Schauspieler (Actors)

2013

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

For her series Actors (Schauspieler), Genzken took a number of commercially made male and female mannequins and, in a gesture reminiscent of the use of mannequins by artists in the 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris, dressed them in a range of eclectic materials and items of clothing. Some clothes were drawn from the artist’s own wardrobe. Her figures can thus be seen as the artist’s alter egos and as generic, if rather eccentric, urban types. In Genzken’s work, the taped-on and haphazardly draped accessories and garments reference both the consumerist excesses and cognitive delirium of capitalism.

Artwork Details

Overview

Provenance

Exhibition History

Title: Schauspieler (Actors)
Artist: Isa Genzken (German, born Bad Oldesloe 1948)
Date: 2013
Medium: Mannequins, clothes, shoes, fabric, and paper
Dimensions: 59 1/16 × 59 1/16 × 59 1/16 in. (150 × 150 × 150 cm) approx.
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: SYZ Collection, Switzerland
Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art