Isa Genzken
dal 17/7/2014 al 27/9/2014
Segnalato da
17/7/2014
Isa Genzken
Inverleith House, Edinburgh
Botanical Garden. The exhibition comprises of fourteen works made in the last ten years and includes several new sculptures completed this year which are being exhibited for the first time in the ground and first-floor rooms. The exhibition is accompanied by a continuous screening of 'The Little Bus stop (Scaffolding)', 2007-09, made with fellow artist Kai Althoff.
The first UK exhibition outside London by one of the most radically inventive and influential artists
our time, featuring recent works displayed in the naturally–lit rooms of Inverleith House.
Inverleith House is delighted to present the first UK exhibition outside London by one of the great
living artists of our time, Isa Genzken. The exhibition comprises of fourteen works made in the last
ten years and includes several new sculptures completed this year which are being exhibited for the
first time in the ground and first-floor rooms. The exhibition is accompanied by a continuous
screening of Die Kleine Bushaltstelle (Gerüstbau) ‘The Little Bus stop (Scaffolding)’, 2007 – 09, made
with fellow artist Kai Althoff, which has never before been screened in the UK.
Genzken's practice has evolved from beginnings in Minimalist sculpture to a frenetic, maximalist
aesthetic that resists both comparison and definition.
A contemporary of Joseph Beuys, Carl Andre and Gerhard Richter, Genzken first came to prominence
in 1970s post-war Dusseldorf with distinctive conceptual sculptures she named Hyperbolos and
Ellipsoids, lacquered wood forms made possible with nascent computer technologies. As a constant
polymath, Genzken’s work has advanced through a range of media and material including concrete
sculpture, photography, the photographic readymade, painting, experimental film and, since the
mid-1990s, large-scale sculptural assemblages and complex collage.
Although seemingly defined only by difference, Genzken’s work consistently returns to a number of
foundational concerns apparent in most of her works. These include urban landscapes and
metropolitan architectural forms, the sculptural potential of photography, and identity, the human
form and an interest in natural beauty.
Botanical Garden focuses on later work made by Genzken within the last ten years including found-
object sculptural assemblages and wall and floor-based photographic collage. These multi-layered,
deliberately overloaded works frequently incorporate cheap, mass produced and universally
recognisable items from toys to garments, shop mannequins, cartoon characters or photographs of
landmark monuments, famous celebrities, disembodied limbs, and portraits of the artist herself all
graffitied with spray-paint or else embellished with tape.
Sculptures like Halleluja (Werkstatt) / Halleluja (New Museum) 2012, reflect the towering structural
mass of a New York skyscraper whilst the upright, translucent Perspex boxes of Untitled, 2012 and
Untitled 2014 echo the glass high-rises of modern Berlin. This mini metropolis is populated by
Genzken’s ‘schauspieler’ or actors; life-size mannequins who are humorous and uncanny
representations of familiar cultural types such as savvy child consumers, urban hipsters and
psychedelic fashionistas lifted out of the urban commercial world. Each work in Botanical Garden is a
narrative microcosm, chattering of contemporary culture, global issues, conflict and irreverence in a
manner that both critiques and celebrates the carnivalesque, contradictory nature of the Western
world.The unique context of the Royal Botanic Garden lends itself to new readings and juxtapositions of
Genzken’s recent work, who through her own processes, brings together materials and objects from
diverse sources in the same way the Garden’s Botanists gather together species of plants from all
over the world; both artist and botanist enable a rich reflection on the extraordinary nature of the
everyday.
She represented Germany at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and was most recently the subject of
a major retrospective at MoMA, New York (2013/4). The exhibition is kindly supported by The Henry
Moore Foundation and the Isa Genzken Exhibitions Circle. This is its only showing.
Inverleith House is supported by Creative Scotland. Isa Genzken, Botanical Garden is supported by
The Henry Moore Foundation, the Isa Genzken supporters circle and the Goethe Institut. The preview
is supported by Boë Gin.
Events Programme
David Bussel on Isa Genzken
Saturday 19 July, 15:00 – 16:00 | Free
David Bussel (curator, freelance writer and co-author of Isa Genzken: Ground Zero) leads a discussion
about the work of Isa Genzken in relation to the new exhibition at Inverleith House.
Curators Tours
14:00 – 14:45 | Every Other Friday (1 / 15 / 29 August; 5 / 12 / 19 / 26 September) | Free
Paul Nesbitt and Chloe Reith lead tours of the exhibition.
Image: Isa Genzken Untitled 2012. Copyright Isa Genzken Courtesy Hauser & Wirth and Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin.
Preview Friday 18 July, 6 – 8pm
Inverleith House
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
Arboretum Place/Inverleith Row - Edinburgh
Inverleith House is open Tuesday to Sunday
Opening hours:
November to January: 10am - 3.30pm
February & October: 10am - 4.30pm
March to September: 10am - 5.30pm
Admission is free.