Isa Genzken

The First English-Language Monograph on one of Germany's Most Prominent Artists; Chosen to represent Germany in the 2007 Venice Biennale. Isa Genzken's work encompasses sculpture, collage, film and photography. As one of Germany's leading sculptors to have emerged since the 1980s, her work stands out for its collaborative appeal - combining references to architecture, modernism and art history with the personal. ISA GENZKEN, by Alex Farquhardson, Diedrich Diederichsen and Sabine Breitwieser, is the first English-language monograph on this distinctive artist. Genzken is inspired by the accumulation of material culture, particularly architectural - concrete blocks, glass, mirrored sheets and steel. The combination of materials in her work is remarkable, drawing together animal heads, fluorescent plastic, spray-painted pinecones, children's umbrellas, kitchen utensils and airplane windows, to name a few. Her work can be both aesthetically brutal - assemblages of unrelated found objects and artist's materials that make up her "Empire/Vampire" series (2003-5) - and strikingly beautiful, as with her magnificent "New Buildings for Belin" (2003 - small impeccably crafted glass and silicone skyscrapers. One of her best known and loved works, Rose (1997), is a romantic public sculpture of a single long-stemmed rose made from enameled stainless steel that towers 26 feet in the air. Genzken has been exhibiting since the 1970s, and her work has appeared throughout Germany as well as in the 46th (1993), 50th (2003), and the forthcoming 2007 Venice Biennales. She has recently stepped into the US art scene when she was included at the prestigious Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 2005. Genzken is a figure of increasing relevance to an emerging generation of artists, as reflected in the interview with Wolfgang Tillmans in the Artist's Writings section. She is a notoriously reclusive figure, which makes her interview with Diedrich Diedrichsen of exceptional value. ISA GENZKEN is a fantastic comprehensive and insightful monograph that is perfect for collectors of contemporary art as well as anyone with an interest in sculpture and the international art scene.