Isa Genzken at Marian Goodman - New York, New York

German conceptual artist Isa Genzken's novel show at Marian Goodman was a kind of mini-retrospective that overspreaded the years between 1983 and the near The pieces ranged from large photographs of human ears to small semi-abstract plaster plastic arts from architectural sculptures to enamel paintings upon canvas; altogether, the show strained both the variety of her work and its conceptual coherence.

upon one wall were four tall, dark paintings, each approximately 5 by the agency of 2-1/2 feet, made from enamel sprayed from one side a gridded stencil onto the canvas. The web and high gloss of the enamel made looking at the paintings a doom like squinting at something on the outside of a car window in the rain: the images appeared in like manner hazy that it took a hardly any minutes to decipher them. upon first viewing, the images--rings upon long cords--looked like a cros between dangling earrings and hangman's nooses. As it move rounded out, they were inspired by means of a recent hospital stay, and exhibited the traction rings that hung above Genzken's hospital bed. The visual ambiguity and the haziness of the images made the paintings strike one as being slightly threatening yet at the same time uncouthly decorative.

Her four small semi-abstract plaster statuarys displayed on white pedestals were similarly ambiguous. With titles of that kind as The House and My Brain, each was hand-modeled and highly eccentric. My Brain was basically a crudely shaped knoll of plaster with electrical wire sticking without of the top. With its dumbbell handiwork and its self-deprecating title, My Brain was more humorous than greatest in quantity of Genzken's pieces yet it still retained the quiet passivity that characterizes her work. None of these pieces draw near at you; rather, you are required to pass to them, to literally direct the eye inside and around them in order to experience their import.

Genzken's work has many times been characterized as a reaction against the domineering and excessively material statuary of Minimalism; she is seen as opting for the ephemeral and understated. Whether or not this has been her intention, it is easy to arrive at that reading. With little ostentation, Genzken's work relies upon a belief in the power of the unadorned; her photographs and plastic arts are dry and factual. As quietly as a monk she points to implicit connections in the world: human orifices and building entrances, medical equipment and human mortality. To Genzken all that gazes whole and complete is not.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc.

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