ms. Scott is the Art Editor of the magazine's "Goings on About Town." I love the magazine's recent up front redesign.
Jane Anderson (a lawyer) with her partner, artist Andrea Geyer and their 5-month-old twin boys: Moss and Neko.

Andrea joked: "She carried them and I got the baby fat."		Art critic Larry Qualls with MLR, 1992
Oil on canvas
Gallerist Jack Shainman and artist Carlos Vega. Shainman gave Genzken her first solo exhibition in New York in 1989. Carlos Vega is one of his current artists.Artist Brad Kahlhamer with Alice Sparkly Kat. Kahlhamer's just-closed exhibition at Shainman received a rave review in the Times last Friday.
On the left is Eleanore Hugendubel, a director at Gavin Brown. Opposite, Andrea Scott and Peter Schjeldahl. They are all looking at Isa's New York scrapbooks.
Jeffrey Grove.Gallerist Friedrich Petzel with Quintus and Cosima Von Bronin. Ms. Von Bronin is one of the top artists in Petzel's Chelsea stable. Quintus, an investment banker, is her brother.
Janine Latham and Friedrich Petzel. Janine is a teacher and described herself as "his girlfriend."Designer Rachel Inman and graphic artist Tony Lee, both 24, are recent graduates of Carnegie Mellon. Mr. Lee designed the Wall text for the exhibition.
The wall text.
The floral arrangement could be confused with a Genzken sculpture but this photo was taken next door to the museum when I retrieved my coat stashed in the secret cubby.

Remember those large ears you saw displayed on the wall? Well mine can hear a dime dropping from a million miles away.
Text and photographs © by Jill Krementz: all rights reserved. Contact Jill Krementz here.
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