Isa Genzken, Oil

Texts by: Juliane Rebentisch, Vanessa Joan Müller, Liam Gillick, Willem de Rooij. And a conversation between Isa Genzken and Nicolaus Schafhausen Artist Isa Genzken will represent Germany at the 52nd Venice Biennale. For over thirty years, Isa Genzken (b. 1948) has been creating a multi-facetted oeuvre, which is continuously developing and revealing new approaches. Her extensive work consists of sculptures and installations, photos, collages and films. Isa Genzken’s work for Venice will be site- and context-specific. Nicolaus Schafhausen, curator of the German pavilion, explains his choice: “Isa Genzken is one of the most uncompromising artists of today. She pinpoints current times like practically no other contemporary artist”. “Isa Genzken introduces her viewers to new and complex correlations. In her works, she discusses matters that truly move and affect us as a society.„ “For Isa Genzken, life and existence are just as complex as art itself. Her creative work stands in contradiction to a 'one-trick pony' society and culture, which searches for happiness in simple answers. This is perhaps the reason why she is so important and influential to many international artists of subsequent generations." - official publication for the German contribution at the Biennale die Venezia Nicolaus Schafhausen (ed.), director of Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam. Juliane Rebentisch, Professor for Ethics/Aesthetics at the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Potsdam, Vanessa Joan Müller, artistic director of Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf. Liam Gillick, British artist working in London and New York, Willem de Rooij, Dutch artist based in Berlin