David Zwirner is pleased to present an exhibition of works by German artist Isa Genzken. On view at the gallery’s Hong Kong location, this will be the first solo presentation of Genzken’s work in Greater China. The show coincides with the ongoing presentation of the artist’s Rose II (2007) at K11 Musea, Hong Kong, and her solo exhibition Isa Genzken: Here and Now at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany.
With a career spanning more than four decades, Genzken has incessantly probed the shifting boundaries between art, design, architecture, technology, and the individual. Her prodigious oeuvre frequently incorporates seemingly disparate materials and imagery to create complex, enigmatic works that range in media, including sculpture, painting, collage, drawing, film, and photography. Deeply attuned to both the legacies of the twentieth-century avant-garde and the materials and forms of twenty-first-century global society, Genzken’s work viscerally interrogates the impact of our increasingly commodified and interconnected culture on our everyday lives.
The exhibition will present key works from the past ten years of Genzken’s career. Among the selection on view will be an installation of Genzken’s recent “tower” and “column” sculptures. These works stem from the artist’s decades-long fascination with architecture and urban skylines. At once makeshift and monumental, these architectonic forms consist of vertical structures of medium-density fiberboard adorned with mirror foil, spray paint, and other media, complicating the distinctions between surface and depth, and interior and exterior space. Engaging the architectural and sculptural histories of modernism, the towers and columns are physically imposing, yet the materials and their human scale allude to the inherent vulnerability of the modern built environment.
In addition, several freestanding floor sculptures will be on view that belong to Genzken’s Schauspieler (Actors) series, which debuted as part of her critically acclaimed retrospective organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2013. The series, consisting of elaborately outfitted mannequins holding an array of props and accessories, signaled a notable shift in Genzken’s practice: with the mannequin functioning as the sculpture’s base, the artist employs a figurative idiom—making these works her most explicit engagement with the human form—in contrast to the abstract and geometric modes that characterized her earlier sculptures.
The exhibition will also feature wall-mounted works that expand upon the artist’s fascination with the relationship between architecture, art, commercial goods, and everyday experience. In these works, Genzken layers various industrially produced materials and commodities to which she adds a variety of photographs and imagery. Among those included in the show are two significant wall works from 2012 that are made up of wallpaper, mirrors, picture frames, and other common materials from modern domestic interiors. In one of these wall works, Genzken includes photographic reproductions of famous old master portrait paintings, including Albrecht Dürer’s Self-Portrait (1498; Museo del Prado, Madrid), which are placed on top of long pieces of wallpaper and wrapping paper that extend all the way to the floor. In the other work, Genzken has placed an image of the iconic German artist Joseph Beuys, who was a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where she studied.
Genzken’s most recent wall-mounted panels will also be included in the show. These works, done on aluminum panels, vary greatly in the density of their material embellishment. Some feature smears and pools of acrylic lacquer that rest loosely at times on the surface of the panel, while others are densely covered in photographs (many taken by Genzken herself), ephemera, and swatches of tape, foil, and fabric. Visually, Genzken’s wall works reference the material surfaces of the modern world, highlighting how mass media and postwar consumption have increasingly dissolved the lines between the private and the public, and the sacred and the profane.
Born in 1948 in Bad Oldesloe, Germany, Isa Genzken studied fine arts, art history, and philosophy in Hamburg, Berlin, and Cologne, before completing her studies at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 1977. Since 2004, her work has been represented by David Zwirner. In 2019, she was the recipient of the Nasher Prize, awarded every April by the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas.
Genzken’s work has been prominently featured in various international biennials and group exhibitions such as documenta (1982, 1992, and 2002),the Venice Biennale (1982, 1993, 2003, 2007, and 2015), Sculpture Projects Münster (1987, 1997, 2007) and São Paulo Biennial (2010), among many others.
Her major museum solo exhibitions include, the traveling surveys organized by the Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn, Germany (1988; traveled to Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, both 1989); The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago (1992; traveled to Portikus, Frankfurt; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, all 1993); Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany (2002; traveled to Kunsthalle Zürich, 2003); and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2009; traveled to Museum Ludwig, Cologne). Other venues that have hosted important solo exhibitions include the Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2000); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2002); Camden Arts Centre, London (2006); Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck (2006); Secession, Vienna (2006); and Museion, Bolzano, Italy (2010).
In 2013, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, organized Genzken’s first museum survey in the United States, Retrospective, making it the most comprehensive presentation of her work to date, encompassing all media from the past forty years. The show traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Dallas Museum of Art in 2014. Also in 2014, Isa Genzken: New Works was presented at the Museum der Moderne Salzburg and subsequently traveled to the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt. In 2015, an extensive survey of Genzken’s work was presented by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. The show traveled to Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, in 2016. In 2019, Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland presented a solo exhibition of the artist’s work. Isa Genzken: Works from 1973–1983 was presented at the Kunstmuseum Basel in 2020, and subsequently at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, in 2021.
Work by the artist is represented in museum and public collections worldwide, including the Dallas Museum of Art; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. Genzken lives and works in Berlin.
For all press inquiries, contact:
Julia Lukacher +1 212 727 2070 jlukacher@davidzwirner.com
Victoria Kung +852 9668 1092 victoriak@suttoncomms.com
Kiko Tse +852 6015 5184 kiko@davidzwirner.com
《伊薩·根澤肯》
2021年10月20日-12月18日
香港 | 中環皇后大道中80號H Queen’s 5-6樓
卓納畫廊欣然呈現德國藝術家伊薩·根澤肯（Isa Genzken）的作品展。香港空間的這次展覽將是根澤肯在大中華區的首次個展。同期，K11 Musea正展出其經典作品《玫瑰 II》（2007），以及德國杜塞爾多夫的北萊茵-威斯特法倫藝術品收藏館正舉行的個展《伊薩·根澤肯：此時此地》。
根澤肯橫跨四十多年的職業生涯中，不斷地探索藝術、設計、建築、科技和個人之間持續變化的界限。她那些讓人驚嘆的創作常常包含着看似完全無關的材料與圖像，這些複雜而神秘的作品涵蓋了多種媒介，包括雕塑、繪畫、拼貼、電影和攝影。根澤肯的創作深深紮根於二十世紀先鋒藝術的傳統，以及二十一世紀全球化社會的多種材料與形式之中，質疑了我們日漸商品化的生活文化互融所帶來的影響。
這次展覽將呈現根澤肯過去十年職業生涯中的主要創作。精選作品包括近期的《塔》和《立柱》系列雕塑裝置，源自於藝術家過去數十年來對建築以及城市天際線的癡迷。這些建築性的形式顯得既權宜又具有紀念性，由中密度纖維板垂直結構組成，並以鏡面箔、噴漆及其他媒材裝飾，使得表面與縱深及內外空間的區別變得複雜，從而顯得真切壯觀。既結合了現代主義的建築史及雕塑史，而材料和人等高度的尺寸又暗示了現代建築環境與生俱來的脆弱性。
此外，展覽包括數件出自《演員》（Schauspieler）系列的獨立地面雕塑。這個系列是2013年在紐約現代藝術博物館（MoMA）廣受好評的藝術家回顧展當中一部分，由精心裝配的人體模型組成，附帶一系列道具和配件，標誌着根澤肯藝術實踐中的一次顯著轉折：以人體模型作為雕塑的基礎，並採用了一種具體的風格——成為她的創作中最為直接地指涉人類形態的作品，與早期雕塑的抽象和幾何形式產生了鮮明對比。
展覽還將展出一些壁掛式作品，它們拓展了藝術家對建築、藝術、商品和日常體驗之間相互關係的迷戀。在這些作品中，根澤肯層疊着融入了各種工業材料、商品、照片以及圖像。展覽中有兩件創作於2012年的重要作品，由墻紙、鏡子、相框和其他現代室內家居常見的材料所組成。在其中一件壁掛作品里，根澤肯加入了著名古典大師們肖像繪畫的照片複製品，放置在垂長延伸到地面的墻紙和包裝紙之上，包括阿爾布雷希特·丟勒（Albrecht Dürer）的《自畫像》（1498年，現藏於馬德里的普拉多博物館）。另一件作品中，則放置了一幅有如偶像般的德國藝術家約瑟夫·博伊斯（Joseph Beuys）的圖片，他曾在根澤肯求學的杜塞爾多夫藝術學院任教。
根澤肯最新的壁掛式面板作品同樣會於此次展覽中呈現。這些於鋁板上創作的作品在材料性裝飾的密度上有着顯著的差異，其中幾件帶着顏料塗抹的痕跡，以及坑坑窪窪的丙烯漆。有的鬆散地凝固在鋁板表面，有的則厚重地遮蓋住了照片（不少照片出自藝術家本人的手）、各種票據以及膠帶、箔片和織物的樣本。從視覺上看，根澤肯的壁掛式作品指涉了現代化生活中的各種材質表面，突出了大眾媒體和戰後的消費主義是如何地在日漸消除私人與公共、神聖與世俗之間的界限。
伊薩·根澤肯於1948年在德國巴特奧爾德斯洛出生，曾於漢堡、柏林和科隆學習純藝術、藝術史及哲學，後於1977年在杜塞爾多夫藝術學院完成學位。卓納畫廊自2004年起開始代理她的作品。2019年，她獲得了每年四月由美國達拉斯納西爾雕塑中心頒發的「納西爾獎」。
根澤肯的作品曾在多個國際雙年展和群展中佔有突出地位，如卡塞爾文獻展（1982、1992和2002年）、威尼斯雙年展（1982、1993、2003、2007和2015年）、明斯特雕塑展（1987、1997及2007年 ) 和聖保羅雙年展（2010年）等。
重要個展包括眾多藝術機構的巡迴個展：德國波恩萊茵河州立博物館（1988年，於1989年巡展至瑞士溫特圖爾美術館和鹿特丹博曼斯美術館）；芝加哥大學文藝復興協會（1992年，於1993年巡展至法蘭克福門廊藝術中心、布魯塞爾美術宮和慕尼黑市立倫巴赫美術館）；德國門興格拉德巴赫阿布泰貝格博物館（2002年，於2003年巡展至蘇黎世美術館）；以及倫敦白教堂美術館（2009年，巡展至科隆路德維希博物館）。其他為藝術家舉辦過重要個展的機構還包括：德國不倫瑞克藝術協會（2000年）；科隆路德維希博物館（2002年）；倫敦卡姆登藝術中心（2006年）；茵斯布魯克Galerieim Taxispalais（2006年）；維也納分離派展覽館（2006年）以及意大利博爾紮諾博物館（2010年）。
2013年，紐約現代藝術博物館（MoMA）為根澤肯舉辦了她的首個美國博物館回顧展，成為藝術家迄今為止最全面的作品展覽，涵蓋了她過去40年間涉及各種媒介的創作。展覽隨後於2014年巡展至芝加哥當代藝術博物館和達拉斯藝術博物館。同年，《伊薩·根澤肯：新作展》於奧地利薩爾茨堡現代博物館舉辦，隨後巡展至法蘭克福現代藝術博物館。2015年，阿姆斯特丹市立博物館舉辦了根澤肯的作品專題展，並在翌年巡展至柏林的馬丁-格羅皮烏斯博物館。2019年，瑞士伯爾尼美術館為藝術家舉辦了個展。2020年，巴塞爾藝術博物館舉辦了《伊薩·根澤肯：作品，1973-1983年》，並在2021年巡展至杜塞爾多夫的北萊茵-威斯特法倫藝術品收藏館。
多年來，藝術家的作品被珍藏於世界各地眾多重要的博物館和公共收藏，包括達拉斯藝術博物館；海牙市立美術館；華盛頓特區的赫尚博物館和雕塑園；鹿特丹的博伊曼斯範伯寧恩美術館；科隆路德維希博物館；洛杉磯當代藝術博物館；紐約現代藝術博物館；慕尼黑倫巴赫之家市立美術館；阿姆斯特丹市立美術館以及埃因霍溫凡艾伯博物館等。根澤肯現工作及生活於德國柏林。
媒体垂询
Julia Lukacher +1 212 727 2070 jlukacher@davidzwirner.com
Victoria Kung +852 9668 1092 victoriak@suttoncomms.com
Kiko Tse +852 6015 5184 kiko@davidzwirner.com