Invited Artists



Pawel_Althamer | Michael_Asher | Nairy_Baghramian | Guy_Ben-Ner | Guillaume_Bijl | Martin_Boyce | Jeremy Deller | Michael_Elmgreen und Ingar_Dragset | Hans-Peter_Feldmann | Dora_Garcia | Isa_Genzken | Dominique_Gonzalez-Foerster | Tue_Greenfort | David_Hammons | Valérie_Jouve | Mike_Kelley | Suchan Kinoshita | Marko_Lehanka | Gustav_Metzger | Eva_Meyer und Eran_Schaerf | Deimantas_Narkevicius | Bruce_Nauman | Maria_Pask | Manfred_Pernice | Susan_Philipsz | Martha_Rosler | Thomas_Schütte | Andreas_Siekmann | Rosemarie_Trockel | Silke_Wagner | Mark_Wallinger | Clemens von Wedemeyer | Annette_Wehrmann | Pae_White

 


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Rosemarie Trockel

*1952 Schwerte, lives and works in Cologne




Project: Less Sauvage than Others

Rosemarie Trockel is bold in matter, mild in manner. With forceful precision, she places her sculpture, made of yew bushes, near Donald Judd’s work on the shore of Lake Aa, gently combining nature with nature by placing two blocks of the evergreen tree onto the meadow. Taxus baccata, the common yew, grows slowly, even in shadowy spots, and can live to be as old as a thousand years (some are said to be over two thousand years old). In the Middle Ages, the finest bows were made of its wood, but since yews are mostly poisonous for humans and for many animals, efforts were made to prevent their spread. Today, an anti-cancer drug is extracted from its bark. Like green monoliths they stand next to each other – seven meters long, three and a half meters deep, and four meters high – slightly staggered and neatly trimmed to look like sculptures made of wood and stone, forming a narrowing gap through which the spectator can see the shimmering waters of Lake Aa and a high-rise block on the shore beyond. Is it an attempt to create an English landscaped garden, with a window-like perspective of a special building or just an autonomous sculpture in and of itself? Less Sauvage Than Others is what Rosemarie Trockel calls her installation. The precision trimming means it will not grow wild, and both blocks will remain in place after the exhibition.


Biography

Since the 1980s, Rosemarie Trockel has presented an oeuvre full of diversity, which internationally has made her one of the most important artists of her generation. She is regularly working with video, illustration, everyday objects, and sculptures, which she uses autonomously and in the context of installations. She became known for her large format knitted paintings. One of her favourite themes is the critical discussion of female life styles, and gender difference. Trockel's art in public space includes the Monument to the Persecution of Homosexuals in Frankfurt/Main (1992-1994). Together with landscape architect Catherine Venart and ‚Topotek 1’ she won the competition for the design of the Bahndeckel on the Theresienhöhe in Munich in 2001: The artists proposed an „open area“ with a banked up sand dune. For documenta 10 she proposed „House for Pigs and People“ in the Karlsaue park.

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