Katharina Sieverding, ID/IV, 1992. Deutsche Bank Collection, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012
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Rosemarie Trockel, Untitled, 1993. Deutsche Bank Collection, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012
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Rosemarie Trockel, Untitled, 1986. Deutsche Bank Collection, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012
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Maria Lassnig, Portrait Arnulf Rainer, 1949. Deutsche Bank Collection
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Maria Lassnig, Untitled, 1948. Deutsche Bank Collection
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From Elvira Bach's expressive self-portraits to Hanne Darboven's cool notations-the current show in the 60 Wall Gallery at Deutsche Bank New York brings together various different female artistic approaches. The focus of Beauty is a Beast are paper works by six important women artists from German-speaking countries that have been a part of the Deutsche Bank Collection from the beginning. The selection on view ranges widely in style, medium and subject matter but each shatters traditional notions of beauty and reflects the spirit of the times which sought new ideas about artistic practice. The majority of works is from the 1980s and 1990s and testifies to an exploration of movements such as conceptual art, performance art, and minimalism-as well as the advances women have made into a male-dominated art scene.
Body consciousness painting-this is how Maria Lassnig calls the portraits of herself and others that depict bodily sensations. Lassnig was one of the first women artists to make the female body the focus of her work; in doing so, she became a role model for generations that followed. While Katharina Sieverding uses the medium of photography to question the self, Elvira Bach has been unerringly stylizing herself for more than thirty years as a femme fatal or "kitchen diva." Diametrically opposed to Bach are the written works of Hanne Darboven. Over the course of years, her obsessive involvement with numbers and dates has given rise to an entirely singular work: in a sober, almost mathematical manner, she records the world's chaos on tens of thousands of sheets of paper. Like Darboven, Isa Genzken also frames a reference to minimalism, even while her oeuvre defies all genre boundaries. The show's youngest artist is Rosemarie Trockel, who was just awarded the renowned Goslarer Kaiserring. She, too, successfully resists every attempt at categorizing. Drawing is a constant in Trockel's work; it is the medium she uses to work through her ideas and motifs. This "sketchy character" also characterizes many of the other works on show at the Wall Gallery. This, not least, is what also makes Beauty is a Beast such a fascinating show.
A.D.
Beauty is a Beast
October 3, 2011 - January 27, 2012
60 Wall Gallery, New York
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