Isa Genzken: Retrospective
MoMA presents - November 23, 2013–March 10, 2014 - the
>> Isa Genzken * 1948 Bad Oldesloh
Retrospective, the first major U.S.
exhibition to encompass the artist’s oeuvre. Spanning almost 40 years of
Genzken’s inventive, audacious, and deeply influential artwork, the exhibition
brings together more than 150 objects in an astonishing variety of techniques, including
assemblage, sculpture, painting, photography, collage, drawing, artist’s books,
film, and large-scale installations. A majority of the works in the exhibition
are on view in the U.S. for the first time, including Schauspieler
(Actors) (2013), a large-scale installation, while others have rarely
been publicly exhibited anywhere. Isa Genzken: Retrospective is
co-organized by The Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago, and the Dallas Museum of Art. The exhibition is organized by Sabine
Breitwieser, Chief Curator, Department of Media and Performance Art (until
January 31, 2013), and Laura Hoptman, Curator, Department of Painting and
Sculpture, MoMA; Michael Darling, the James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator, Museum of
Contemporary Art Chicago; and Jeffrey Grove, Senior Curator of Special
Projects & Research, Dallas Museum of Art; with Stephanie Weber,
Curatorial Assistant, Department of Media and Performance Art, MoMA.
Working across a
diverse array of mediums, Genzken has been inspired by two grand themes:
modernity and urban architecture. Her career has also unfolded in chapters,
beginning in the late 1970s, and continuing without cease until today, when a
new generation has been inspired by the artist’s radical inventiveness. Ranging
from large-scale sculptures that limn Constructivist and Minimalist aesthetics;
to rougher, more overtly architectural concrete works that conjure ruins; to
paintings, photographs, and found-object installations that have redefined
assemblage for a new era, Genzken’s body of work represents both a rare
artistic freedom and a disciplined, almost obsessive sensitivity toward the
relationship of individuals to their sculptural surroundings. (Text; MoMA New York)