Isa Genzken: I Love New York, Crazy City
Edited by Beatrix Ruf
New York\s public-relations campaign is not likely to add “crazy city” to its already famous heart-icon declaration of love, but few would dispute the truth of noted German sculptor Isa Genzken\s extension of it. Only a mind as oriented toward heterogeneity as hers could capture New York in all its insane glory. These three slipcased artist\s books from the time Genzken spent in New York a decade ago are published here for the first time. The collection both illuminates the working methods she uses in her sculptures and stands alone as a work of art itself. The books contain, as do her other works, thoughtful if sundry conglomerations of the items that shape our everyday existence from design, advertising and the media. Particularly important to her are the relationships in the urban environment between public and private space, artistic autonomy and collective experience. These explorations, as a window into the mind of this important artist or a window looking out onto the city, will bring repeated enjoyment and insight.
Publisher: JRP|Ringier
Artists: Isa Genzken
Contributors: Beatrix Ruf
Publication Date: 2006
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 12 x 15 in (30.5 x 38.1 cm)
Pages: 460
Reproductions: 460 color
ISBN: 9783905701098
Retail: $100 US & Canada | £58 | €90
Status: Available
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.