Isa Genzken (1948) is a German contemporary artist who lives and works in Berlin. Her primary media are sculpture and installation, using a wide variety of materials, including concrete, plaster, wood, and textile. She also works with photography, video, film, and collage.
Hanne-Rose "Isa" Genzken was raised mostly in the small northern German city of Bad Oldesloe and in Hamburg. She studied fine arts and art history at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (1968–1971) and the Berlin University of the Arts (1971–1973). To pay her tuition, Genzken worked part-time as a model. In 1973 she transferred to Arts Academy Düsseldorf while also studying art history and philosophy at the University of Cologne.
Upon graduating in 1977, Genzken taught sculpture at the academy. She married German visual artist Gerhard Richter in 1982 and moved to Cologne in 1983.
Genzken has bipolar disorder and goes through manic and depressive phases. She has frequently undergone treatment for substance abuse.
Although Isa Genzken's primary focus is sculpture, she has produced various media including photography, film, video, works on paper, works on canvas with oil, collages, collage books, film scripts, and even a record. Her diverse practice draws on the legacies of Constructivism and Minimalism and often involves a critical, open dialogue with Modernist architecture and contemporary visual and material culture. Genzken's diverse work also keeps her from being predictable in her work.
In the 1970s, Genzken began working with wood that she carved into unusual geometric shapes such as hyperboloids and ellipsoids. Between 1986 and 1992, Genzken conceived her series of plaster and concrete sculptures to investigate architecture. These sculptures consist of sequentially poured and stacked slabs of concrete featuring rough openings, windows, and interiors.
Starting in 1995, while in New York for several months, Genzken created a three-volume collage book entitled I Love New York, Crazy City (1995–1996),
Since the end of the second half of the 1990s, Genzken has been conceptualizing sculptures and panel paintings in the shape of a bricolage of materials taken from DIY stores and from photographs and newspaper clippings. She often uses materials that underline the temporary character of her works. As part of her deep-set interest in urban space, she also arranges complex, and often disquieting, installations with mannequins, dolls, photographs, and an array of found objects. New Buildings for New York are assembled from found scraps of plastic, metal and pizza-box cardboard. The assemblages from the Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death series, originally comprising more than twenty sculptures that were created following the attacks of September 11, are combinations of found objects – action figures, plastic vessels, and various elements of consumer detritus – arranged on pedestals in architecturally inspired, post-destruction scenes.
Genzken's work is included in the collections of many institutions internationally, including the Nationalgalerie, West Berlin; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Otterlo, the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, etc...
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Isa Genzken. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
Hanne-Rose "Isa" Genzken was raised mostly in the small northern German city of Bad Oldesloe and in Hamburg. She studied fine arts and art history at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (1968–1971) and the Berlin University of the Arts (1971–1973). To pay her tuition, Genzken worked part-time as a model. In 1973 she transferred to Arts Academy Düsseldorf while also studying art history and philosophy at the University of Cologne.
Upon graduating in 1977, Genzken taught sculpture at the academy. She married German visual artist Gerhard Richter in 1982 and moved to Cologne in 1983.
Genzken has bipolar disorder and goes through manic and depressive phases. She has frequently undergone treatment for substance abuse.
Although Isa Genzken's primary focus is sculpture, she has produced various media including photography, film, video, works on paper, works on canvas with oil, collages, collage books, film scripts, and even a record. Her diverse practice draws on the legacies of Constructivism and Minimalism and often involves a critical, open dialogue with Modernist architecture and contemporary visual and material culture. Genzken's diverse work also keeps her from being predictable in her work.
In the 1970s, Genzken began working with wood that she carved into unusual geometric shapes such as hyperboloids and ellipsoids. Between 1986 and 1992, Genzken conceived her series of plaster and concrete sculptures to investigate architecture. These sculptures consist of sequentially poured and stacked slabs of concrete featuring rough openings, windows, and interiors.
Starting in 1995, while in New York for several months, Genzken created a three-volume collage book entitled I Love New York, Crazy City (1995–1996),
Since the end of the second half of the 1990s, Genzken has been conceptualizing sculptures and panel paintings in the shape of a bricolage of materials taken from DIY stores and from photographs and newspaper clippings. She often uses materials that underline the temporary character of her works. As part of her deep-set interest in urban space, she also arranges complex, and often disquieting, installations with mannequins, dolls, photographs, and an array of found objects. New Buildings for New York are assembled from found scraps of plastic, metal and pizza-box cardboard. The assemblages from the Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death series, originally comprising more than twenty sculptures that were created following the attacks of September 11, are combinations of found objects – action figures, plastic vessels, and various elements of consumer detritus – arranged on pedestals in architecturally inspired, post-destruction scenes.
Genzken's work is included in the collections of many institutions internationally, including the Nationalgalerie, West Berlin; Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Rijksmuseum Kroller-Muller, Otterlo, the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, etc...
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Isa Genzken. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Ms. Isa Genzken |
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| 1980, Green-orange Hyperbolo "El Salvador’" |
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| 1982, Red-Yellow-Black Double Ellipsoid “Twin” |
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| 1988-89, Weltempfänger |
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| 1993, Rose |
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| 2004, Mutter Mit Kind |
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| 2004, Bouquet |
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| 2004, Kinderschirm |
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| 2006, Untitled. Installation |
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| 2006, Untitled |
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| 2007, OIL X. OIL XVI |
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| 2008, Ground Zero |
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| 2009, Wind II (Michael Jackson) |
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| 2012, Installation view, ‘Isa Genzken’, Hauser & Wirth, London, England |
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| 2012, Installation view, ‘Isa Genzken’, Hauser & Wirth, London, England |
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| 2012, Untitled |
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| 2012, Untitled (detail) |
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| 2012, Untitled |
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| 2013, Installation view "Retrospective". MoMA |
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| 2014 Geldbild LII |
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| 2014, Nofretete |
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| 2014, Schauspieler II |
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| 2014, Two orchids |
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| 2014, Untitled |
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| 2015, Gold und Silber |
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| 2015, Installation view from the solo exhibition “Isa Genzken" |
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| 2015, World Receiver |
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| 2015-16, Mach Dich Hübsch! |
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| 2016, Actors |
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| 2016, Untitled |
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| 2016, Untitled |
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| 2016, Untitled |
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| 2016-17, Leonardo |
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| 2019, Exhibition view at Kunsthalle Bern |
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