ISA GENZKEN

In response to SculptureCenter’s honouring Isa Genzken this year, the artist conceived this show around a new body of work entitled Portraits as a greeting to New York City on this special occasion. Incorporating photographic material, and particularly photographs of herself, has been a central component of Isa Genzken’s sculptural work throughout her œuvre, reflecting on her person through the eyes of others and placing her own figure in dialogue with figures from art history. Here, with photographs made by friends, family, and fellow artists or collaborators—including Gerhard Richter, Wolfgang Tillmans, Kai Althoff, Benjamin Buchloh, Blixa Bargeld, et. al.—Genzken has made a series of collage-based works using the material elements that are by now key signatures in her artistic practice (mirrored surfaces, plastic foils, packing tape, spray paint, etc.). Genzken, who has often dedicated particular art works to specific people, naming sculptures after friends, artists, or people whom she admires, focuses in this exhibition on her own image, thematizing the idea of portraiture and self-portraiture, being at once the artist and the subject. As a sound installation within the gallery space, the artist has included her 1979 record Tri-Star, an audio recording of a jetplane engine as it is taking off.