Isa Genzken & Nicolaus Schafhausen

One of the significant aspects of Isa Genzken’s practice is that it successfully thwarts any attempts to be described as a sequence of various work phases. Her retrospective exhibitions reveal a complex system of links moving in multiple directions and experimental new inclusions, which seemingly break from those that preceded them. This is partly because Genzken does not act strategically, but instead hones her formal language through experimentation. These experiments are pursued and intensified before she turns towards another interest. At the same time she frequently refers to icons of both art history and popular culture: Mona Lisa, Michael Jackson, or Jasper Johns. The result is a sculptural language which formulates powerful allegories of the social and political state of the world from the rubble of our present.

Nicolaus Schafhausen (*1965) has been the director of the Kunsthalle Wien since October 2012.