ISA GENZKEN. RETROSPECTIVE

This exhibition, the first comprehensive retrospective of Isa Genzken’s (German, b. 1948) epically 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 paintings, photographs, collages, drawings, artist’s books, films, and public sculptures—is still largely unknown in this country. Many of the nearly 200 works in the exhibition will be on view in the United States for the first time.

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 the artist’s radical inventiveness. 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. Isa Genzken: Retrospective is co-organized by MoMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and 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.

ISA GENZKEN. RETROSPECTIVE

artists:
Isa Genzken

curators:
Sabine Breitwieser, Laura Hoptman, Michael Darling, Jeffrey Grove, Stephanie Weber

venues:
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Dallas Museum of Art