The Nasher Magazine Spring 2019 by Nasher Sculpture Center

THE NASHER SPRING / 2019

But while Genzken’s assemblages—some humorous, some poignant, some acerbic, some haunting—provided a direct influence to some of the younger cohort included in Unmonumental, Genzken herself operated even more powerfully as an example. Assemblage, for Genzken, represented a fairly recent turn in her work. She had begun to produce these sculptures well into her career—near age 50 —in 1997. Indeed, Genzken’s earliest explorations of assemblage occurred at roughly the same moment that many of the young artists in Unmonumental were themselves first beginning to explore the art form, or producing their earliest Photo: Allison V. Smith

mature works. Not for the first time in her career, Genzken had dramatically shifted aesthetic gears, such that late in midcareer, she was embracing and defining a way of making art that, in the words of New York Times critic Roberta Smith, “may be the central, most robust aesthetic of our time.”

When the Nasher Prize Jury met last summer and voted to

Fortuitously, the Nasher’s celebration of Isa Genzken this

award this year’s Prize to German artist Isa Genzken, they

spring will coincide with our midcareer survey of another

thought first of Genzken’s extraordinary and provocative

artist known for restless reinvention: Sterling Ruby. Sterling

sculptures. They thought, too, of her restless inventiveness

Ruby: Sculpture will feature 28 works by the California-based

and aesthetic bravery, her willingness to take risks and ability

artist whose exceptionally varied oeuvre includes painting and

to open up new fields of expression and meaning. And they

collage, along with mobiles, soft fabric sculptures, ceramics,

thought very much of the powerful example Genzken and

and objects fashioned from polyurethane, with each body of

her art have offered to younger generations of artists; how so

work stylistically as well as materially distinct. While Ruby’s and

much of the most interesting and vital work being produced

Genzken’s specific approaches to sculpture may share little in

today seems in various ways to follow from Genzken’s

common, their approach to art-making demonstrates a greater

achievements.

affinity. Both artists critique an idealized formalism, proposing instead art that is by turns informal, topical, immediate, and

Genzken’s position relative to younger artists was first

even abject. Both artists find inspiration in a range of sources

suggested to American audiences through an exhibition

high and low. And both artists appear fearless, ready to

held at New York’s New Museum in 2007. That show, titled

accept—and even embrace—failure. Celebrating Isa Genzken

Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century, featured

as we survey the sculpture of Sterling Ruby, the Nasher

works by 30 international artists—all of whom worked in the

Sculpture Center will offer a striking demonstration of the

sculptural language known as assemblage. The show’s bold

depth and urgency of sculpture today, of how—and why—this

argument was that assemblage had become the leading art

most ancient of art forms remains so vital.

form of our time. Assemblage, a form of sculpture in which discrete objects of diverse origin are placed together, creating a complex visual field, rich in meaning and association, is among the most recently invented of sculptural idioms, its origins dating to the early 20th century. While assemblage can be thought of as a sculptural outgrowth of the Cubist invention of collage by Braque and Picasso, its efflorescence was tied to Surrealism, and then to Neo-Dada. From its first manifestations in the 1920s to the present day, assemblage has proved an

Jeremy Strick Director

exceptionally durable art form, rediscovered and reinterpreted by successive generations of artists. While Unmonumental captured most of its participating artists relatively early in their careers, demonstrating the appeal of assemblage to a younger generation, Isa Genzken was its senior figure, an artist with a significant career already behind her.

Director’s Letter

Opposite: Sterling Ruby, (detail),This Generation, 2007 Wood, urethane, spray paint, denim, fabric, and fiberfill 61 x 94 x 60 in. (154.9 x 238.8 x 152.4 cm) Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio © Sterling Ruby

SPRING / 2019

THE NASHER A publication of the Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, Texas

EDITORIAL

Jeremy Strick Nasher Sculpture Center Director Leigh Arnold, Ph.D. Assistant Curator Catherine Craft, Ph.D. Curator Gail Host Marketing Manager Lucia Simek Manager of Communications and International Programs Jill Magnuson Director of External Affairs Jed Morse Chief Curator DESIGN

Lindsey Croley Senior Graphic Designer WITH SUPPORT FROM

Jacques Haba Senior Manager of Emerging Technologies and Evaluation Lindsey James Manager of Strategic Events and Programming Kirsten McIntosh External Affairs Coordinator

Contributors 2

STERLING RUBY Sterling Ruby (American, Dutch) was born in 1972 on Bitburg Air Base, Germany. He graduated in 1996 from the Pennsylvania School of Art and Design, Lancaster, and went on to receive a BFA in 2002 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in 2005 from the ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, California. Recent solo exhibitions include CHRON, Drawing Center, New York (2008); SUPERMAX 2008, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); STOVES, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris (2015); and Sterling Ruby: Ceramics, Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, and Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2018). Ruby’s work is featured in museum collections worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Ruby lives and works in Los Angeles.

JÖRG HEISER Jörg Heiser is Executive Director of the Institute of Art in Context at the University of the Arts in Berlin, and is a frequent contributor to frieze magazine.

MONICA SALAZAR Monica Salazar is publisher of Berlin Art Link magazine and a producer of MONA, a creative consulting and production company based in Berlin. In over a decade of realizing artfocused exhibitions, events, and video productions, Salazar, KAROLE VAIL Karole P. B. Vail has been Director, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, and Guggenheim Foundation Director for Italy since mid-June 2017. As director, Ms. Vail provides

alongside her business partner Anna Russ, has worked with leading museums, galleries, artists, universities, biennials, and art fairs, as well as corporate and private clients around the globe.

leadership, vision, and strategic direction for the museum, which honors the legacy of Peggy Guggenheim. Ms. Vail is just the second director in the history of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

MANNY ALCALA Manny Alcala is the Executive Producer at Quin Mathews Films, a studio devoted to telling stories about the arts. He has created films for institutions such as the Nasher Sculpture Center, the Dallas Museum of Art, and the RANDY KENNEDY

Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.

Randy Kennedy is director of special projects for the gallery Hauser & Wirth and editor in chief of its quarterly magazine, Ursula. He worked as a reporter for The New York Times for 25 years, half of those writing about the art world. He is the author of the 2018 novel Presidio (Simon & Schuster/ Touchstone), set in West Texas in the 1970s.

SPRING / 2019

THE NASHER 6 JED MORSE STERLING RUBY: SCULPTURE Nasher Chief Curator Jed Morse describes the extended life of everyday objects in the outsized sculptural work of exhibition artist Sterling Ruby. 14 STERLING RUBY IN THE STUDIO Exhibition artist Sterling Ruby sends a photographic dispatch from his studio in Los Angeles. 20 8

JED MORSE FOUNDATIONS: STERLING RUBY To play in dialogue with his exhibition, artist Sterling Ruby made selections from the Nasher Collection and other local collections as part of the Nasher’s ongoing series Foundations. 24 LEIGH ARNOLD 2019 NASHER PRIZE LAUREATE ISA GENZKEN The Nasher’s Assistant Curator Leigh Arnold considers the dynamic sculptural practice of the 2019 Nasher Prize Laureate Isa Genzken. 32 MONICA SALAZAR THE HISTORY OF THE BERLIN CLUB SCENE Monica Salazar, an American expat and founder of the online art magazine Berlin Art Link, highlights the Berlin club scene that has been such an influence on Isa Genzken’s work. 36 JÖRG HEISER BEYOND THE YEA-SAYERS

German art historian, critic, and curator Jörg Heiser considers the subversive nature of Isa Genzken’s recent work, as evidenced in her series of mannequin assemblages, Schauspieler (Actors). 42 RANDY KENNEDY EVERYBODY LOVES ISA GENZKEN Writer Randy Kennedy sends a love letter to Isa Genzken’s work.

Contents 4

46 NASHER PRIZE DIALOGUES PERFORMANCE AS SCULPTURE Artists Ragnar Kjartansson and Theaster Gates discuss the role that performance plays in their respective practices in a Nasher Prize Dialogues talk in Reykjavik, Iceland. 60 PLACES FOR SCULPTURE PATRON TRAVEL TO BRAZIL A group of Nasher patrons recently ventured to Brazil to visit artists’ studios, museums and art spaces, and restaurants. Here’s a look at what they saw. 68 LEIGH ARNOLD LONG-TERM LOAN: LYNDA BENGLIS’S

QUARTERED METEOR Assistant Curator Leigh Arnold discusses a bronze work by Lynda Benglis, on long-term loan to the Nasher. 72 KAROLE VAIL COLLECTING ARP Behind the scenes with the director of the Peggy 68

Guggenheim Collection, where The Nature of Arp will open this spring. 78 THREE-DIMENSIONAL LIBERATION— JUDY CHICAGO An overview of the upcoming program featuring this artist, who has worked for over five decades to propel art as a vehicle for intellectual transformation and social change. 80 STUDIO VISIT: ARTIST RO SHAW We check in with ceramic artist Ro Shaw—one of 2019’s The Great Create artists—in his studio just outside Austin.

72 5

JED MORSE ON

STERLING

RUBY Jed Morse is chief curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center and the curator of Sterling Ruby: Sculpture. Sterling Ruby: Sculpture is on view through April 21. Sterling Ruby: Sculpture is made possible by major support from the Dallas Art Fair Foundation and Gagosian. Additional support is provided by The Hartland-Mackie Family, Xavier Hufkens Gallery, SprĂźth Magers Gallery, Christen and Derek Wilson, the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and Cindy and Howard Rachofsky. Sterling Ruby The Cup (detail), 2013 Foam, urethane, wood, and spray paint 92 x 115 1/2 x 88 in. (233.7 x 293.4 x 223.5 cm) Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Collection Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio ÂŠ Sterling Ruby

Organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center, Sterling Ruby: Sculpture is the first museum survey of Ruby’s work in the medium, featuring nearly 30 sculptures ranging from the intimate to the monumental. The exhibition will be on view at the Nasher through April 21, 2019, and is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue featuring a new essay, “Sterling Ruby and the Transcendent Life of Objects,” by Nasher Chief Curator, and curator of the exhibition, Jed Morse. Parts of his catalogue essay have been excerpted and adapted here.

n 2008, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles (MOCA) afforded Sterling Ruby his first solo museum presentation. Just three years after receiving his MFA from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California, Ruby had already produced a prodigious body of work encompassing a dizzying array of media including painting, sculpture, photography, video, prints, collage, and ceramics. With so much work to his credit, in such a short time, the accompanying catalogue more closely resembled a midcareer survey than an artist’s first museum exhibition. The works on view, newly made for the exhibition, were clustered together in and around a double-height atrium—a row of engraved, rectilinear formica sculptures, some of them topped with thickly glazed ceramics, crimson fiberglass drips, or blocks of swirling pools of cast resin, juxtaposed with enormous, vibrant red stalagmites of poured urethane over wood armatures and surrounded by large, abstract spray paintings and soft fabric drips. Seductive in their colors, textures, and sensual forms, the works were problematic nonetheless: enigmatic letters, words, and phrases scrawled on the sculptures like graffiti turned them into urban koans, inviting deeper consideration. Collages nearby provided the visitor with a glimpse into the multifarious image bank the artist regularly mined—more thoroughly chronicled in the exhibition catalogue—which included prisons, crafts, Minimalist geometric structures, natural forms, knives, domestic interiors, transsexuality, banal landscape paintings, graffiti, and the casual images of sex and violence that pervade contemporary life. The dense installation evoked the exhibition’s title, SUPERMAX 2008, referring to the prisons that supposedly hold the most violent inmates, in both its overwhelming presence and the sense of confinement and control it imposed on visitors. The exhibition also provided a thorough and palpable summary of the issues—artistic, philosophical,

sociological,

political,

and

personal—that

preoccupied Ruby’s work to that point. Since that exhibition, the artist has continued to expand his body of sculptural work in a stunning variety of formal, material, and conceptual directions. From poured polyurethane works to monumental ceramic collages weighing hundreds of pounds, to soft sculptures incorporating inexpensive fabrics that the artist often dyes or bleaches himself, to Minimalist compositions of urethane and formica, Ruby’s works cross traditional divisions between media and often straddle the line between high and low, fine art and craft, luxury goods and common necessities. 8

Sterling Ruby The Cup, 2013 Foam, urethane, wood, and spray paint 92 x 115 1/2 x 88 in. (233.7 x 293.4 x 223.5 cm) Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Collection Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio Â© Sterling Ruby

Left: Sterling Ruby Elliptic Umbilic/Fait Accompli, 2007 PVC pipe, aluminum, urethane, wood, and spray paint 185 x 50 x 41 in. (469.9 x 127 x 104.1 cm) The Rachofsky Collection Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio © Sterling Ruby Above: Sterling Ruby Consolidator, 2008–2009 Urethane, wood, and spray paint 69 x 92 x 253 in. (175.3 x 233.7 x 642.6 cm) Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio © Sterling Ruby

Sterling Ruby, VAMPIRE 62, 2012. Fabric and fiberfill, 84 x 45 x 4 in. (213.4 x 114.3 x 10.2 cm). Collection of Christen and Derek Wilson. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio. Â© Sterling Ruby

Sterling Ruby, STOVE, 2013. Stainless steel, 212 1/2 x 62 x 71 in. (539.8 x 157.5 x 180.3 cm). Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio. Photo: Michael Wolchover, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio © Sterling Ruby

Incorporating Modernist strategies to make expressive works

developed in Germany after World War I, and its nonhierarchical

of art with materials typically associated with utility and

approach to the arts. This attraction to things that are, or once

affordability, Ruby creates work that addresses a range of

were, useful led Ruby to make the STOVES. Inspired by the

issues—from societal to personal—and reexamines notions of

rudimentary furnaces that foundry workers in China make out

beauty, value, and the meaning of sculpture itself.

of metal scraps during the winter to keep warm, as well as his experiences with kilns for ceramics and his family’s cast-

Ruby’s expansive practice offers a reassessment, critique,

iron stove, Ruby’s STOVE sculptures honor their simplicity and

and reinvention of a variety of Modernist strategies. The

functionality. “I was very excited about the idea of making a fully

works appear to test the persistence of Modernism’s Utopian

functioning stove as a utilitarian sculpture,” Ruby noted, “but

idealism in the face of harsh contemporary realities like

from a theoretical tangent.” Like Marcel Duchamp’s urinal that

poverty, violence, and urban decay. Ruby’s ACTS series of

he exhibited under the title Fountain (1917), the presentation of

formica and dyed urethane blocks reconsiders the conceptual

a stove used for warmth as an object of aesthetic consideration

and aesthetic purity of Minimalism with materials that suggest

changes how one thinks about it—or, as Duchamp put it,

run-down domestic or industrial interiors, often inscribed

creates a new thought for that object. One considers not only

with obscure words and acronyms reminiscent of graffiti.

its literal uses but also its social and communal functions.

The SCALES, mobiles balancing abstract painted forms

Ruby’s stoves take various shapes that suggest a variety of

and found objects, challenge the whimsy and buoyancy of

anthropomorphic or zoomorphic associations and lend each

Calder’s invention with the random detritus of contemporary

one a unique personality.

life. Fabric and fiberfill sculptures maintain the approachability of Claes Oldenburg’s soft sculptures while suggesting darker

This recognition of the value of each thing for what it is, what

readings. With a practice that encompasses such a variety

it was, and what it can be distinguishes Ruby’s sculptural

of sculptural modes—some closely associated with fine

practice. Like archaeological relics, his objects carry with them

art (welded steel, cast bronze, found-object construction,

not only their own histories but also the residue of their use

architectonic compositions) and others still traditionally related

and significance in our lives. Harnessing the specific physical

to craft (ceramics, fiber arts, clothing)—Ruby offers a singular

qualities, societal associations, and metaphorical possibilities

exemplar in his engagement of the expanded field.

of each thing, and merging it with other evocative objects and materials in myriad combinations, Ruby creates a new realm

Such a practice emerges from a natural affinity for the objects

of matter that causes us to reconsider those objects, the roles

around him. Ruby acknowledges an appreciation of the

they play in the world, and what we understand—and don’t

Bauhaus, the holistic art, architecture, and craft movement that

understand—about the experience of being human. 13

Sterling Ruby

In the Studio

Exhibition artist Sterling Ruby gave The Nasher an inside look at his studio with this photographic dispatch, showing beautiful material and even some works getting prepared to head to Dallas.

All images courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio

JED MORSE ON

Foundations Sterling Ruby: Sculpture

The Foundations series of installations and exhibitions at the Nasher Sculpture Center complements, contextualizes, and expands upon the featured exhibition on view. For Foundations: Sterling Ruby, the artist has selected works that provide insights into his deep ties to Modernism and highlight aspects of these historical precursors that still resonate today. The artist’s selection of works from the Nasher and other local collections includes works that can be seen as important precursors to Ruby’s own sculptures or resonant with his artistic concerns. His interest in collage and the reanimation of discarded objects finds predecessors in Anthony Caro’s and David Smith’s welded steel constructions and Ivan Puni’s found-object collage, as well as Pablo Picasso’s and Peter Voulkos’s ceramic assemblages. The heavily worked surfaces of Willem de Kooning’s and Joan Miró’s sculptures echo in Ruby’s ceramics and Exhumation works, while Lynda Benglis’s cast of a poured sculpture serves as an important point of departure for Ruby’s interest in the frozen gesture. Moreover, selections of works by Joseph Beuys and Ana Mendieta reflect Ruby’s visceral connection to materials and their potential meanings.

Jed Morse is chief curator at the Nasher Sculpture Center and curator of Sterling Ruby: Sculpture and Foundations: Sterling Ruby. Foundations: Sterling Ruby is on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center through April 21, 2019.

Claes Oldenburg Mannikin Torso: Two-Piece Bathing Suit, 1960 Plaster soaked muslin over wire frame, painted with tempera 32 1/2 x 14 3/4 x 4 1/2 in. (82.8 x 37.5 x 11.4 cm) Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection © 2019 Claes Oldenburg

2019 LAUREATE

ISA GENZKEN

Nasher Sculpture Center Assistant Curator Leigh Arnold, Ph.D., on

ISA GENZKEN 2019 Nasher Prize Laureate

This spring, the Nasher Sculpture Center will honor artist Isa Genzken as the fourth recipient of the Nasher Prize, an international award presented annually to a living artist who has made an extraordinary impact on our understanding of sculpture.

With a career spanning four decades, Isa Genzken has

such as Gerhard Richter, Anselm Kiefer, Sigmar Polke, and

continually reinvented the language of sculpture by creating

Genzken, confronted the traumas and aftermath of World

objects inspired by popular culture and historical events that

War II by creating works that emphasized material culture and

explore the complexities of contemporary realism. Engaging

incorporated elements of Pop art and American Minimalism.

a diverse range of media such as wood, plaster, concrete,

Genzken studied fine arts, art history, and philosophy in

textiles, and detritus and working in a variety of modes,

Hamburg, Berlin, and Cologne before completing her studies

including photography, filmmaking, painting, drawing, and

at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf in 1977. During

collage, Genzken transforms vernacular materials into wholly

that time, Genzken developed a broad network of contacts

unique forms. Her inventive, ad hoc approach to making, as

and references in an environment enriched by the Academy,

well as her fearless embrace of chaos and change, has inspired

the international program at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, an

a generation of artists, even as she continues to adapt, expand,

exhibition hall for contemporary art in the city, and at the

and redefine her protean oeuvre.

Konrad Fischer Galerie, which was the primary advocate of Minimalism, process-based art, Land art, and Conceptual art

“We’d be hard-pressed to name an artist with a more textured

in Germany. There, Genzken became affiliated with artists on

and dynamic sculptural practice than Isa Genzken,” says

the leading edge of Minimalist and Post-Minimalist sculpture,

Nasher Director Jeremy Strick. “Her work not only straddles

and in 1976 she would have her first solo show at the Konrad

an array of forms that complicate and enrich our understanding

Fischer Galerie. While Genzken’s earliest works—her series of

of sculpture, she also consistently challenges the way an

Ellipsoids and Hyperbolos (produced in 1976 through the mid-

artist’s career and oeuvre might look, breaking apart the notion

1980s), in particular—formally resemble Minimalist sculpture,

of specialization within an individual studio practice. Her work

their associative aspects break with its hermeticism. “Of

can feel utterly urgent and visceral—fraught with emotion—

course, it was exactly this ‘content’ that I wanted to bring

while at other times, objects are rendered with such precision

back into the Ellipsoids,” Genzken says, “so that people

as to seem devoid of human touch. This range of material and

would say, ‘It looks like a spear, or a toothpick, or a boat.’ This

conceptual rigor has positioned Genzken as a major influence on

associative aspect was there from the very beginning and was

younger generations of artists working today amid the clamor

also intentional, but from the viewpoint of Minimal art, it was

of the digital age, offering permission and encouragement to

absolutely out of the question and simply not modern.”1

subvert norms and invent new possibilities.” Central to Genzken’s artistic development were her many Born in 1948 in Bad Oldesloe, Germany, Genzken is part of a

visits to New York City. Starting in 1960, Genzken made

generation of postwar German artists who inherited a fraught

frequent trips there, where she admired the architecture and

national history. While some artists turned to abstraction

the city itself. It became the subject of several bodies of work

to avoid the subject of Germany’s past atrocities, others,

throughout Genzken’s career, including her bound notebooks

Isa Genzken Schauspieler II, 11, 2014 Black man mannequin on glass stand, silver mirror foil, brown and black jumper, safety pin, whip, orange paper roll, color print on paper, adhesive tape 88.58 x 24.01 x 19.69 in (225 x 61 x 50 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz ÂŠ 2019 Isa Genzken

that compose the work I Love New York, Crazy City (1995–

“The thesis here is that assemblage-type sculpture,

96). Understood as the artist’s first significant assemblage,

rampant at the moment, may also be today’s most viable

I Love New York was intended as a city guidebook, featuring

art form. Why? It tends to be low-tech, modest in scale,

photographs, hotel bills, posters, tickets, napkins, receipts,

made with found objects and materials and structured in

and notes on hotel stationery. Genzken translated the

ways that are fragmented if not actually disintegrating.

contents of this book—found materials, detritus—into three-

Its ugly-duckling looks, rough edges, disparate parts

dimensional sculpture for the first time in her exhibition Fuck

and weird juxtapositions help stave off easy art-market

the Bauhaus. New Buildings for New York at New York’s AC

absorption while also reflecting our fearful, fractured,

Project Room in 2000. The show featured six sculptures

materially excessive times back at us.”3

set on rough plywood pedestals, resembling disheveled architectural models, cobbled together from humble

Smith would later declare assemblage “the central, most robust

materials such as cardboard, foam core, caution tape, plastic

aesthetic of our time,” referring to Genzken as the “presumptive

mesh, and glue, and represented Genzken’s seminal foray

éminence grise” of the Unmonumental exhibition.4

into sculptural assemblage. Fuck the Bauhaus signaled a new direction in Genzken’s practice, as the artist transitioned

“Isa Genzken makes work that retains its spontaneity right to

from constructing objects to fabrication and handmade

the last. She uses an extraordinarily diverse range of materials

assemblage. Art critic Peter Schjeldahl later recognized

and forms, so there is a continuous unpredictability as to what

the exhibition as “the starter’s gun for a movement”—a

the next body of work might and can be,” says artist and Nasher

reference to the shift in contemporary-art production toward

Prize juror Phyllida Barlow. “The work is always evolving and

an “unskilled” aesthetic best illustrated by the New Museum

therefore her influence is exceptional on artists of all ages.”

of Contemporary Art’s 2007 group exhibition Unmonumental: The Object in the 21st Century. 2 Roberta Smith described

Throughout her formally diverse body of work, Genzken’s

this so-called movement in her review of the show:

interest in architecture and her ability to transform provisional materials into meaningful ruminations on society remain constant. It is in the combination of objects that her works find

Isa Genzken, Rot-gelb-schwarzes Doppelellipsoid ‘Zwilling, 1982. Two parts, wood, lacquer, 5.12 x 8.07 x 236.22 in; (4.33 x 5.51 x 237.01 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz. © 2019 Isa Genzken

their meaning, as the artist explains: “There is a permanent

produced mannequins “wearing” myriad coverings such as

misunderstanding regarding the materials I use. I am not

jackets, sweaters, hats, and masks. They feel improvised,

interested in readymades. The meaning is in the combination

both in posture and attire, and certain of their surfaces bear

of things . . . . I want to animate the viewers, hold up a mirror

the mark of the artist—painted faces, arms and legs covered

to them …” Among her most powerful bodies of work is

in crayon, for example. The figures are commonly installed in

the sculptural ensemble Ground Zero (2008), which the artist

groups and suggest a crowd of eccentric urban types. When

made following a close reading of the open call for design

one walks among them, the sculptures conjure a human

proposals for the former site of the World Trade Center.

presence and relationships between figures develop, as do

Though never submitted, the sculptural assemblages reflect

social and psychological dynamics. Many of the garments

Genzken’s adherence to the rules set forth in the open call for

and accessories donned by the mannequins are drawn from

proposals and together represent an earnest, if humorous,

Genzken’s wardrobe—pieces of herself dispersed as decoys

plan for the site. As with her sculptures in Fuck the Bauhaus,

or alter egos. The work Schauspieler II, 11, 2014, for example,

those Genzken assembled for Ground Zero include structures

comprises a black male mannequin and several elements

representing aspects of the built environment: a parking

suggestive of the artist: a black and brown knit sweater drapes

garage, church, hospital, disco, clothing shop, and memorial

around the mannequin’s shoulders, while its head is wrapped

tower constructed from materials as diverse as silk flowers,

in a mask of bright orange paper with a color image of the

shopping carts, plastic fan covers, and a hospital gown. Though

artist affixed to it. The paper mask is precariously secured to

hypothetical, Genzken’s proposal was an homage to New York

the sweater with a safety pin, indicating the article of clothing

and represented the kinds of buildings she felt reflected the

is Genzken’s. Mirrored foil covers the figure’s backside, chest,

essence of life, culture, and the city.

and groin. Parts of the body that would reveal the mannequin’s

gender are otherwise obscured, while the viewer’s reflection In 2013, Genzken debuted a series of sculptures that play on

would in turn “dress” the mannequin. Through this figurative

the conventions of Modernist statuary and continue the artist’s

assemblage, Genzken has created a work that is a proxy

explorations in form, color, and texture. Titled Schauspieler

for herself and a reflection of its viewer. Absent a viewer,

(Actors), Genzken’s figurative assemblages comprise mass-

the sculpture reflects its surroundings, visually combining 29

architecture and the body—an overarching theme throughout

In 2013, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in collaboration

Genzken’s kaleidoscopic oeuvre. Her restless transformation of

with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Dallas

modes can be attributed to a self-confessed effort to avoid the

Museum of Art, presented Genzken’s first American museum

“already known.” In reflecting on her career, Genzken says,

survey, Retrospective, reaching back to the mid-1970s. The

“For a long time, I went about my work very conceptually. . . . . I

exhibition highlighted the full range of her practice including

had an idea and I realized it forcefully. Then I stopped doing that

sculpture, as well as paintings, photographs, collages, drawings,

suddenly and a new phase started: Just go ahead. And yet the

artist’s books, and films, making it the most comprehensive

rigor of all those years is still in me.”

presentation of her work to date. The recipient of the 2017

Goslarer Kaiserring (Emperor’s Ring) award from the city of Goslar, Germany, the artist is represented in museum and About Isa Genzken

public collections worldwide, including the Dallas Museum

Isa Genzken was born in 1948 in Bad Oldesloe, Germany, and

of Art; Gemeentemuseum, The Hague; Hirshhorn Museum

lives and works in Berlin. She studied fine arts, art history, and

and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museum Boijmans

philosophy in Hamburg, Berlin, and Cologne, before completing

Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museum of Contemporary

her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf in

Art Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles;

1977. Genzken’s work has been the subject of many major

Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum Ludwig,

museum exhibitions, including traveling surveys organized by

Cologne; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Stedelijk

the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany (1988–1989);

Museum, Amsterdam; and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1992– 1993); Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany (2002–2003); and Whitechapel Gallery, London (2009). She has also been featured in solo exhibitions at venues including the Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2000); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2002; organized by the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst on the occasion of the artist receiving the Wolfgang Hahn Prize); Camden Arts Centre, London (2006); Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, Austria (2006); Secession, Vienna (2006); and Museion, Bolzano, Italy (2010). Her work has been prominently featured in international biennials and group exhibitions including documenta 7, 9, and 11 (1982, 1992, and 2002), Skulptur Projekte Münster (1987, 1997, and 2007), and the Venice Biennale (1982, 1993, 2003, 2007, and 2015). 30

Diedrich Diederichsen, “Diedrich Diederichsen in Conversation with Isa Genzken (2006),” in Isa Genzken, ed. Lisa Lee, 111-124 (Cambridge, MA; London: The MIT Press, 2015), 115. 2 The exhibition of nearly 80 works by 30 artists inaugurated the New Museum’s new building in Lower Manhattan and was on view December 1, 2007–March 30, 2008. Genzken was the oldest participant in the show by at least 14 years—a testament to her work’s continued relevance and her influence on younger generations. See: https://archive.newmuseum.org/ exhibitions/918 (accessed August 30, 2018). See also: Schjeldahl,“Views from the Edge: An Isa Genzken Retrospective,” The New Yorker, December 2, 2013: https://www.newyorker. com/magazine/2013/12/02/views-from-the-edge (accessed August 13, 2018). 3 Smith, “In Galleries, A Nervy Opening Volley,” The New York Times, November 30, 2007: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/arts/design/30newm.html (accessed August 30, 2018). 4 See Smith, “Assembling Brash Wholes from Scraps: ‘Isa Genzken: Retrospective’ at Museum of Modern Art,” The New York Times, November 21, 2013: https://www.nytimes. com/2013/11/22/arts/design/isa-genzken-retrospective-at-museum-of-modern-art.html (accessed August 13, 2018). 5 Nicolaus Schafhausen, “A Conversation with Isa Genzken and Nicolaus Schafhausen,” in Isa Genzken: Oil : German Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2007, ed. Nicolaus Schafhausen and Isa Genzken, 153-157 (Köln, Germany: DuMont, 2007), 156. 6 “The intention is to get a different reaction to the ‘already known.’ I can’t explain it any other way.” Wolfgang Tillmans, “Who Do You Love? Isa Genzken in Conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans,” Artforum (November 2005), 226. 7 Tillmans, “Who Do You Love?” 229. 1

Isa Genzken, Saal, 1987 concrete, steel, 80 x 33 x 34 in. ( 203,2 x 83,8 x 87 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz. ÂŠ 2019 Isa Genzken

The History of the Berlin Club Scene To highlight the Berlin club scene that has been such an influence on Isa Genzken’s work, The Nasher asked Monica Salazar, an American expat and the co-Editor-in-Chief of the online art magazine Berlin Art Link, to give some insight into the fabled nightlife of the German capital.

By day they appear as rundown warehouses, abandoned old mills, or squatted buildings covered in anarchist posters and graffiti. By night, they become the heart and soul of Berlin’s contemporary culture and one of its biggest attractions. Throughout the weekend, these hidden and often off-putting facades yield entry lines that loop around the block, featuring young, old, local, and new eager clubbers who are all here for one reason. Nervously approaching the infamously intimidating bouncers, Berlin’s night crawlers live for dark rooms with no rules, psychedelic lights, and infectious transportive techno music. Even for those who have never heard techno or hate the smell of smoke, a night in Berlin will always be unique. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the city embarked on a cultural and artistic rebirth that persists today. Coming into its own as a mature international contemporary-art destination, Berlin still holds on to its artistically liberated attitudes, where parties don’t end and there is no room for elitist judgment—much of this can be seen within its legendary techno parties. It is not immediately clear why Germany’s capital has such an unmatched nightlife. Perhaps the history of various authoritarian regimes made the city more amenable to underground scenes. Or maybe the plethora of vacant buildings and lots waiting to be filled after the fall of the Berlin Wall invited this flourishing of art, sexual liberation, and never-ending techno parties.

Abandoned houses, bunkers, hangers, underground stations, public restrooms, power plants, and everything in between were consumed by electronic raves. What was first an underground, then-illegal, but nonetheless increasingly strong testament to the new Berlin has now become the reason techno and electronic-music aficionados and fans arrive daily from around the world. Famously, Ufo Club (now Tresor), Der Bunker, E-Werk, WMF, Cookies, and Bar25 were (illegal) trailblazers in this regard. Tresor and E-Werk are still operating today but are now thriving (legal) venues. The city is home to over 500 clubs, and their success has even brought politicians to provide a $1 million fund to soundproof and renovate clubs, just to maintain the rush of tourists. The clubs now have entry fees and guest lists, DJ sets advertised as Facebook events, almost equating them to conventional clubs. What keeps them divergent from traditional clubs is immediately revealed once the bouncer stamps your wrist and opens the doors. As Anthony Bourdain described in his Parts Unknown piece, “Nothing exciting starts in this city until all the normal people are asleep.” No one needs to have memorized Drake’s hits to feel included and, more importantly, the music is only part of the potion. What truly stirs the cauldron is the quirky decor, outdoor gardens with footbaths, climbing structures, vintage furniture, communal fire pits, humble restaurants and sundry shops, secret themed rooms accessible by ladder within a labyrinthlike interior, and so much more—like a Disneyland for adults. What keeps Berliners from utter exhaustion while experiencing the loud bass, sweaty crowds, and dancing for 24 hours? The people and their contagious, universally communal nature. With a weekly list of who’s-who in the international techno and On any given night (or day) in a club, the brew of personalities

house scenes playing throughout its halls, Berghain is even

one might encounter is limitless, always eye-opening and

recognized by Germany as a cultural institution that also acts

generously accepting. Unlike in many cities, the weirder the

as a cultivator of the arts.

better. There is not one type of Berliner who goes clubbing, and the only dress code is character—stilettos and fancy tight

Even those who avoid the sweaty, smoke-filled dance floors

dresses are probably a recipe for rejection.

and loud music for quaint candlelit bars still hold a certain reverence and respect for the club’s scene and what it has

From the cocktail of fishnet, chains, and fetish leather to the

done for the city.

staple all-black ensemble of jeans, T-shirts, and military boots, to drag outfits or nothing at all, one will encounter everything

Berlin’s revered art scene is historically interwoven with the

from an actor to a Facebook executive to a politician, a famous

city’s nightlife. The experiences yielded by the nightlife serve

opera singer, a university student, a waitress, a schoolteacher,

as a muse to many artists, just as the city’s constant influx of

a grandfather, a doctor, a drug dealer, or a BDSM professional

creativity fuels the growth of its nightlife. Berghain organizes

(you get the picture): All are welcome with open arms in the

performance-art events from world-renowned contemporary

harmonious, judgment-free, liberated walls of Berlin’s clubs.

artists, with its Panorama Bar hosting almost weekly. Wolfgang Tillmans’s works hang there, and the club regularly showcases

One club that still gains international acclaim in this regard is

temporary exhibitions and experimental sound concerts.

Berghain. The club began when its owners, who had previously run a nomadic gay bar, opened a permanent space (in what

Atonal festival is a well-known art event in Berlin, although

was formerly a power plant); it’s known for having the world’s

a large percentage of the program is just techno and house

best sound system. It is also known for its hedonistic freedom,

DJ sets. CTM, for example, is a festival dedicated to

where clothes are optional and time does not exist. “Once I

electronic experimental sound art, which includes techno

spent three days straight in Berghain” is not an uncommon

but also everything else emerging from the artistic technical

phrase to hear.

developments of music culture. The festival hosts not only club nights at places like Berghain but also installations, exhibitions,

and performances spread across Berlin’s biggest art venues. While Fusion Festival is world-renowned as a multi-day techno party, it also shows theater, performance, installations, and interactive art. And it’s not Germany’s only festival to do so. Griessmuehle and Ritter Butzke host regular cinema nights

List of Berlin’s Best Clubs:

where contemporary indie films are screened for the public. One of Berlin’s largest art spaces, Akademie der Künste, recently exhibited its basement murals as part of Berlin Art Week. They were painted by graduate art students in 1957 and 1958 in the GDR, during riotous and demonstrative basement parties where rules were left at the door. These art parties formed the building blocks of today’s club nights and were attended by artists like Manfred Böttcher, Harald Metzkes, Ernst Schroeder, and Horst Zickelbein. Their artistic identities developed during the fizzing of the current cultural explosion brought on, yet again, by parties. All week without pause, Berlin sways to the non-lyrical, nonmelodic, repetitive thumps, ambient sounds, snare pulses, and indescribable beats that remain a fixation for the crowds below the DJ stand. The city’s overwhelmingly vibrant, individualistic energy is impossible to ignore, stemming from a perfect blend of its history, people, and music.

Berghain Griessmuehle Watergate Hoppetosse/ Club der Visionaere Mensch Meier Tresor Salon Zur Wilden Renate Chalet Ritter Bützke Heideglühen

Photographs by Romeo Alaeff

Beyond the

Yea-sayers About Isa Genzken’s work of recent years. by Jörg Heiser

Actors populate the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt,

That in the past decade, Genzken was awarded a number of

Germany, during the spring of 2015. They are transfixed,

important institutional prizes and exhibitions, not least, in the

sunken in fixed constellations, like star signs controlling our

fall of 2013, a major retrospective at MoMA in New York. Is it

fate. Or, in one space, they are standing around like celebrity

really just coincidence that there is this recent cycle of work,

party guests, full of themselves, expecting admiration. And

with which she would continue exploring and expanding

visitors are walking among them, so that it’s as if the actors

her language of form, which arguably started in 1997 when

were mingling with them despite their glamorous outfits,

she combined twisted cake tins, metal fruit baskets, and

half designer clothes, half garage-sale find. In another space,

barbecue tongs, sprayed many colors on them, and titled

three families stand in circles holding powwow. Who steps

them Schwules Baby (Gay Baby)? It was a language of form

among them is entering a silent palaver. Why does a dried

that at the time seemed to be in obvious contradiction to her

red rose rise from the head of one of the kids like an antenna?

previous, rigorously Minimalist work—the wooden ellipsoids

And what about that tall, muscular dad? Why are his hands

of the 1970s, the concrete sculptures of the 1980s (but, to

as tiny as a small child’s? And why is he made of shiny black

be precise, the rigor didn’t mean there hadn’t already been

plastic, with a venom-green “ISA” sprayed onto his chest?

a subtle sense of humor at work). The whole thing was like an explosion of aesthetic possibilities after a long period of

Since 2012, Isa Genzken has been working on the cycle

charging energy, leading to constellations such as the one

of works titled Schauspieler (Actors), creating them in her

at the German Pavilion in Venice in 2007, when astronaut

Berlin Studio using store-window mannequins and pieces

puppets hovered under the ceiling like balloons after a party; or

of clothing, awarding them accessories. She drapes them,

the Straßenfest (Block Party) that was part of her retrospective

covers them with stuff, completes them, breaks them,

at Cologne’s Museum Ludwig in 2009, for which Genzken

ridicules them, and jazzes them up, bringing them to flickering

already used mannequins, dressing them up with bearskin or

life. In the museum, it is mostly works from this current series

fake boobs—probably causing some raised eyebrows among

that are on display—with an important exception from 1974

those who consider riotous fun a betrayal of form. Well,

that we will come back to.

Genzken wasn’t going to stop. But it’s not like the cascade of museum shows and prestigious awards didn’t have any

It’s hard not to see this turn in four decades of work by this

effect on her, or rather, her work. Because these works have

artist, born in 1948, against the background of a particular fact:

always been her world receivers, her Weltempfänger—the

Isa Genzken Schauspieler, 2013 Mannequin, fabric, plastic, metal, wood, lacquer 23 x 24 x 28 in. (60 x 70 x 60 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz ÂŠ 2019 Isa Genzken

Isa Genzken OIL XV / OIL XVI, 2007 Installation Wall piece, 23 panels in three segments: Aluminum, metal foil, adhesive tape, metal, printed paper 104 x 77 in. (265 x 450 cm.); 104 x 77 in. (265 x 450 cm.); 106 x 52 (270 x 132 cm.) Floor piece, six parts: Two mannequins, two plastic cases, one glass bowl, metal foil, plastic, fabric 14 x 87 x 150 in. (35 x 220 x 380 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz ÂŠ 2019 Isa Genzken

title of a key series of hers from the 1980s—the antennae

Susan Grayson. The two swap clothes and thus are at one

of which receive the waves before the message arrives.

point naked. Genzken is tall and slender, Grayson smaller and more sturdily built. But the clothes still fit both of them in

In the first work one encountered in the Frankfurt exhibition,

beautiful, alternating ways. The figure becomes a nude, the

there were clear hints that Genzken was suggesting the

nude a sculpture, whether draped or not. The two laugh. This

effect of her work’s success. On the floor, printouts and

early work is like a source code for the recent ones.

scanned finds were placed under Plexiglas panels, forming a slim rectangle like a Carl Andre piece (Untitled, 2014).

A kid with a football helmet, life jacket, and passport in

Two metal rings were suspended above the floor piece, as

front of its chest watches a man lying on the floor whose

if the medium of photography was forced to jump through

unclad crotch is colored red, as he peeps under the skirt of a

the hoops of sculpture. Little jokes are there too, such as

lady—a parody of the Freudian primal scene, but at the same

a postcard with a line from German rapper Cro, “Baby bitte

time a family constellation of competing feelings of shame,

mach dir nie mehr Sorgen um Geld” (Baby, please, don’t you

resistance, and revolt. At last, seven Nefertiti busts—faithful

ever worry about money again). So she is actively commenting

reproductions of the famous ancient Egyptian sculpture—are

on her market status, without the kind of uptight piousness

lined up on rollable steles, each sporting cheap sunglasses,

some artists show when lamenting the record prices their

as if to dim down the glaring light of art historic canonization.

works achieve in auction, while continuing with churning out

In this spirit, carrying on can still hold the unexpected.

the fitting kind of work. But Genzken is also commenting on the gritted teeth of art professionals who used to studiously ignore her. There is a letter on MoMA paper, in which a renowned curator excuses her absence during the opening of Genzken’s retrospective with empty polite phrases (“prior engagement”). Yet this floor piece doesn’t stop at these kinds of little hints and stabs, but makes them part of a polyphonic discourse of images between wide open possibilities and limiting forces, between Bellini’s Doge of Venice junkie on a toilet and Michael Jackson on stage with Diana Ross, both wearing the same glitter suit. Strict gender roles, if it hasn’t become clear by now, are discarded by the minute. But let’s be honest: Doesn’t extensive museal canonization often lead to an oeuvre kind of congealed in reverence of its own greatness? When institutional appraisal attracts all the yea-sayers and backslappers, the delight in taking risks can easily wear off. Not with Genzken. And the “actors” are a sure sign of that. Genzken turns them into parodistic avatars precisely of these kinds of syndicates of importance and the tension between highfalutin co-optation and perfidious potshots. Genzken doesn’t hold the exclusive license for using shop-window mannequins in the context of art (you can draw a line, for example, from the Surrealists through Allen Jones to Heimo Zobernig or Cathy Wilkes). But she is possibly most consistent in employing the wittiness and eeriness opened up by the endlessly reproducible similitude of the human figure. Sculptures become confused with human beings. And the confusion is no lapse. It’s a system in which lived, loved, hated contemporariness becomes entangled as in a drift net. Without any hocus-pocus, they are draped in glamorous rags, some of which Genzken used to wear herself (red leather pants with white side stripes, for example), as if she and not, say, David Bowie were the rock star deserving the costume exhibition. Yet the glamour is instantly duped by a lampshade on the head, or pink tape across the mouth. A short black and white film of 1974, Zwei Frauen im Gefecht (two women battling), shows Genzken next to fellow artist 40

This piece is based on a text first published in German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung on March 14, 2015.

Isa Genzken Nofretete, 2014 Seven Neferiti plaster busts with glassed-on wooden bases, wooden plinths, on casters and 4 steel panels, each 75 x 3 x 16 x 20 in. (190 x 7 x 40 x 50 cm.) Installation dimensions variable. Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Cologne/Berlin/New York, David Zwirner, New York/London and Hauser & Wirth © 2019 Isa Genzken

nd yK en ne dy

n November 27 of last year, a 70th birthday

visual landscape and broken history of crumbling postwar

celebration for Isa Genzken was held at

Germany. And how the even more disordered, slapstick, trash-

the Paris Bar in Berlin, her old haunt and,

agglomeration works of Fuck the Bauhaus (2000) went deeper

since 1977, the hallowed saloon and safe

into architecture’s profound impact on human experience,

house for a certain strata of renegade artists

particularly the urban variety—the spaces that shape our days,

of her generation: Martin Kippenberger, Iggy Pop, Sigmar Polke,

that bring us together, that form our conceptions of notions

Nan Goldin, Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

like beauty, utility, privacy, justice, and community, for better and worse.

Before dinner, the collector Erika Hoffmann told me a story about a previous birthday fête for Genzken several years earlier,

Thinking about public and private space has been Genzken’s

a night that had begun normally enough. Genzken had booked

abiding occupation and her major contribution to contemporary

a restaurant and invited many of her friends, but when Hoffman

art. In a rare interview in 1996 with the architect Niel Logan,

arrived early, she found Genzken standing alone outside the

printed in I Love New York, Crazy City, Genzken’s delirious paean

place, reading a notice that the restaurant had permanently

to her adopted city, the two spoke about her return again and

closed. Too impatient to wait for the others, Genzken took

again to sculpture that evokes the simple form of the window.

Hoffman, at that point a mere acquaintance, to the Paris Bar,

“It’s nice about windows that they make the connections,” she

where they formed a discreet birthday party of two—Hoffmann

told him. “People ask me sometimes why I make windows and

somewhat bewildered, wondering nervously all the while

it’s because of the connections, to the outside but also to light.”

about the fate of the other celebrants, who likely had no idea of Genzken’s whereabouts. (Genzken didn’t use a cell phone and

As the distinction between public and private began to

didn’t remember anyone’s number.) Before the end of the meal,

deteriorate in the early 21st century under the juggernaut of the

a friend of Genzken’s arrived bearing dozens of rose bouquets,

social-media revolution, Genzken tuned in earlier than almost

which Genzken enlisted Hoffman to help her carry and cram

any other artist, even those born of the Facebook generation, to

into Hoffman’s tiny SmartCar. The two women, barely able to fit

the implications of the blur between inside and out, the feel of a

into the car because of the volume of flowers, then embarked

more virtual world in which the very concepts of self and space

on a futile multi-hour quest through the streets of Berlin to find

have begun to change. Her 2015 exhibition at David Zwirner

an obscure gay bar where Genzken planned to end the night.

gallery in Chelsea—a long room like a public square scattered

The search concluded only when a knowledgeable taxi driver

with her signature late-career mannequins, some dressed as

was enlisted, all the roses were transferred laboriously to the

police, some with the look of refugees draped in oversized

cab, and Genzken arrived at the bar, Hoffman said, to find all her

cast-off clothes, all standing against digital-looking collages that

missing friends there awaiting her, cheering her entrance. She

seemed to have been concocted by algorithm—read to me

distributed roses among them and watched deliriously as rose-

as a chillingly true evocation of what “space” feels like now in

clad revelers filled the dance floor.

post-postmodern late capitalism. The presence of teenagers who flocked to the show to pose among the mannequins,

I take the time to relate this story not because it’s a good art-

posting pictures to accounts where Genzken’s creations would

world story, which it is, but because I took it more or less as

live and breathe perhaps even more intensely than in “real”

an account of Genzken in the act of doing precisely what she’s

space, confirmed my feelings about the effect. I have no idea,

done through her entire life as an artist: Creating social sculpture,

of course, if this effect is what Genzken is even really after, but

on a continuum shifting without prior notice from the comically

I can no longer think about certain visual landscapes on my

haphazard—abetted by abandon, chance, peril, and luck, as on

phone or computer screen or the other omnipresent screens

that night in Berlin—to the fiercely calculated and precise. (I think

that dominate my urban life without Genzken’s floating hieratic

even of her early Ellipsoids and Hyperbolos of the late 1970s, her

presence. (She once said of her installations made with cheap

most formal work, made with the help of a physics scholar and

consumer materials: “What appealed to me was that they could

a computer program, as essentially social sculptures; they relate

be movie scenes. The works should function as motion pictures

both to bodily perception and to the almost anti-human forms

rather than sculptures.”)

that technological progress was bequeathing to the world of the late 20th century.)

The other day on the subway, thinking about this essay and Genzken, I came across a sentence in the book I was reading

I remember walking into Genzken’s retrospective at the

that captures better than I am able to her work’s deep social

Museum of Modern Art in 2013, having seen so little of the

connectedness, its fundamental antagonism to the idea of art

sweep of her work in one place, and being dumbstruck by the

for art’s sake. “This book does not aim to be a work of art, an

transition between the gallery containing the sleek, polished

object detached from an author and from the world pursuing

Minimalism of that early sculpture and the next room with its

in the sky its lonely flight,” Jean Genet wrote at the close of

apocalyptic, tottering works in crumbling plaster and concrete.

The Thief’s Journal, his harrowing memoir. “I could have told

It seemed to me as if two wholly separate artists were at work

of my past life in another tone, in other words. I have made it

until I came to understand how deeply the later pieces like Pile

sound heroic because I have within me what is needed to do

of Rubbish (1984) and World Receiver (1987–89) spoke to the

so, lyricism.” 43

ON VIEW AT THE NASHER

ISA GENZKEN In celebration of Isa Genzken’s designation as the recipient of the 2019 Nasher Prize, the Nasher Sculpture Center will present works by Genzken on view in the museum’s Corner Gallery from March 1–April 28, 2019.

Isa Genzken, Door (Tür), 1988. Concrete and steel, overall: 93 x 28 x 46 3/4 in. (2 m 36.221 cm x 71.12 cm x 118.745 cm). Dallas Museum of Art, gift of The Rachofsky Collection and purchased through the TWO x TWO for AIDS and Art Fund, 2006.46 Image courtesy of the Dallas Museum of Art. © 2019 Isa Genzken

NASHER PRIZE DIALOGUES

PERFORMANCE AS SCULPTURE Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland

Featuring artists Ragnar Kjartansson and Theaster Gates, with Markús Þór Andrésson, curator of Reykjavik Art Museum, moderating.

Artists Ragnar Kjartansson and Theaster Gates discuss the role that performance plays in their respective practices in a Nasher Prize Dialogues talk in Reykjavik, Iceland. Markús Þór Andrésson: So, Theaster Gates, born in Chicago,

Ragnar Kjartansson: Yeah, I think I more wanted to do painting

studied urban planning before turning to pottery and developing

because I just liked the idea of painting. Somehow, it was more

his artistic career. He merges this background in everything he

like I liked the idea of being an artist, just the mood of it. And

does today, creating objects and installations of found material

that was what drew me in, and also just the idea of the smell

and transforming the raw material of urban neighborhoods into

of paint and the material of paint. And also, yeah, kind of how

active and relevant cultural hubs within the community.

hopeless it was.

Ragnar Kjartansson was born here in Reykjavik, where he

MA: How so?

studied art and household management. Kjartansson draws on the entire “act of art” in his performative practice. The history of

RK: I really felt like painting was a hopeless thing. After, you

film, music, theater, visual culture, and literature find their way

know, after Modernism.

into his video installations, durational performances, drawing, and painting. So, welcome to “Painting and Pottery”!

TG: Was painting hopeless or were you hopeless?

A wonderful evening on these old beautiful crafts. Humble acts,

RK: Well yeah, I think I was just hopeless … You know, I was

but yet, rich artistic mediums. But I thought it would be great to

just young. But that actually gave me this idea to kind of, like,

start with this. Where have we come from painting and pottery

pretend to paint. Then I felt free. Then I just pretended to be this

in your cases? Theaster, it would be lovely to hear, you started in

painter and I just continued to pretend to be an artist. I also think

this craftsmanship, you still work with it and think a lot about the

I don’t come from material, really. I kind of come from pretense.

day. But in this period, since you started working with this simple material, to what you are doing now, these huge megalomaniac

TG: Yeah. No, that’s great. The other day some people were

projects, which are such a vast way from this origin, is pottery

at my studio videotaping me. And they were like, “Well, we

still relevant? How do the two connect? And was this something

need you to make a pot. Because nobody really believes you

you saw already, when you started making pots, that this was a

know how to make a pot, you just talk about making pots all the

material you could expand into this new domain?

time.” So these people came to my studio and they had some big cameras. It was like, lighting and there was like, 17 of them

Theaster Gates: In some ways. Whatever I’m making today …

and they had these huge cameras. And I was wedging [the clay]

I don’t know what I’m making today. But whatever it’s evolved

and they were saying things in these little like, [quietly mumbles]

into, it feels like there was something in the philosophy of “craft”

“Yeah, you gotta come over there so we can…[trails off] Yeah,

that got me here. So in a way, when you spend a long time with

we gotta, it’s good…[trails off] Yeah, go wide then come in

a material, you either fall in love with the material, or you fall in

closer. Yeah, that’s right, stay there.” And I was wedging. And

love with what the material teaches you. I think I fell in love with

they were like, “Uh, yeah, Theaster, stay there! [hushed] Okay,

what clay was teaching me. So I don’t mind saying I’m a potter.

now if you could just elevate…[trails off] He’s just like, wedging

I like it. In a way, because I feel like all the things that happened

…” And then somebody said, “That looks good.” And then I

as a result of clay, they feel so rich and so beautiful.

kind of put a little extra into it! [laughter]

Ragnar Kjartansson and Theaster Gates Photo: Nan Coulter

MA: Ooh!

about this moment is that there’s not one declaration of how to be in it. You know? And the thing that might be more important

TG: You know what I mean?! I was like, “Sheeit!” [groans]

to me than clay itself or the thing itself is one’s ability to get to a place as a result of being engaged deeply with the thing.

MA: Pretending? So the things that you produce are kind of by-products of your TG: Yeah! Performing.

ability to get somewhere else. So for Fellini it was the party. For some it’s the Holy Ghost. For me, I don’t know. Whatever. But

MA: Performance, that’s it.

I have some stakes that are not necessarily rooted in the thing that I make. Maybe they’re rooted in what happens when I’m

TG: I was really wedging.

making or what happens after I’ve made and I’m like, “Oh yeah! Christmas presents!” You know? Like, “Oh, I got 80 Christmas

MA: Yeah, yeah, performance in sculpture instead of

presents!”

pretense in… MA: Ragnar, does this ring a bell? Christmas presents? TG: [interrupts] But then it was time to actually make the pot. And I made a better pot because the camera was on.

RK: Yeah, Christmas presents. No, this definitely rings a bell. And also just like, this freedom. This freedom of being an artist

MA: So this is right up your alley, pretending. Both of you are

nowadays is so gorgeous. It makes me think about performance

impersonating the artist in your work and then maybe making

and sculpture. I started thinking about that song, that Elton John

your best work. You know, Ragnar is pretending to be a painter

song, “Your Song.” There’s a line in it, which I always really like,

in Venice for six months.

“If I was a sculptor, but then again, no!”

TG: It looked really convincing!

TG: Yeah. Yeah!

RK: It looked convincing?

RK: It’s so interesting!

TG: Yeah!

MA: Yes, and you do the same, [Theaster]. So the pressure

RK: It somehow, kind of, yeah.

of, what, the audience, somebody witnessing you as an artist, somebody maybe possibly revealing you for the fake that you

MA: But there’s another way to think about these things in this

are? The stress factor there, or what?

“pretending game.” Or going around some curve to get to the point. You have a goal, or an aim, which is maybe so far off that

RK: I think it’s just the fun of people and community around

going straight there would be impossible…

you. I always loved these stories of when Fellini was doing his movies, he would never have the sound recorded when he was

TG: Or uninteresting.

filming, because he just wanted the party when he was filming … It was like the camera was in one corner and they were doing

MA: Or uninteresting. So you go the way of pretending and

the film, and in all the other places in the space, there was just a

then you can maybe approach it more quickly or in a more

good party. And maybe that is something we have in common.

interesting way? Is that some way to describe this process? That you’re pretending to, you have the goal clear? Or is the goal the

TG: Part of this feels like there are people who are real painters

pretending?

who are holding down, who have stakes that matter deeply inside for them and they matter deeply for the field. Let’s say painting,

TG: Let’s imagine that might be one mode in the studio. Where

in that sense, becomes a kind of orthodoxy. A way, you know?

when you’re trying to get to a new idea—I’ll give an example

Even so much so that painters, when they look at impostors,

of “making up” something. So I had been spending this time in

they’re like, “The fuck is he doing?” You know what I mean?

Japan learning how to make a Japanese pot. Then I would come

Right? So you need, I’m saying like, if there was a spectrum, if

back home to the hood, making Japanese pots. And I didn’t

this was about queerness, you would have a kind of painter’s

know anything about, like, wasn’t no hood pots, so I was making

painter who really paints. And then there’s room for people

Japanese pots in the hood. So people would come over and

who have questions about painting, who have done painting

would be like, “That’s a really interesting sake bottle. Why are

and were really good at it early in their life and then doubted

you making sake bottles?” And I wasn’t wearing like, a kimono,

painting and then became atheistic toward the religion. And then

or no hair wrap. It was just like, I was just making.

there are those who, in some way, find a kind of agnosticism or a neutrality, or they find laughter, humor. Or there are those who

So I was just like, “Oh, people don’t have a way of seeing

understand that, if I act like a painter, that might also come with

my true relationship with this material in relationship to my

some benefits. So I just think that, in a way, what’s beautiful

time in Japan.” I gotta make up a dude, Mr. Yamaguchi, and

Photography: Nan Coulter

then I’ma tell people, “Hey, there’s this dude Yamaguchi who

that he couldn’t help but write those things down. But, whatever

lives in Mississippi, he’s Japanese, but he’s using this clay in

that was, those moments felt like acts of sincerity; there was

Mississippi.” And when I would go visit my family, which is true,

nothing ironic in the writing. It was just the truth of a moment

in Mississippi, this dude Yamaguchi, which was false, would

in the studio.

teach me how to make things. And it was easier for people to believe the falsehood than it was for them to believe that I would

And that those moments of sincerity, for me, are also like these

go to Japan and study Japanese ceramics and come back and

very special times where I’m really grappling with my point,

be proficient. So actually, people need fiction. Fiction has truth.

my position in America. Or my point in the world. And that

So let’s just posit that pretending is only one mode.

sometimes, that thing, it may not even produce something that goes into a place like this, but there are moments where,

MA: Absolutely.

sincerity … I can’t get no more sincere! I would say in those moments where there is something unconscious that is

TG: It’s useful.

happening and it would be like, “Oh, this ain’t for nobody but the Lord.” Let’s say. It might be those moments that are supposed

RK: It is a really useful mode. It’s useful and it’s super multi-

to never be seen that the galleries want the most. That when

layered. I come from a family of actors whose day job is

collectors come, they kind of get a little twinkle in the middle of

pretending. But they are all very, very true. You know you have

their bodies. And shame on me for revealing the most beautiful

to read that literature through and through to get it. To be able to

parts because, in fact, the value of being pretentious and

kind of put that into the real world again, through you. And it’s

pretending is that you can actually protect those most sincere

like you say, it’s a tool. And it’s also maybe a tool of, what do you

parts, and that the body, or that some things, are not to be

call it, superficial defense. “I’m just a pretender.” Because it is

shared. So you might not know that there’s a sincere bone in

all about, like, the bleeding heart of Jesus Christ. In the end. It’s

my body because I ain’t gonna fuckin’ tell you.

like, [long flatulent noise], “I want to say something to the world and it matters and I don’t know what it is!”

MA: We’ll get to it. [laughter] Ragnar, beauty, sincerity, irony, we’ve been down this lane.

MA: Both of you have used the term beauty in describing what you’re aspiring to reaching for. Is that something we can talk

RK: One interesting story I always like about beauty. Wolfgang

about, or is that off-limits? Beauty? How do you use that term in

Amadeus Mozart wrote The Marriage of Figaro, this great opera,

describing your work?

and announced it with the most beautiful part ever written, at that time, in music. It’s just beauty beyond everything. When you listen to it, you just start to cry. By that time in the opera, everybody is lying to each other. Nobody is being sincere. I

TG: Yeah, I mean, beauty is so good, you know? So let’s say that if pretending and pretense and pretentiousness is one aspect of the studio, there might be other times, like, if I didn’t use the word beauty, there might be other times when I’m actually being quite sincere.

really love it that Mozart realizes that in order to make a great composition, he just needs total sincerity over that insincerity. And that becomes like a [boom] crazy artwork. Yeah, we are all made out of these two things and … TG: Pretense and sincerity? RK: Yeah. TG: Yeah! RK: It’s just who we are! This, because it just has to be, art has to be, you know, through this beauty and beauty is truth. That is just always what it is. It’s always the core of every artwork. And those kind of precious things, I’m always searching for them myself. I feel I’m like a very hollow, egocentric person, and when I actually find this stuff, I just go and show it to

I’m reading all these studies of Diderot pieces from back in the day. I’m reading how he would chronicle his studio time and then would kind of chronicle relationships that he had. He would take a Polaroid of the process in the studio. And there was just all of this intimacy that was happening. As if he was preoccupied with death way before he died. Or as if there was a value, or he was so arrogant in his practice that he felt people needed to know all his thoughts. Or he was so Germanic in his activity

people! TG: So I’d be singing and then I’d get to this point and I could sing, let’s say, better. Or what that meant was like, more sincerely, but also the notes might get more intensified. Not louder but more like it could tap something that I couldn’t tap otherwise. So I think that that pursuit, the pursuit of a kind of sincerity or the pursuit of the ghost, requires energy. But then, the by-product of that energy is that other people might

also feel the ghost! That you might be in a room and then everybody’s … not everybody. Some people will be like, “This some bullshit,” but there might be some people who are with you with the ghost. And that’s cool. A kind of corporate ghost! MA: Coming back to your artistic practice, [Theaster]— so in part, it’s therapeutic. But both of you are also very much involved with bringing everybody with you. And even philanthropy, or being of use for more people than yourselves. RK: You are of use in this world. MA: I mean, yeah. TG: I want to be useful. Yeah. No. I mean. Well. In order to get to the Holy Ghost, you need a congregation. And you need an organ. And you need a pew. You know, there are accoutrements around the expression sometimes. And that accoutrement, whether you call it a cast or a congregation, whether you call it a prop or a work of art, whether you call it a trace, those things are also helping to aid the meaning-making. So you might find, okay, Paramount Pictures [sic]1 has this huge set. They used it once for Lawrence of Arabia and then they left it there in the middle of the desert. And it was like, you needed to build this huge apparatus, to have this one moment that maybe wasn’t even that special. But to create that one moment requires so much apparatus it’s like an exhibition. There’s a whole lot of apparatus to create such a temporary moment. And so then some of the questions I would ask myself, this is back to usefulness, is that, well, if we’re gonna spend 100,000 euros on walls that will come down in a month, why not just build

RK: I’m not. Because it’s always probably the difference of, you know. I’m from a very privileged, decadent society … and also I’m raised in theater, so I really like just the idea of the temporary. And just doing stuff. And then maybe also it has something to do with coming back to the idea of clay or pretend-ness. Because this country, our history, is not a history of buildings or objects, it’s just stories. It’s like, things come up and go down and it’s always the story that lives on. And that’s why I kind of fell in love with performance art. You just do this “ta-da” stuff and then it will just go away.

permanent walls somewhere? So, the way I wanted to use my time was like, “Oh! To make this exhibition cost a million dollars.” And then I started thinking, “You know what can be done with a million dollars?!” And it was just the way my brain worked. Well, why would I do it over there for two months,

MA: But still exists …

when I could do it over here for 30 years? Maybe sometimes there should be moments where we take that temporary set

RK: Still exists in somebody’s memory and maybe as a story

and fix it.

that will be told later. It’s also just like this … you feel this in your heart. When you [Theaster] do your protests in Chicago,

And so, I think that the thing we might be calling “useful” right

it’s like, “I’m living in this society and nobody’s doing nothing

now is really just shifting materials from one context to another

to help people get out of ridiculous conditions.” So you can

where they might be more useful. So I love exhibition-making,

actually do something, but I’m in this society where it’s like,

but I’m also interested in what would the by-product be. They

“It’s just, the government takes care of it.”

call it “legacy projects” in the Olympics. ‘Cause they know, “We’re gonna spend $2 billion on a ski slope, what are we

TG: But you know, to you both, whatever I’ve been up to

gonna do after the Olympics is over?” All these moments, all

in Chicago, I’m not doing that because I’m a good person.

of this intellectual rigor, all of this engineering expertise, all of

There’s no, I’m not a good person. Like, I’m not a good person.

this hoopla and cameras, and then nobody goes to Canada

I’m really mean and I’m not nice. You know what I mean? I’m

anymore. And it’s like, “No, y’all gotta go back to Canada, we

a jerk. You know?

gotta use these things! You know, it’s still cold in Canada. You know, the toboggan, it still works!” So I’m really interested

MA: Yes, yes, yes.

in those moments where the museum world, art world, participates with me in the durational set-building.

TG: But there’s a way in which, when I’m in the studio or when I’m walking down the street, in the same way that I might look

MA: [Ragnar], you claim that you’re not doing anything useful.

at, it’s like, “Oh, there’s water down there.” I come out of my hotel and it’s like, “Oh, there’s water down there, let me go look at the water.” I walk out of my house and I’m like, “Oh, 51

there is poverty across the street.” It’s the thing in front of you,

heard before, but then again a music critic said it was like

you know what I’m saying? It’s not, it ain’t even raw material,

“post-rock.” Or …

it’s a condition. And so, unless I move away from poverty, there’s no way I cannot be affected by that condition that I

TG: “It’s eighties goth!”

look at every day. So I’m forced to absorb that condition into the practice.

RK: It’s eighties goth, and I would be like, no, that’s so wrong! But also a few years later I realized that they were right. It was

Now it happened that that meant there was some abandoned

just post-rock.

buildings that we rehabbed ‘em and then we do things in them. But I don’t think that was about me caring so much for black

TG: I hate that.

people. Or it was more like, how do you make poetry? Period. How do you make poetry anywhere? Period. And that poetry should absorb conditions and take materials and then offer a question. Or offer a sound. Or a gesture. You know what I mean? And that’s when these words together start to make sense for me. Because it’s like, you can make a thing that then turns into a song that then turns into an orchestral work that turns back into a play, turns back into an object. And that this “Doo doo doo bom bom bom,” that’s exciting to me. When I felt like there was nothing I could do about the condition, I wrote about it. I made stories about it. And then I was like, “I don’t want to just sing about poverty.” You know what I mean? That got boring! You know what I mean? And it’s like, if I was a better singer, maybe I’d stay there because somebody was interested. Nobody was interested in my songs and it felt

RK: I always just believe in the critic. And I like people trying to put terms into things to be able to express themselves. Because I think it is important. But I think it’s important for the artist to be lighthearted about it.

like I wasn’t doing nothing. So it was like, alright, maybe I can sing this song and rehab a building. Then I could sing about rehabbing a building. And so on and so on. So, you know, sometimes the work of trying to do something with sincerity and pretentiousness, but demonstrating this act could then … so let’s say that one part of the practice, we’ll fix a house for a good purpose. But that’s not the practice, but I will fix a house for a good purpose. Because other people would want to lock their lives into fixing houses for a good purpose, they just needed demonstrated how it looks. And so that feels like a fun part, where it feels like the service giveback is that, somewhere in there, people keep saying that this problem can’t be solved. I think artists might be able to throw their hat in the ring on hard problems, sometimes. And I think that the challenge I have is that these historians have put so many

TG: Oh no, I’m not letting them off that easy. No, no, no. I wanna wrestle with this. Part of the wrestling is, I think you were describing it upstairs, Ragnar, where you were saying, “Hey, me and Markus went to school together.” Which meant you were drinking together, you were hanging out, you were in a band together. Right? Is this true? MA: This is true. TG: Right. So that is a lot of time for someone who writes to understand the nuanced parts of someone who does lots

labels on things too quickly.

of things. And then because of that intimacy, potentially

It’s like, you don’t have to call that anything. Just stop calling

just, like, you jump in, you go to the gallery and you jump

things … because it makes people who would do interesting things stay away from the light of a social practice. It’s like, what is that? So I think that it’s like, can we just have within our practice the ability to do different kinds of things? Move in different modes. And let those things be ambiguous longer. But there is just not enough generosity in the criticism for

good writing might happen. Right? But in the absence, if it’s in for five minutes and are like, “It’s post-goth.” You know what I mean? “I like the shiny one.” You know? Sometimes maybe what I’m arguing for is more intimacy and a kind of closeness. And when you think about the criticism that has been very successful to me, it’s been people who started out as friends and had no ambition of necessarily writing about

ambiguity.

each other, doing an exhibition together. They just hung out

MA: Yeah, a very interesting part of the reception of the work

together. And then ten years later over lots of conversations

is that it is very quickly tunneled into something specific. Have

in the Hamptons together. They meet every year in Berlin it’s like, “Oh, I’ve been asked to do this thing, would you

you had this experience with your work, Ragnar?

like to participate? I’ll write about it.” And there’s all this

RK: Yeah, but I’ve actually never sort of worried about it.

where language forms might emerge. You know? Because

Because I remember when I was in music and in bands and we were doing something that we thought nobody had ever 52

other rich information. So I think that it’s in that richness I actually think that writers sometimes innovate and they’re sometimes looking for an artistic ride.

Photography: Nan Coulter

MA: Yeah, or illustration to the innovation.

because there is so much to write about in biography and it’s so hard to write about sculpture.

TG: And there are other times when the artist innovates and

RK: It’s easier to write about Mom and Dad than some tar.

the artist needs someone to kind of push that thing into the world and so, we need each other more. But more intimately.

TG: But I do remember this moment where I had made these tar works and then I was singing these songs. And there was

MA: But you’re probably doing it, both of you, through your

this song [singing]:

works in different ways or maybe in a similar way. You’re changing ideas about space and temporality and proximity

“There’s a leak in this old building. And my soul has got

or how you’re really luring the audience or the viewer to the

to move. Soul has got to move. My soul has got to move.

work and having him or her engage with the work in a very

There’s a leak in this old building.”

different way from, let’s say, many other artists or previous generations of artists. This is through your performative

And I was like, thinking about singing that song on a roof while

practice, your spatial installations, or sculptural installations,

my dad and I tried to patch somebody’s [roof] … it was just

et cetera. Am I right in maybe thinking that both of your

like this moment where I realized all of these black songs …

practices in those terms are trying to reach out in a different

where the construction met God. Or the kind of architecture

way?

in song or performance in sculpture, they started to meet.

RK: Yeah, it’s probably a lot about reaching out. And finding

MA: So that approach was similar, maybe, a trick, if you like.

new forms to do it. And also we have the, you know, it’s the

The Japanese invented pottery.

music. The Muuuuuusic. Everything else is just an illustration to music … But, but, but, I think there is a big point about Mr.

Music is also something we affiliate with your work

Theaster. I just really like all this stuff we talk about. Like the

immediately, [Ragnar].

core of what I love about your work is that it’s just really kickass sculptures. It’s just great objects. And what I’ve seen is

RK: Yeah, definitely.

like, it’s always that they’re just so loaded with all these ideas and song and music and history and they’re just tense and

MA: You were a musician and you were an artist and now

full, but they’re objects.

you’re both or what …

TG: Come on, Ragnar, come on.

RK: I went to art school because I realized I wanted to be a pop star. And I thought like, to be a pop star, a European pop

RK: It reminds me …

star. An American pop star can be, like you said, these work songs; American music often comes from the soil, from

TG: Jesus.

work. But European music comes from art school. [laughter]

MA: Keep it coming.

RK: So I thought, yeah, I’m a European; I just have to do it the European way.

RK: It reminds me … so the show Civilisation with Kenneth Clark, where he’s explaining civilization. It’s a really funny

MA: How about you, do forms spring immediately from

show from the sixties. And there he’s talking about Abbot

the subject you want to deal with? Or, you know, music, or

Suger who was this French abbot who kind of made works

painting?

that were material, made to reach God. Just like, a stone with some gold on it. Really, really crazy shit. And I wrote it down, his comment, because I remember I saw the show, and I was thinking about this comment, and I was thinking about Theaster when I read it, when I saw it on the show. “The dull mind rises to truth through that which is material.” This shit is written in the 12th century by a very tiny man; [laughter] TG: When I first started making these roofing paintings using tar, initially, when I talked about it, I talked about how the material had been in my family and my dad was a roofer and people kind of really gravitated toward the biography, the narrative part of the origin story of my use of the material versus the action of making the painting itself. So I was very interested in how art history is interested in biography and sometimes biography trumps the intervention. And maybe 54

RK: It’s always, then there comes like, the beautiful freedom of the 21st century. Then I just get a feeling. I want to do, you know, I want to do a work about how, kind of, melancholic and surrounded by Western culture I am. Then I just do this video

want. The question is, can I defend its use? Right?

work called Scenes from Western Culture. It’s always just what … I feel something, then I do a video work about it. Then I feel something, it’s like this total freedom that the feeling finds form.

It’s like, I’m going to use whatever I want. But there are some things that are just not mine to use. It feels like there’s a kind of natural set of boundaries that define the practice that I believe that I’m in. And I’m okay that some things fall outside of it. So I think those are the moments when I feel like I’m not quite the fan of a certain kind of globalism and I get excited around a certain kind of ethnic or regional or a people’s stuff. So I don’t feel like I need to, like, come to Iceland and start making sweaters. Even though I like sweaters. I love sweaters! And I could probably rename myself Theaster Theastersson, you know? And make some sweaters, but it’s like,

MA: But then this freedom is also not only you being free to

no, I would much rather come to Iceland and wear

pick whatever form you are and you have the talent to, both

a sweater.

of you, to use these forms to your benefit in your art-making. But it’s also appropriating everything else. Borrowing, stealing, and merging together and being the post-whatever master … TG: Are you saying we are doing cultural appropriation? MA: I never wanted to say that and I’m staying away from the term “postmodern” and all of those things. But still, this is something that I think there is a moral question here. Freedom and also respect and responsibility toward what we are handed down from previous generations and how we deal with it today. Is that something that you think or do you just delve into it without hesitating? You, with all the history that you are quoting in your work. And you, the different art forms that you are thinking about. How does this go through your mind? RK: Do you ever get a bad conscience?

MA: And Ragnar, the same question here. RK: Wow. How could I follow that sweater [comment]? MA: Are you gonna go to Chicago and, you know … ? Do you have a few of these limits? You enter a zone that you’re just not at home in? RK: Probably, I don’t feel so much these limits, actually. Maybe because being here in Iceland and having the experience that the artist that has come and really nailed it and dealt with our culture and nature is a lady from New York [Roni Horn]. So I was just like, that could be called cultural appropriation. But I just think it’s glorious. Because also what I learned from Roni is that, as the Vikings said, “The guest sees better.” I really like that saying, always. The guest sees better. So, if I am doing a show in Vienna, I’m, like, doubling in some Vienna rococo.

TG: Always. I think, sometimes, when you’re dealing with historical moments, it depends on your adjacency to that moment. Like, why are you talking about this?

Columbia Pictures distributed Lawrence of Arabia.

Why would I talk about this? You know what I mean? And there are some things that are very close to me. Like, say, my dad’s relationship to roofing and me getting his tar kettle. It’s close to me. And then things that are far from me. Having not quite been born when the civil-rights movement started. But being a kind of a beneficiary of someone else’s struggle 40 years, or 30 years prior to my birth. Twenty years prior to my birth. But then I think, there’s also like, I can use whatever I 55

Isa Genzken Hallelujah (Yellow), 2012 MDF, metal, plastic, glass, mirror foil, perspex, globe, plastic figure, casters 101 x 40 x 22 in. (256 x 101 x 55 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz Â ÂŠ 2019 Isa Genzken

LAUREATE

REVEAL On September 25, Nasher Prize supporters and media were the first to celebrate the news of 2019 Laureate Isa Genzken at an event hosted at The Warehouse.

Clockwise from top right: Alan Govenar and Kaleta Doolin; Derek Willson, Kimberly and Justin Whitman, and Christina Geyer; Temple Shipley, Danielle Cardoso Maia, Debbie and Eric Green; Nancy Nasher and David Haemisegger; John Dayton, Fanchon and Howard Hallam; John R. and Jennifer Eagle and Neils and Elaine Agather.

Isa Genzken Leonardo, 2016/2017 concrete, antennae, MDF, adhesive tape 91 x 28 x 12 in. (230 x 72 x 30 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz ÂŠ 2019 Isa Genzken

NASHER PRIZE MONTH Enjoy a monthlong celebration of the 2019 Nasher Prize Laureate Isa Genzken, featuring FREE public events and educational opportunities including family guides and activities, a student festival, and learning resources. Transportation funding for school tours is available. RSVP for all events at nashersculpturecenter.org/nasher-prize-programs

MARCH 12–17 / 11 A.M.–5 P.M.

APRIL 5 / 11 A.M.

Spring Break at the Nasher

Nasher Prize Dialogues: Juror Conversation

Nasher Sculpture Center

Dallas Museum of Art

Bring the whole family to enjoy a week of free programming

Nasher Prize jurors discuss current trends in contemporary

at the Nasher and investigate big ideas from the 2019 Nasher

sculptural practice and the future of the discipline.

Prize Laureate through interactive resources.

FREE with RSVP

FREE admission

FREE admission to the Nasher 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

MARCH 24 / 10 A.M.–5 P.M.

APRIL 5 / 2 P.M.

Student Festival

Nasher Prize Dialogues: The Influence of Isa Genzken

Nasher Sculpture Center

Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and

In celebration of the launch of a student-created zine, the

Visual Arts

Nasher will host an afternoon featuring music and interactive

A panel discussion with artists and curators focused on the

projects inspired by themes in the work of the 2019 Nasher

tremendous impact of Isa Genzken’s career. Featuring Laura

Prize Laureate.

Hoptman, Executive Director of the Drawing Center; German

FREE admission

art curator Beatrix Ruf; artist Simon Denny; and moderated by Jörg Heiser, writer, editor, and Executive Director of the Institute of Art in Context at the University of the Arts in Berlin.

APRIL 4 / 10 A.M.–4 P.M.

FREE with RSVP

Nasher Prize Dialogues: Graduate Symposium

FREE admission to the Nasher 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

Nasher Sculpture Center Graduate students from around the world present scholarly work on a host of questions and topics related to 2019 Nasher Prize Laureate Isa Genzken. Moderated by artist and educator Stephen Lapthisophon, the symposium is followed by a presentation from keynote speaker and Andrew W. Mellon

APRIL 6 / 7 P.M. Nasher Prize Award Gala Honoring the 2019 Nasher Prize Laureate Nasher Sculpture Center

Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art at Harvard

The 2019 Nasher Prize Laureate will be honored at a seated,

University Benjamin Buchloh, a notable scholar on the work

black-tie award gala.

of Genzken. A wine reception follows the event. FREE with RSVP

For tickets and underwriting opportunities, please call 214.242.5169 or email nasherprize@nashersculpturecenter.org

FREE admission to the Nasher 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

The 2019 Nasher Prize is presented by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Founding Partners for the Prize are The Eugene McDermott Foundation and Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger. Nasher Prize Month is made possible by support from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Donna Wilhelm Family Fund. Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) is the public transportation partner for Nasher Prize Month. Presenting Media partner: Belo Media Group. Media sponsors: KERA’s Art & Seek and PaperCity.

Isa Genzken Schauspieler II, 8, 2014 Black child mannequin on glass stand, lifejacket, silver mirror foil, passport, woolen jumper, American football helmet, spray paint 61 x 18 x 16 in. (154 x 45 x 40 cm.) Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Buchholz ÂŠ 2019 Isa Genzken

2019 NASHER PRIZE

DONORS The Nasher Sculpture Center wishes to thank the following sponsors and individuals for their generous support of the Nasher Prize. Their valuable support benefits public programming related to sculpture and the Nasher Prize, including family programming, lectures, installation of the laureate’s work, and a celebration of Laureate Isa Genzken on April 6, 2019.

2019 NASHER PRIZE CO-CHAIRS John W. Dayton Fanchon and Howard Hallam

NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER DIRECTOR Jeremy Strick

2019 NASHER PRIZE JURY Phyllida Barlow Huma Bhabha Lynne Cooke Okwui Enwezor Briony Fer Hou Hanru Yuko Hasegawa Pablo León de la Barra Nicholas Serota

FOUNDING PARTNERS

WINE SPONSOR Resolution Capital / Debbie and Eric Green

PRESENTING MEDIA PARTNER Belo Media Group

MEDIA PARTNERS KERA’s Art & Seek PaperCity

PRINT SPONSOR Ussery Printing Company

DIALOGUES SPONSORS Janelle and Alden Pinnell / The Pinnell Foundation Stephen Friedman Gallery

GRADUATE SYMPOSIUM SPONSORS

The Eugene McDermott Foundation Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger

Lee Cobb and Lucilo Peña Lisa Dawson and Thomas Maurstad galerie frank elbaz Martha and Max Wells

PRESENTING SPONSOR

PREFERRED HOTEL PARTNER

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The Adolphus

NASHER PRIZE MONTH SPONSOR

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SPONSOR

Gagosian

JURY SPONSOR

Dallas Area Rapid Transit

The Eugene McDermott Foundation

UNDERWRITERS

EDUCATION & COMMUNITY SPONSOR The Donna Wilhelm Family Fund

John W. Dayton Frost Bank Fanchon and Howard Hallam Cindy and Howard Rachofsky

OFFICIAL VEHICLE

CURATOR

Classic BMW / Sheryl and Eric Maas

Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo David Zwirner

DIRECTOR

Jennifer and John Eagle Mark Giambrone HALL Arts Residences Hartland and Mackie Family Hauser & Wirth The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation Cynthia and Forrest Miller Allen and Kelli Questrom Catherine and Will Rose Deedie Rose Sharon and Michael Young

2019 NASHER PRIZE HOST COMMITTEE

Bess and Ted Enloe Mark Giambrone Joyce Goss Kenny Goss Dedrea and Paul Gray Debbie and Eric Green The Honorable Kathryn Hall and Mr. Craig Hall Erin and Paul Haney Nasiba and Thomas Hartland-Mackie Julie and Ken Hersh Marguerite Steed Hoffman and Thomas W. Lentz Sheryl and Eric Maas Lynn and Allan McBee Janie and Cappy McGarr Jenny and Richard Mullen Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Ruthie and Jay Pack Lucilo Peña and Lee Cobb Allen and Kelli Questrom Cindy and Howard Rachofsky Nancy and Richard Rogers Catherine and Will Rose Deedie Rose Beth Rudin DeWoody Almine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Lisa and John Runyon John P. Stern Gayle and Paul Stoffel Vaughn O. Vennerberg II Patricia J. Villareal and Thomas S. Leatherbury Christopher V. Walker Donna M. Wilhelm Christen and Derek Wilson Sharon and Michael Young

Elaine and Neils Agather Danielle Cardoso Maia Nancy and Clint Carlson Lindsey and J. Patrick Collins Mary McDermott Cook and Dan Patterson Michael Corman and Kevin Fink Tania and Roberto Díaz Sesma Jennifer and John Eagle Frank Elbaz Laura and Walter Elcock Lauren Embrey

As of 2/1/2019

SCULPTOR Michael Corman and Kevin Fink Marion T. Flores Galerie Perrotin Cece and Ford Lacy Locke Lord / Carol and Don Glendenning & Diane and Stuart Bumpas Susan and Bill Montgomery Nancy Perot and Rod Jones Selwyn Rayzor and Richard Moses Ann and Donald Short Christen and Derek Wilson

SUPPORTER Kay and Elliot Cattarulla Bess and Ted Enloe Elaina and Gary Gross Janie and Cappy McGarr Lisa and John Runyon Cindy and Armond Schwartz Wendy and Jeremy Strick

Places for Sculpture

Brazil

Hélio Oiticica, Penetrável Magic Square # 5, DeLuxe, 1977. Right: Home and private collection of Fernanda Feitosa and Heitor Martins.

In November 2018, a group of Nasher Members traveled to Brazil. This trip, organized as a benefit of Nasher Membership at the Brancusi Level ($2,500) and above, included visits to São Paulo, Inhotim, and Rio de Janeiro. The next trip will be to Venice, Italy, in May 2019. Contact Amy Henry at ahenry@nashersculpturecenter.org for more information.

CLOCKWISE: Left to right: Arturo (São Paulo tour guide), Lisa Dawson, Lucillo Peña, Lee Cobb, and Jeremy Strick in Lina Bo Bardi’s Glass House. Cildo Meireles, Red Shift (detail), 1967-84. Lee Cobb on a pavilion staircase in Inhotim. .

CLOCKWISE: Rio de Janeiro. MAC Niteroi, Architect: Oscar Niemeyer. Kaleta Doolin at the home and studio of artist and architect Tomie Ohtake. Wendy Strick, Allen Questrom, and Lisa Dawson in the studio with artist Luiz Zerbini. Chris Burden, Beam drop Inhotim, 2008. Studio of Brazillian sculptor Henrique Oliveira (left) with Chiufang Hwang.

Private home of gallerist Eduardo Leme, built by architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha.

Joanne Bober at the studio of artist Shirley Paes Leme.

LEIGH A. ARNOLD, PH.D. ON

Long-term Loan: Lynda Benglis

Quartered Meteor Active for five decades, American artist Lynda Benglis

artist to work with more rigid polyurethane: “Then I decided

continues to invigorate the art discourse, making work in a

if I was having foam anyway, why not get a foam you could

variety of media and challenging gender norms and attitudes

sort of really foam up. So I sacrificed one element, which was

on what constitutes a “feminine” aesthetic. Benglis started

flexibility, in order to get the foam you see here.”3 Benglis

her career in relation to painting, making work by pouring

started small and, after much trial and error, began pouring

layers of latex paint directly onto the floor. Critics recognized

foam sculptures at increasing scale. She began a work by first

her gestural and sensual pours as bold reinterpretations of

mixing the pigment with resin and then adding the catalyst

Abstract Expressionist painting and referenced Jackson

that caused the foaming. Benglis controlled the viscosity of

Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler as important precedents.

the foam by adding water, which would increase the fluidity

Benglis nicknamed these early pours “fallen paintings,” a literal

of the polyurethane and result in more buoyant foam.4 In the

description of her floor-based works and a winking reference to

1969 foam sculpture Untitled (King of Flot)—the predecessor

the fall of painting’s importance in the 1960s as artists turned

for Benglis’s 1975 lead and 2018 bronze versions of Quartered

away from expressive and painterly Abstract Expressionism,

Meteor—the artist’s working process and individual layers of

which was considered the dominant movement in American

foam are made visible due to the color-coding of the different

art in the 1950s, in favor of cool, rational Minimalist sculpture.

polyurethane pours. As Klaus Kertess observed, “A large black

Benglis’s choice of a color palette in bold Day-Glo hues set

phallic form runs down the middle of the piece, pinning it to the

her apart from her peers and situated her work closer to

corner. Illusion is still possible, even with so thick a material.”5

the aesthetics and consumer-culture references of Pop art. Certain critics described Benglis’s color choices as garish and

Untitled (King of Flot) is a reference to both the refuse that

extravagant, while museum curators felt the work didn’t “play

floats on water (flotsam and jetsam), as well as fellow artist

well” with those of others.

Robert Morris’s industrial “flotsam and jetsam.”6 Benglis’s

foam pour, consisting of layers of gray, white, and black Benglis came to sculpture through her discovery of

polyurethane, can be seen as her answer to Morris’s 1964

polyurethane foam—a synthetic material that supported

plywood corner sculpture Untitled (Corner Piece)—a large

colorful pigment and expanded her painterly gestures into

triangular wedge supported by hidden wheels, installed in the

three-dimensional forms.2 She created her foam sculptures as

corner of a gallery that the artist intended to be refabricated

she did her latex works, by pouring polyurethane directly onto

each time it was shown.7 Where Morris’s form is rigid, defined,

the floor, where it would swell into bulbous, organic shapes.

and geometric, Benglis’s layers oozed from the seams of the

She first began working with semi-flexible polyurethane,

architecture in soft, billowing shapes—its form, or antiform,

making foam sculptures that hugged the floor, rising into

was both bound by and opposed to the rectangular geometry

three dimensions ever so slightly. Her increasing desire to

of the corner. Her use of a colorless palette for Untitled (King

deal with the sculptural concerns of volume and mass led the

of Flot), instead of her more common Day-Glo pigments was

Leigh Arnold, Ph.D., is the Nasher’s assistant curator. Lynda Benglis, Quartered Meteor, 1969 (cast 2018), bronze, 57 1/2 x 65 1/2 x 64 1/4 in. (146.05 x 166.37 x163.2 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York. © Lynda Benglis / Artist Rights Society

Lynda Benglis, For Carl Andre, 1970 Black pigmented polyurethane foam 56 1/4 x 53 1/2 x 46 1/2 in. (142.88 x 135.89 x 118.1 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Cheim & Read, New York. Â ÂŠ Lynda Benglis / Artist Rights Society

likely a reference to the absence of color in Morris’s and other Minimalist sculptors’ work (and perhaps Benglis’s response to the 1969 Whitney debacle). In a similar corner pour from 1970 titled For Carl Andre, she likewise worked in a palette of dark grays and blacks to create a foam sculpture that was an ironic and humorous homage to Minimalist Carl Andre, whose own sculpture is characterized by ordered, flat, modular forms. As with Untitled (King of Flot), Benglis’s foam sculpture dedicated to Andre is in stark contrast to the Minimalist aesthetic: unordered, voluminous, and utterly unique. Benglis initially thought of her foam sculptures as discrete objects, but with the help of a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant in 1975, the artist began casting several of her polyurethane pours in metal, including the 1975 version of Quartered Meteor, which she cast in lead from the original foam sculpture Untitled (King of Flot).8 The multi-layered Quartered Meteor is unified in a single, monochrome material, thereby removing our ability to dissect the various strata of foam. The transposition of the foam sculptures into heavier metals made literal the illusion of weight in the foam pours, while also exaggerating the impression of movement and flow inherent in the original polyurethane forms. Metal casting continues to occupy a central place in Benglis’s practice. By casting in heavier materials, the artist not only extends the working process of the form, but also ensures the longevity of her works. A technique that lends permanence and communicates mastery, metal casting allows Benglis to engage and sometimes subvert the history of modern sculpture. Her turn to metal casting seems an obvious conclusion for the artist’s polyurethane pours. These are also a kind of casting of specific architectural situations: the foam in its liquid state takes the form of whatever corner it is poured into, as well as the floor it is poured on top of, and in effect becomes a cast of that specific, unique place. For this reason,

In 1969, curators at the Whitney Museum of American Art invited Benglis to participate in the exhibition Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials—the first exhibition in a major U.S. museum to showcase process-oriented art. Benglis created the 1969 latex pour titled Contraband (now in the Whitney Museum’s collection—a 2008 purchase) with the museum’s exhibition gallery in mind. Benglis ultimately withdrew the monumental latex pour (which measures over 30 ft. in length) from the exhibition at the last minute, disappointed that the curators decided to relocate it outside of the main gallery, in the building’s atrium. Benglis recalled that the curators relocated Contraband because they were unhappy with her “strident color choices, and in particular, the inclusion of bubblegum pink,” and they worried it would deflect attention away from other works in the exhibition. See Susan Richmond, Lynda Benglis: Beyond Process (London: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2013), 21. 2 In a 1982 interview about her works in polyurethane, Benglis conceded, “I suppose I found myself a sculptor.” Benglis in “Lynda Benglis: Interview by Ned Rifkin,” in Early Work: Lynda Benglis, Joan Brown, Luis Jimenez, Gary Stephan, Lawrence Weiner, ed. Lynn Gumpert, Ned Rifkin, and Marcia Tucker (New York: New Museum, 1982), 11. 3 Here Benglis is referring to the foam sculpture For Carl Andre—discussed below— which she made in 1970 on-site at the old location of the Fort Worth Art Center Museum, which is today known as the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. See note 4, below. 4 Jan Butterfield, “’Poured Art’ Sculptor Reveals Technique, Approach to Style,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, June 14, 1970, 6-I. The interview between Benglis and Butterfield in this article is a primary source for information on the artist’s process for making the poured polyurethane sculptures. For a secondary source on Benglis’s process, see: Klaus Kertess, “Foam Structures,” Art and Artists (May 1972): 32-37. 5 See Klaus Kertess, “Foam Structures,” Art and Artists (May 1972): 34. 6 Artist in email correspondence with the author, November 13, 2018. See also: Richmond, Lynda Benglis, 31. 7 Benglis and Morris knew of each other’s work in 1969 and would go on to collaborate on two videos titled Mumble (Benglis) and Exchange (Morris), which were made with materials shot by both artists in each of their respective studios in 1972–73, and a series of Polaroid pictures depicting the artists, along with Ray Johnson, in provocative poses with the infamous prop from Benglis’s 1974 Artforum spread. See: James Boaden, “Lives in Exchange: The Collaborative Video Tapes of Lynda Benglis and Robert Morris,” Tate Papers, no. 25, Spring 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/research/ publications/tate-papers/25/lives-in-exchange, accessed 3 December 2018. 8 Benglis had to make two molds of Untitled (King of Flot) to get the form right, but once she had a good mold, she cast the foam sculpture in lead, thereby destroying Untitled (King of Flot) in the making of Quartered Meteor, 1975. She reused the 1975 mold for the 2018 bronze version of Quartered Meteor. Other polyurethane sculptures Benglis cast in metals as part of her 1974-75 Guggenheim Memorial Foundation grant include: Come, 1974, bronze; Eat Meat, 1974, bronze; Eat Meat, 1975, aluminum; Modern Art Pair, 1974 (cast in multiple metals); and Wing, 1975, aluminum. Artist in email correspondence with the author, November 13, 2018. 9 Benglis always installed her foam pours away from the wall to give viewers an opportunity to see the backsides of the sculptures. Early installations reflect the artist’s desire to leave space between her sculptures and gallery walls: “Sometimes I exhibit them away from the wall so that people can see the other side. I think of them as pieces that can be pulled away from the wall and exhibited in either way . . . . I am very aware of each color layer and pour, and they certainly should work in either way because I conceived them that way . . . . I found them very peculiar in the beginning because they were so flat on one side and they really did look like paintings and then you walk around them and you found a buoyancy and density that you did not expect.” Lynda Benglis in Butterfield, “Poured Art Sculptor.” According to the artist, over the years her foam pours and related metal castings have been “shoved” into corners and against walls. Author in phone conversation with the artist’s studio, November 19, 2018. 1

Benglis has requested that Quartered Meteor be placed 15 inches from the walls.9 The installation of the sculpture pulled away from the wall underscores the mass of the object, as well as its autonomy. With Quartered Meteor, the weight and density of bronze is at odds with the amorphous shape, which recalls the appearance of cooled lava. On long-term loan to the Nasher from the artist and Cheim & Read, New York, Benglis’s Quartered Meteor will be on view in the Nasher galleries in different permanent collection installations for the next two years.

Jean (Hans) Arp Crown of Buds I, 1936 Limestone, 19 3/8 x 14 3/4 x 6 1/16 in. (49.1 x 37.5 x 15.4 cm) Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 76.2553 PG 56 Â© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo: Courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

KAROLE VAIL ON

Collecting Arp Behind the scenes with the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, where The Nature of Arp will open this spring.

The artwork of the multifaceted and influential artist Jean

Shell (ca. 1933; illustrated p. 75) and Marital Sculpture (1937), a

(Hans) Arp holds a special place at the Peggy Guggenheim

wood sculpture made by Arp together with his wife, the Swiss

Collection in Venice and in the holdings of the Hilla von Rebay

artist Sophie Taueber-Arp, alongside sculptures by Constantin

Foundation that are on long-term loan at the Solomon R.

Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Henri

Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Laurens, Antoine Pevsner, and Henry Moore.

Collector and patron of the arts Peggy Guggenheim developed

Head and Shell, a small polished bronze, was the first work

a keen and enthusiastic eye for sculpture when she started

to enter Peggy’s collection, to her utter delight,2 and she

to collect modern art in the late 1930s. Having opened a

purchased it either directly after a visit to the foundry with Arp

gallery in London in 1938, she did not shy away from taking

or else in London.3 In fact, Arp had come over to England to help

risks and showing the art of her time. She organized cutting-

Peggy with the installation of the sculpture exhibition. Then,

edge exhibitions including a show dedicated to contemporary

Peggy enriched her Arp holdings with his Large Collage (1955),

sculpture (April 8 to May 2, 1938) deemed controversial at

a reconstructed exercise in geometries from an original made

the time. The sculptures that her friend and adviser Marcel

in Zurich in 1918; the playful relief Overturned Blue Shoe with

Duchamp had sent her from France were not considered art

Two Heels under a Black Vault (ca. 1925; illustrated p. 76);

by Customs; instead, the sculptures were labeled as wood,

the evocative Crown of Buds I (1936; illustrated, opposite),

marble, and bronze, and incurred a high import tax. This

the quirky newspaper and papier-mâché sculpture Maimed

prompted Peggy to dispute and win the case that had gone

and Stateless (1936); a delicate pencil drawing of 1940 that

to the House of Commons, thankfully allowing the works to

was a gift from the artist; and the somewhat aerodynamic

come into Britain as art.1 Thus, the gallery was put on the

sculpture Amphora Fruit (ca. 1946, cast 1951).

map and did a great service to non-English artists. Arp was strongly represented with five works including his Head and

Jean (Hans) Arp Overturned Blue Shoe with Two Heels under a Black Vault, ca. 1925 Painted wood, 31 1/4 x 41 1/8 x 1 in. (79.3 x 104.6 x 2.5 cm) Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 76.2553 PG 53 Â© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo: Courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

Jean (Hans) Arp Head and Shell, ca. 1933 Polished brass (cast 1930s) Height: 7 3/4 in. (19.7 cm); length 8 7/8 in. (22.5 cm) Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 76.2553 PG 54 ÂŠ 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Photo: Courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

When Peggy returned to New York in 1941 and opened her

found a label that resembled those that Arp designed for

museum-gallery Art of This Century in October 1942, she

illustrations of the review Cabaret Voltaire when he was

organized a comprehensive solo presentation of Arp’s work

closely associated with Dada. Following correspondence

in February 1944—with 26 paintings, wood reliefs, collages,

with the Swiss and German Arp foundations,6 it transpired

drawings, a bronze sculpture, and modeled newspapers—

that the collage was closely connected to two similar works

that included her own holdings. In 1949, having returned to

in the Kunstmuseum Bern, that the label was authentic, and

Europe and settled in Venice, Peggy presented an exhibition

thus the collage was deemed an original work by Arp. Such a

of contemporary sculpture in the garden of her new home

discovery was truly exciting for me, for the study of Arp and

that included Crown of Buds I, a subject Arp was particularly

for the Rebay Foundation, though I wondered often what Arp

concerned with.

might have thought when his former lover decided that the work he may have given to her as a parting gift she would

In 1954, Peggy purchased Arp’s Amphora Fruit at the Venice

later claim as her own. This question may never be resolved

Biennale, where he won the Grand Prize for Sculpture, and he

and it may be prying into the lives of two beings who were

became a frequent visitor at her home in Palazzo Venier dei

once intimate, but it is heartening to know that an artwork by

Leoni, as attested by several sketches he drew in her guest

a wondrous artist such as Arp has finally been restituted to

books. Such visits were also recorded with photographs,

its rightful maker.

including one of the artist irreverently “smoking” the removable phallus of Marino Marini’s Angel of the City (1948,

The Nature of Arp, organized by the Nasher Sculpture Center,

cast 1950; since soldered), which Peggy in turn had placed

will be on view at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice,

provocatively on the Grand Canal, in a nod to Arp’s own

Italy, April 13–September 2, 2019.

playful nature. Peggy Guggenheim, Out of this Century: Confessions of an Art Addict, (London: Andre Deutsch, 1979), p. 172. 2 Ibid., 162. 3 Angelica Rudenstine, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York/The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1985), p. 69. 4 These letters are in The Hilla von Rebay Foundation Archives, housed in the library of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. 5 Kandinsky, letter to Rebay, December 5, 1936, The Hilla von Rebay Foundation Archives. 6 Correspondence between 2003 and 2005 with Rainer Hueben, Fondazione Marguerite Arp, Locarno and Walburga Krupp, Stiftung Hans Arp und Sophie Taueber-Arp, Rolandseck. 1

A little-known fact is Arp’s youthful relationship with Hilla Rebay, an artist also born in Strasbourg, who would become Solomon R. Guggenheim’s adviser and founding director of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, the precursor of the Guggenheim Museum as we know it today on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Prior to moving to the United States in 1927, Rebay had exhibited at Galerie Dada in 1917 in Zurich with Arp, one of the gallery’s founders, and had been romantically involved with him, as numerous love letters confirm.4 Arp had asked Rebay to marry him, but she refused, explaining that she wished to dedicate her life to non-objective art, which, according to her, was the highest form of art, as she believed it to be imbued with spirituality. Rebay never suggested to her patron Solomon, Peggy’s uncle, that he collect any of Arp’s work, though one small collage (ca. 1915–16; illustrated, opposite) entered her own collection, but which was up until about 15 years ago attributed to Rebay rather than to Arp. (Greatly inspired and encouraged by Arp, she had embarked on collage as her preferred artistic idiom and her work was admired by no less than by Vasily Kandinsky.5) When I was a curator at the Guggenheim Museum and working on an exhibition around Rebay in an attempt to rehabilitate her as an artist in her own right, I came across the collage in question and did not think it was hers, but rather intuition led me to think it might instead be by Arp. Rebay’s early collages are quite different in style, palette, and temperament, though Arp’s fluid influence is evident, and thanks to him, she felt free to experiment and handle line more freely. Rebay did not produce the kind of geometric shapes found in this work, but rather, at the time, devised small tableaux of finely cut papers into delicate universes and colorful constellations of forms and shapes. Thus began a journey of curatorial and conservation discovery as I strived to identify correctly the artist of this important early work. A museum conservator removed a protective matting and, on the back of the work,

Left: Jean (Hans) Arp Untitled, ca. 1915–16 Paper collage, graphite, colored pencil, gold leaf, and gouache on cardboard 7 3/4 x 5 1/2 in. (19.7 x 14 cm) The Hilla von Rebay Foundation, on extended loan to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1979.139 © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Courtesy Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

THREEDIMENSIONAL LIBERATION

Judy Chicago is an artist, author, feminist, educator, and intellectual. For over five decades, Chicago has remained steadfast in her commitment to the power of art as a vehicle for intellectual transformation and social change, and to women’s right to engage in the highest level of art production. As a result, she has become a symbol for people everywhere—known and respected as an artist, writer, teacher, and humanist whose work and life are models for an enlarged definition of art, an expanded role for the artist, and women’s right to freedom of expression. In 2018, Chicago was named one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People,” as well as one of the year’s “Most Influential Artists,” by Artsy. See Judy Chicago in conversation with writer and author of 7 Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton on March 23 at the 360 Speaker Series event. Learn more at nashersculpturcenter.org/engage

Above: Judy Chicago Inflatable Mother Goddess Floor Plan 1977 © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society, New York Photo courtesy of Through the Flower Archives Opposite: Judy Chicago Inflatable Mother Goddess Rendering 1977 © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society, New York Photo courtesy of Through the Flower Archives Martha and Max Wells are the Presenting Sponsors of the 360 Speaker Series. The 360 videography project is supported by Ansel and Suzanne Aberly.

Meet Ro Shaw One of the artists for The Great Create 2019 Watch the video

A DAY FOR KIDS TO BE PART OF THE ART The Great Create April 28, 2019 A fundraiser benefiting the Nasher Sculpture Center. The Great Create 2019 is presented by PNC.

2001 Flora Street, Dallas, TX 75201 USA Tel +1 214.242.5100 Tuesday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. nashersculpturecenter.org COVER: Sterling Ruby This Generation, 2007 Wood, urethane, spray paint, denim,fabric, and fiberfill 61 x 94 x 60 in. (154.9 x 238.8 x 152.4 cm) Courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio Photo: Robert Wedemeyer, courtesy Sterling Ruby Studio © Sterling Ruby BELOW Photograph: Steven Visneau The Nasher magazine, as well as the many community programs, special exhibitions, and learning opportunities described within, are made possible by the generous support of Members, Patrons, and donors to the Nasher Sculpture Center.

The Nasher Magazine Spring 2019

Articles inside

Performance as Sculpture

Beyond the Yea-sayers

Leigh Arnold, Ph.D., on Isa Genzken

Sterling Ruby In The Studio

The History of the Berlin Club Scene

Jed Morse on Sterling Ruby