Isa Genzken

Isa Genzken is widely regarded as one of the most influential contemporary sculptors of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, radicalising the language of assemblage, Minimalism and conceptual art. Born in Bad Oldesloe, Germany in 1948, she studied at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and the Berlin University of the Arts before graduating from the prestigious Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1977. There, she studied under the artist Gerhard Richter, whom she married in 1982 (and divorced in 1993).

Throughout a career spanning nearly five decades, Genzken has maintained an inventive practice that encompasses sculpture, installation, photography, collage and film. In the late 1970s and 1980s, she achieved critical acclaim for her meticulously engineered wooden Ellipsoids and Hyperbolos, alongside raw concrete architectural models (Betonguss) placed atop slender metal frames.

By the late 1990s and 2000s, Genzken's practice shifted toward critiques of hyper-capitalism and Western consumer culture featuring assemblages of consumer refuse, plastic foil, mirrored glass, dressed mannequins and other found objects. This style reached its apotheosis in her Empire/Vampire series and site-specific installation, Oil, for the German Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007.

Major milestones and landmark retrospectives have included a comprehensive mid-career survey organised by the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2013), travelling to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Dallas Museum of Art, alongside major solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Whitechapel Gallery in London and the Kunsthalle Bern. Genzken's work is held in major permanent collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Collection in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Empire Vampire VII

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Wiese

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Geschwister (Siblings)

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Corridor

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Oil XIII

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Untitled

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Knochen (Bone)

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Bill III

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Basic Research

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Madonna mit Kind (Della Robbia) (Madonna and Child (Della Robbia))

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Chicago

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Basic Research

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Untitled

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Empire Vampire III

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Spray Painting

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Weltempfänger (World Receiver)

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Weltempfänger (World Receiver)

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Goethe

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Basic Research

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Basic Research

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Untitled

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Basic Research

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Untitled

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Weltempfänger (World Receiver)

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Kinder filmen IX

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Untitled (Ear)

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Köln

Isa Genzken (GERMAN, B. 1948)

Julia

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Untitled (Ear)

Isa Genzken (GERMAN, B. 1948)

Untitled

Isa Genzken (B. 1948)

Untitled

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Al Dente

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Mona Isa

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Untitled

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Untitled

ISA GENZKEN (B. 1948)

Disco 'Soon' (Ground Zero)

Isa Genzken (b. 1948)

Steiner