Rosemarie Trockel (born 13 November 1952) is a German conceptual artist.[1] She has made drawings, paintings, sculptures, videos and installations, and has worked in mixed media.[2] From 1985, she made pictures using knitting-machines.[1] She is a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, in Düsseldorf in Nordrhein-Westfalen.[3]
Rosemarie Trockel | |
---|---|
Born | |
Nationality | German |
Notable work | Cogito Ergo Sum (1988) |
Awards | Wolf Prize in Arts (2011) |
Trockel was born on 13 November 1952 in Schwerte, in Nordrhein-Westfalen in West Germany. Between 1974 and 1978, she studied anthropology, mathematics, sociology and theology while also studying at the Werkkunstschule of Cologne, at a time when the influence of Joseph Beuys was very strong there.[1][2]
In the early 1980s, Trockel met members of the Mülheimer Freiheit artist group founded by Jiří Georg Dokoupil and Walter Dahn, and exhibited at the women-only gallery of Monika Sprüth in Cologne.[1][4]
Trockel's work often criticises the work of other artists, or artistic styles such as minimal art.[5]: 252 In 1985, she began to make large-scale paintings produced on industrial knitting machines. These regularly featured geometric motifs or logos such as the Playboy Bunny or a hammer and sickle, and the trademark: Made in West Germany.[4] During the 1980s, she also worked for the magazine Eau de Cologne, which was focused on the work of women artists.[5]: 252
In 1994, Trockel created the Frankfurter Engel monument for the city of Frankfurt.[6] For Documenta in 1997, she and Carsten Höller collaborated on an installation in one of the exhibition's outbuildings.[7] Since the late 1990s, she has worked extensively with clay and has also continued to produce both hand and machine knitted "paintings". Several of these paintings were exhibited in a retrospective, Post-Menopause, at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in 2005.[5]: 252
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Trockel collaborated with Bottega Veneta designer Daniel Lee on the brand’s 2021 ad campaign[8]
Trockel’s work was included in the Italian Pavilion in 2013[9] and represented Germany at the Venice Biennale in 1999;[10] she participated in Documenta in 1997 and 2012. Other exhibitions include:
Trockel's students at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf have included Tea Jorjadze, Michail Pirgelis and Bettina Pousttchi.
Trockel has been represented by Sprüth Magers and Gladstone.[16]