Exhibition 'Isa Genzken - Mach dich Hübsch!' in Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Largest retrospective ever in the Netherlands of one of the most influential artists of the last forty years. The exhibition is the first comprehensive retrospective of Isa Genzken’s work.
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.
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.
