309 - GENZKEN, ISA

GENZKEN, ISA 1948 Bad Oldesloe Title: Weltempfänger. Date: 1990. Technique: Antenna in cast concrete. Dimensions: 22 x 28.5 x 9 cm. Height variable up to 104 cm when the antenna is extended. Notation: Signed, titled, inscribed, and dated on the underside: Isa Genzken Barcelona 1990. Provenance: - Gabriele and Tilman Osterwold Collection, Stuttgart - Private collection, Berlin Exhibition: - Galerie Fred Jahn, Stuttgart 1991 Literature: - Buchholz, Daniel (ed.): Isa Genzken. Catalogue Raisonné 1961–1996, Cologne 2026, cat. rais. no. 1211, ill. - The “Weltempfänger” are among the artist’s most sought-after groups of works on the international auction market - Genzken transforms an everyday medium of communication into a sculpture of timeless relevance - Isa Genzken is one of the most significant and influential contemporary artists. The “Weltempfänger” (world receivers), which Genzken has been creating since the early 1980s, occupy a special place in her body of work. With these concrete sculptures, reduced to just a few elements, Genzken transforms an everyday medium of communication into an independent artistic form while simultaneously questioning its function and significance. The starting point for this group of works is a standard Panasonic radio, which Genzken presented as a ready-made on a pedestal in 1982. Beginning in 1983, she developed a series of sculptural replicas based on this, casting concrete into rectangular molds and fitting the still-wet mass with extendable metal antennas. Despite their consistent abstraction, the works remain immediately recognizable as radios. The contrast between the massive, immovable concrete and the delicate, movable antenna defines their distinctive impact. While the original device serves to receive music, news, and voices from around the world, its technical function is suspended in the sculptural interpretation. The antenna, however, remains a symbol of a possible connection to the outside world. It is within this tension that the multifaceted meaning of the “Weltempfänger” unfolds. They can be understood both as symbols of disrupted communication and as an expression of a continuing need for exchange. The antenna becomes the connecting element between the sculpture’s enclosed form and an invisible outside world. At the same time, the concrete alludes to postwar modernist architecture, whose formal language and materiality had a lasting influence on Genzken’s artistic development. By transforming an everyday technical object into a seemingly functionless, permanent form, she links questions of perception, communication, and social reality with a fundamental exploration of sculptural possibilities. Within this body of work, numerous variations emerge in different sizes, proportions, and surface textures, often with titles that refer to cities or people. Each of these works is to be understood as an independent sculptural statement. Estimated shipping costs for this lot: Domestic: 30.25 euros plus 5.75 euros VAT EU: 46.22 euros plus 8.78 euros VAT Third country: 92.44 euros plus 17.56 euros VAT Additional shipping insurance Shipping insurance up to a total invoice amount of 25,000 euros: max. 41.65 euros For a total invoice amount exceeding 25,000 Euros: 1.8 per thousand USA: by individual arrangement after the auction. #Isa Genzken #Conceptual Art #Germany #Post-War Art #1990s #Communication #Object #Sculptures. In accordance with §26 UrhG (German Copyright Act), VAN HAM is obligated to pay a statutory resale royalty on the sale proceeds of all original works of fine art and photography whose authors have not been deceased for 70 years prior to the end of the calendar year of the sale. The buyer shall contribute 1.5% of the hammer price toward this fee.