Isa Genzken: Open, Sesame!
Texts by Yves-Alain Bois, Donna De Salvo, Dan Graham, Ulrich Loock, Wolfgang Tillmans, Lawrence Weiner, and Ian White. Interview with the artist by Kasper König
Open Sesame! covers more than three decades of Berlin-based Isa Genzken\s career, with over 150 images, some of which are published here for the first time. Although she works in a variety of media, Genzken is best known for her architectural sculptures made from colorful materials, including mirrored sheets, fluorescent plastic and glass. A catalogue for Open, Sesame!, Genzken\s retrospective exhibition at Cologne\s Museum Ludwig and London\s Whitechapel Gallery, this volume offers the most definitive look yet at an influential and notoriously reclusive artist. Featured are essays by renowned critic Yves-Alain Bois, curators Ulrich Loocks, Donna De Salvo and Ian White, an interview with Museum Ludwig Director Kasper König and contributions from artists Dan Graham, Wolfgang Tillmans and Lawrence Weiner.
Publisher: Walther König, Köln
Artists: Isa Genzken
Contributors: Yve-Alain Bois, Donna De Salvo, Dan Graham, Kasper König, Ulrich Loock, Wolfgang Tillmans, Lawrence Weiner, and Ian White
Publication Date: 2009
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 9 1/4 x 11 1/4 in (23.5 x 28.6 cm)
Pages: 248
Reproductions: 202 color
ISBN: 9783865606105
Retail: $66 US & Canada
Status: Out Of Print
Isa Genzken
Isa Genzken’s works express an attraction to that which surrounds and shapes our everyday lives, from design, consumer goods, and the media to architecture and urban environments. Her interest lies in the way in which common aesthetic styles come to illustrate and embody political and social ideologies. Her diverse practice draws on the legacies of Constructivism and Minimalism and often involves a critical, open dialogue with Modernist architecture and contemporary visual and material culture. Using plaster, cement, building samples, photographs, and bric-a-brac, Genzken creates architectonic structures that have been described as contemporary ruins. She further incorporates mirrors and other reflective surfaces to literally draw the viewer into her work. As part of her deep-set interest in urban space, she also arranges complex, and often disquieting, installations with mannequins, dolls, photographs, and an array of found objects.