Foundation Art and Public Space
artist: Isa Genzken
located in: Witte de With, Rotterdam,
Opening: 19 February 2010, from 6 p.m.
Between You and I is a joint project between SKOR and Witte de With (Centre for Contemporary Art Rotterdam), organised between autumn 2009 and summer 2010. Four international artists were invited to submit a proposal for an intervention on the outer façade of the Witte de With in the form of a critical interface to the urban environment of the city of Rotterdam. As part of Morality, a series of thematic projects presented in Witte de With starting in October 2009, these interventions aim to reproduce and redefine the boundaries between the institute and the public domain. Between You and I strives to open up a space in which to reflect on the contemporary meaning of morality, and which invites the public to actively contribute ideas on the presence of contemporary art in public space.
Isa Genzken
Intervention 2: Wind
Starting on 20 February 2010, the outer façade of Witte de With will feature a reproduction of the King of Pop blowing a hand kiss to passers-by on the street. Michael Jackson, already surrounded by myths and theories, has recently played a prominent role in the work of artist Isa Genzken (Bad Oldesloe, Germany, 1948). During her latest solo exhibition at Galerie Daniel Buchholz in Cologne (until 30 January 2010), she combined photographs of Jackson with a(n other) male icon: Michelangelo’s David. Viewed from Genzken’s sculptural background, it would be difficult to conceive a greater contrast than that between Jackson androgynous and anything but massive appearance, and the ultimate masculinity of Michelangelo’s David. On the façade of Witte de With, Jackson appears on his own, as the ultimate symbol of the shrill contrast between the glamorous exterior and almost boundless inner solitude. In all its simplicity, removed of all frippery, Genzken’s façade offers an opportunity to contemplate in peace this pop idol who for every passer-by elicits a completely different arsenal of associations.
Isa Genzken studied at the Art Academies of Hamburg and Berlin and graduated in 1977 from the Art Academy in Dusseldorf. Her work is primarily sculptural, combined with almost anarchistic multimedia use of photograph, film, paper, canvas, everyday objects and collages. She has won a number of prestigious art prizes and was represented in the German Pavilion at the Biennale in Venice in 2007. Recent exhibitions were held in the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2009), Hauser&Wirth, London (2008), Between Bridges, London (2008) and The Photographer’s Gallery, London (2005). Isa Genzken lives and works in Berlin.