Isa Genzken: Mach Dich hübsch!

Isa Genzken, “Nofretete”, 2014, 7 Nefertiti plaster busts with glassed on wooden bases, wooden plinths on casters and 4 steel panels, each 190 x 7 x 40 x 50 cm, installation dimensions variable, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin/New York, David Zwirner, New York/London and Hauser & Wirth

Isa Genzken (1948) is an artist prepared to risk everything in her pursuit of artistic renewal. Her oeuvre is rooted in the medium of sculpture, and is distinguished by a constantly evolving visual language and the unconstrained use of media. Genzken’s work encompasses sculpture, installation, film, video, painting, work on paper, collage, and photography. In the 1970s, she produced computer-designed sculpture in relation to American Minimalism and Conceptual Art. These sculptures were followed by one radical step after another.

“I always wanted to have the courage to do totally crazy, impossible, and also wrong things.” (Isa Genzken, 1994)

The innovativeness and inventiveness of her work, rich in autobiographical elements and subtle comments on society, serve as a reference point and source of inspiration for generations of artists and art lovers. The survey at the Stedelijk presents a broad spectrum of Genzken’s work, from her early films, drawings, ellipsoids, and concrete sculptures to complex narrative collages and assemblage-tableaux integrating everyday objects, which over the last ten years brought a renewed sense of urgency to her work.

The exhibition, which occupies both the upper galleries of the new wing and half of those of the Stedelijk’s historic building, offers a dynamic framework for Genzken’s unorthodox vision of the world around us. The presentation highlights themes such as modernity, the human body, the portrait, urban culture, and architecture.

Beatrix Ruf, director of the Stedelijk Museum, says about the artist: “Radically inventive in her oeuvre since her early computer-calculated abstract sculptures in the mid-1970s to the assemblages of her latest body of work, Isa Genzken has proven to be one of the most influential artists challenging her artistic media and continuously redefining their aesthetics. Genzken is an unstoppable inspiration for many artists, especially for recent generations. This exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum – one of the most extensive surveys ever presented in an institution – will present an important figure who has an enormous influence on the young artists with whom the Stedelijk has close relationships. The exhibition underlines the Stedelijk’s mission to acquaint significant artistic figures with a larger audience.”

The Stedelijk Museum first acquired work by Isa Genzken in 1985, and recently purchased the painting Zwei Lampen (1994), which was the first artwork Beatrix Ruf acquired for the Stedelijk collection.

Isa Genzken: Mach Dich hübsch! is curated by Beatrix Ruf and Martijn van Nieuwenhuyzen.