Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs who haunt the air-conditioned galleries with your dark glasses and your scholarly notes on contemporary art. Today, we are going to talk about Isa Genzken, this sublime witch of German sculpture who, for nearly five decades, has been throwing the sparkling debris of our decaying modernity in our faces.
Imagine for a moment that Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir reincarnated into a single person, an artist capable of chiseling existential anxiety into tangible objects that stare at us with the intensity of urban unease. This is Isa Genzken. This woman who dared to capture the fragmented world of post-war Germany and transform it into an aesthetic of catastrophe so personal that it becomes universal.
Born in 1948 in Bad Oldesloe, Genzken emerged in an art scene dominated by men, where female sculptors were as rare as sober unicorns at artists’ parties. American minimalism then dominated, and here came this German amazon with her “Ellipsoids” and “Hyperbolos” of the 1970s, those elongated mathematical lacquered wood forms that seemed to say “Fuck you” to Carl Andre and all those chauvinists who believed sculpture should remain stoic, immutable, and above all, masculine.
But let’s not stop at the surface of these early works. What makes these geometric sculptures resonate is precisely the existential tension they embody. Existentialism teaches us that existence precedes essence, and Genzken shows us how objects exist in a state of perpetual negotiation with space, with their own materiality, with our perceptions. These long wooden forms that seem to float above the ground are not simply formal exercises; they are explorations of the ontological condition of the object in space.
Sartre would have appreciated how Genzken transforms the inert “in-itself” of traditional sculpture into a dynamic and contingent “for-itself.” These objects are there, but they refuse to accept their passive “thingness.” They confront us, challenge us, demand that we perceive them not as fixed entities but as spatial propositions constantly evolving. These early works remind us that art, like existence, is a project never completed, always becoming.
Following Genzken’s trajectory in the 1980s, we see her abandon mathematical elegance to explore concrete, that mundane material of German reconstruction. Her “Windows” from this period are monuments to emptiness, frames that frame nothing, openings without views. These concrete sculptures evoke urban ruins while rejecting nostalgia. They speak to us of the existential absurdity of a world that builds and destroys in perpetual cycles.
Again, existentialism offers us a key to interpretation. For Camus, the human condition is that of Sisyphus eternally pushing his rock. Genzken presents us with architectural forms that shelter no one, structures that exist in a paradoxical state between construction and decay. These sculptures remind us that every attempt to create meaning confronts the fundamental absurdity of existence.
And then comes the break, that moment when Genzken seems to have swallowed an explosive cocktail of millennial anxiety and consumerist debris. Her assemblage work, which begins with the “Fuck the Bauhaus” series in 2000, including architectural models improvised from pizza boxes, shells, plastic toys, and colored adhesive tapes, marks a radical transition. One might see it as an abandonment of her previous formal rigor, but it is rather an intensification of her existential quest.
If existentialists teach us that we are “condemned to be free,” Genzken shows us what this freedom means in a world saturated with consumable, disposable objects, yet always very present. Her assemblage practice becomes a form of material existentialism, where objects are torn from their commercial destinations and reassembled into new meaningful relationships.
Take her installation “Oil” for the German pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. The building’s entrance wrapped in scaffolding, the interior populated with abandoned suitcases, suspended astronauts, and omnipresent mirrors, all create a landscape of perpetual transit, a non-place in the sense anthropologist Marc Augé understands it. It is a profound meditation on contemporary alienation, on our collective inability to fully inhabit the world we have created.
Sartre’s and Beauvoir’s existentialism reminds us that we are defined by our actions, by our choices, by our existential “project.” Genzken, by transforming the waste of consumer culture into complex and unsettling sculptures, chooses to face the material chaos of our era. She refuses the nostalgia of clean and orderly minimalism, just as she rejects the temptation to withdraw into an artistic ivory tower.
The strangely dressed mannequins from her recent “Schauspieler” (Actors) series perhaps offer us the clearest manifestation of her existential reflection. These humanoid figures, dressed in eccentric outfits, pose like actors frozen in an absurd play. They remind us that in a society of spectacle, we are all in constant performance, playing roles imposed on us while trying to build personal authenticity.
As Simone de Beauvoir writes in “The Second Sex”: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Genzken’s mannequins seem to say: “One is not born a contemporary subject, one becomes so” through a chaotic accumulation of cultural signs, fashion trends, learned postures, and identity accessories. These anthropomorphic sculptures, neither fully human nor merely objects, embody the ontological ambiguity at the heart of existentialism.
Critics who see in Genzken’s recent work only a superficial commentary on consumer culture miss the essential. Her aesthetic of collage, overabundance, and bric-a-brac is not simply a critique of contemporary superficiality; it is a profound exploration of how objects shape our experience of the world and of ourselves.
Existentialism teaches us that we are “situated” in a specific historical and social context that limits our choices while making those choices meaningful. Genzken, as a German artist born in the immediate post-war period, is situated in a complex and troubled national history. Her most recent works can be read as attempts to address this history without drowning in it, to create art that acknowledges its context while transcending it.
Genzken’s post-9/11 assemblages, such as the series “Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death” (2003), are not mere reactions to a contemporary tragedy. They are part of a broader meditation on historical violence, on the cycles of destruction and reconstruction that defined the 20th century. When she places toy soldiers amidst improvised and fragile architectures, she reminds us that war is never truly over, that peace is always fragile.
Beauvoir wrote that “the drama of woman is this conflict between the fundamental claim of every subject who always poses herself as the essential and the demands of a situation that constitutes her as inessential.” Genzken, as a female artist in a male-dominated environment, has had to navigate this conflict throughout her career. Her works can be read as persistent affirmations of her essential subjectivity in the face of a world that would try to marginalize her.
But Genzken transcends simple identity politics. Her work is not reducible to her position as a female artist, just as existentialism is not reducible to a theory about isolated individuals. It is rather an exploration of intersubjectivity, of how we always exist in relation to others and to the material world we share.
The series “New Buildings for Berlin” (2001-2006) offers us a perfect example of this relational reflection. These fanciful architectural models, with their bright colors and unrealizable shapes, are not simply critiques of modern urbanism. They propose alternative visions, utopian possibilities that could exist if we had the courage to radically rethink our built environment.
Existentialism encourages us to imagine alternative futures, to recognize that the world could be otherwise than it is. Genzken, with her impossible architectures and improbable assemblages, invites us to this radical imagination. She shows us that even in a world saturated with prefabricated objects and imposed structures, we can still create new, unexpected, transformative things.
There is a joy in this work, a jubilation in the chaotic assemblage that contradicts the stereotypical image of existentialism as a dark and defeatist philosophy. Yes, Genzken acknowledges the absurdity and contingency of our material existence, but she also finds creative freedom in this acknowledgment. Her works are not monuments to despair but celebrations of possibility.
Look at her “Rose II” (2007), that oversized steel flower that proudly stood in front of the New Museum in New York. It is a work that embraces both artificiality, no one would confuse this metal structure with a real rose, and transcendental beauty. It reminds us that even in a world of manufactured objects, we can still be moved, still feel something that goes beyond the utilitarian and the commercial.
Sartre tells us that we are what we make of what was made of us. Genzken takes the debris of our material culture, disposable objects, construction materials, fashion accessories, and makes something new out of them, something that transcends their origins while acknowledging them. It is a form of existential alchemy, transforming banality into meaning.
At a time when art is increasingly treated as a commodity, as a financial investment or a social status accessory, Genzken’s work stubbornly remains ungovernable. Her sculptures refuse to be reduced to objects of passive contemplation or demonstrations of technical virtuosity. Instead, they demand a form of existential engagement, a recognition that we are all involved in the same complex and often contradictory systems that produce both dazzling skyscrapers and mountains of plastic waste.
Existentialism teaches us that authenticity comes from the honest recognition of our situation, followed by a conscious choice about how we respond to that situation. Genzken, faced with the material and ideological chaos of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, chooses not to turn away from it, but to dive into it fully. She transforms this chaos into a distinctive artistic practice that refuses easy formulas and prefabricated solutions.
Her refusal to stick to a recognizable style, her willingness to risk failure and misunderstanding by constantly pursuing new directions, all testify to a deeply existentialist understanding of artistic creativity. As Camus reminds us, Sisyphus must be imagined happy in his endless labor. Similarly, Genzken seems to find satisfaction in the impossible but necessary task of shaping the chaos of our contemporary world.
In an art landscape dominated by brand artists and industrialized studio practices, Genzken remains a singular and inimitable voice. She reminds us that art is not merely about producing aesthetically pleasing or conceptually coherent objects, but an existential engagement with the materials, stories, and possibilities that surround us.
If existentialism is a philosophy that insists on our radical freedom even in the face of the most severe constraints, then Genzken is truly an existentialist artist. Her work shows us how creative freedom can emerge even amidst the most overwhelming cultural disorder, how new meanings can be forged from the detritus of mass consumption.
While so much contemporary art seems either to capitulate to market forces or oppose them with predictable and ineffective critique, Genzken finds a third path. She accepts the material world as it is, saturated with objects, fragmented, often absurd, but refuses to accept that this is the end of the story. In every chaotic assemblage, every architectural sculpture, every oddly dressed mannequin, she affirms the possibility of new meaning, a new relationship, a new perspective.
And isn’t that the heart of existentialism? Not despair in the face of absurdity, but the recognition that it is precisely this absurdity that makes our creation of meaning so significant. In a predetermined universe, art would be but an illustration of preexisting truths. In the contingent and open world that existentialism presents to us, art becomes an essential act of meaning-making.
Isa Genzken, with her refusal of easy formulas and her determination to confront the material chaos that surrounds us, embodies this existentialist understanding of art. Her work reminds us that even in the most perplexing circumstances, we always have the freedom to create, to transform, to give new meaning to what seems senseless.
So the next time you find yourself facing one of her unbalanced sculptures or one of her chaotic assemblages, do not simply try to understand what the work “means.” Instead, ask yourself how it invites you to rethink your own relationship to the material world, how it challenges you to see the objects around you differently, how it encourages you to imagine new possibilities in what already seems determined.
Because it is there, in this invitation to a new perception, a new relationship, that lies the true existentialist power of Genzken’s work. She shows us that even in our overmediatized and hypercommodified world, we can still find moments of authentic freedom, opportunities to create meaning where there seemed to be only noise.
So yes, admire the technical virtuosity of her early wooden sculptures, appreciate the boldness of her recent assemblages, but do not forget that what links these apparently disparate works is a constant concern with our existential condition in a constantly evolving material world. Isa Genzken is not simply a sculptor or an assemblage artist; she is a visual philosopher who uses objects, space, and our own perception to ask us the most fundamental questions about our being in the world.
And in an art scene too often dominated by cynicism or empty spectacle, this sincere existential questioning is as refreshing as it is necessary. Thank you, Isa Genzken, for reminding us that art can still be a matter of life and death, meaning and absurdity, freedom and constraint, in short, a matter of human existence in all its chaotic and wonderful complexity.
