Isa Genzken
Computer-cut wooden ellipsoids, concrete ruins, and then towers of shop-bought junk.
Isa Genzken was born in Bad Oldesloe in 1948 and studied at Dusseldorf, where she later married Gerhard Richter. Her early Ellipsoids and Hyperbolos of the late 1970s were extremely long, thin, lacquered wooden forms whose curves were calculated by computer — an unusual thing to do at the time. Through the 1980s and 1990s she made concrete and plaster sculptures resembling fragments of failed modernist architecture on steel supports. From about 2000 the work changed completely into brightly coloured accumulations of mirror, plastic toys, mannequins, spray paint and shopping, assembled into precarious towers.
The three phases behave as separate markets and the works look nothing like each other, which regularly confuses valuations made from photographs alone. The early lacquered wood pieces are scarce. The concrete works are heavy, fragile at the edges and frequently chipped, and losses are common. The assemblages of the 2000s use unstable consumer materials — plastics that yellow, adhesives that fail, printed matter that fades — and their condition and any conservation history are directly relevant. Genzken has also worked substantially in photography and collage.
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