Construction Sites of Modernism:
Isa Genzken at the
52nd Biennale in Venice
Isa
Genzken, Oil, 2007, German Pavilion, Venice
With
Deutsche Bank as the main sponsor, the German Pavilion at the 52nd
Biennale in Venice opens in just a few days. It will feature an
installation called "Oil" by Isa
Genzken, who after working as an artist for more than thirty years is
at the zenith of her career. Genzken, who was born in 1948, is a legend on
the art scene yet is hardly known to a wider public. That will change now. Brigitte
Werneburg and Oliver Koerner von Gustorf on Genzken's
fascinating work, in which she combines sculpture with economic, social,
and political aspects.
Nicolaus
Schafhausen and Isa Genzken, 2007
The German
Pavilion in Venice is a risky business for any artist. And this is no
doubt because the contemporary art of a nation is presented in an
international comparison. The Pavilion, built in 1909, focuses on German
art and history like a burning lens: the triumph of Modernism in the
1920s, the exploitation of art by the National Socialists, and the efforts
made in the 1950s to rehabilitate artists ostracized under the National
Socialists by presenting their works. The Nazis radically changed the
pavilion. At the entrance, monumental pillars replaced the dainty columns,
with the insignia "Germania" emblazoned above them. Although after the
Second World War the prospect of razing them was often discussed, the
Pavilion is still virtually unchanged. It was not until 1964 that the
pathos of National Socialist spatial design was broken when major
refurbishments were carried out in the pavilion's interior. Since then,
the presentation has concentrated on one or just a few artists. While not
all of them have explicitly dealt with the history of the building, they
have all worked in a field of tension between the difficult legacy and
their artistic vision.
German
Pavilion in Venice
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"It's always been about catharsis and trauma", said Kasper
König, the director of the Museum
Ludwig in Cologne, when Isa
Genzken's contribution to the Biennale was discussed at the Witte
de With in Rotterdam. "And now a very essential artist is launching
into it, she really knows what she's doing." In 2007, a kind of superhero
by necessity seems to have roused the pavilion from a long slumber – a
"nonconformist", as Nikolaus
Schafhausen, the curator of the German contribution in Venice, calls
Isa Genzken. Since Gregor
Schneider received the Golden Lion in 2001 for his Haus Ur, the
reactions to the German contributions have been rather tepid. And the
situation did not even change when Tino
Sehgal had supervisory staff sing the slogan "Oh this is so
contemporary" as a conceptional artwork in 2005. This time, people again
expect a groundbreaking contribution which is highly profound, which
captivates visitors, which is truly "contemporary", and which captures the
pulse of the time.
Elefant,
2006
Courtesy
neugerriemschneider, Berlin
But how will
Isa Genzken react to these expectations? "I'll simply do what I've always
done: my best", she said in an interview with db artmag back in the autumn
of 2006, "and I won't drive myself crazy thinking I have to cause a
sensation. I don't think much of sensational art to begin with. Christo
doesn't do anything for me. I hate everything that has to do with
sensations. Art doesn't have to be calm, but it has to be an attraction in
itself, not loudly directed to the outside world. In terms of the German
Pavilion, I can only think of one exhibition that I liked a lot: that of Joseph
Beuys. I liked his Straßenbahnhaltestelle from 1976 a
great deal. It wasn't clamorous, yet it was still very forceful."
Leonardos
Katze, 2006
Courtesy
neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Accordingly,
she will approach the pavilion from the outside; cautiously, distanced,
without immediately spreading herself out inside. This is a radically
different approach from that of Hans Haacke, one of her predecessors in
the German Pavilion in Venice. In a very symbolic way, Hans
Haacke broke up the floor of the German Pavilion to show the abyss of
modern art compromised under fascism. Naturally, this abyss was not very
profound in the presence of Hitler Portraits and deutschmark emblems.
Modern art can only have a future if it shelves pretentious gestures; the
patent recipe for a liberation of art and society is to say farewell to
the esotericism of purity.
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