LOOKI"NG BACK TO GO FORWARD WITH ROSEMARIE TROCKEL BY FIONN MEADE

THE COSMOLOGY OF GERMAN ARTIST Rosemarie Trockel is a constHntly shifting inventory, substituting iconographic, linguistic, a nd material transformations ff) !' the expected guises of identity and representation. Advertorial images a nd pop figures exist alongside typologies and culled from history, the natural sciences, cinema, anlhl·opology, and the artist's own hybrid indpx of drawings, collages, a.nd moving imnges. And yet to Walt Whitman's biological envisioning of self a nd world, '· 1 am large, I conta in multitudes," 1'rockel's incisive productivity might offer Emily Dickinson's rejoinder on creativity: "Don't you know that · No' is the wildest word we consign to language'!" As "Rosemarie Trockel: A Cos mos" opens at the Museo Centro de Arte Reina

·ms ARTINFD.COM UI Vfl9E x '11: 90 'o lpaw pexlV'J ILO?: '/a/l1 eUljO Sofia in this summer- it will analog for the la rger practice: l\1lanu is a invests in a nd mocks her own obsessions- travel to the New Museum this fall, where proxy activist protesting the proposed most ohviously in the risible co nfl ation of it will be her fi rst New York museu m demolition of the Kunstverein a nd BB from Bertolt Breeht Hnd Brigitte Bardot exhibition in a decade- h er last institu- Kunsthalle; Manu is a wealthy young (a hybrid reference that reappears else- tional Ol how in New York conti nues to woman ra ising a toast to her own pregnan- where in Trockel's repertoire). Eluborated reverberate and give insight into an cy, only to pop the bnlloon beneath her from Itali a n literary critic Fra nco Forti ni's indelible approach to exhibit.ion making, dress to riotous laughter; and Manu is a use of the same term to describe Pasolini's for Tl'ockel repeatedly finds abunda nee gag performeJ' holding (:l written placard writings a nd films, there is a constant in the wilderness of no. "Spleen ," present- up to a n elepha nt asking the whel'eabouts "being beside itself' to TTockel's work that ed in 2002 by the Dia Art of a Mr. Comes. Each Manu is resolutely goes to the metaphysical heart of parody. in their former Chelsea venue (and orga- pa r tia l, reacting to the fragility of the Prying apart a nd emptying out stylistic nized by then cu.rator Lynne Cooke. a lso exhibition's swaying, responsive architec- investments, critical prompts, and theoreti- the co-curator of "A Cosmos"), followed ture. Any cathartic n)lease the spectator cal lines of inquiry in order that they be the character Manu through it series of might desire from Manu-the spleen is revita lized wi th a restless co mic gravitas, fi ve episodic videos pr'ojected onto i;cparate traditionally held to thc seat of emotions Trockel's is a rguahly t he "para" practice freesta nd ing sculptural wall i> . A provi- a nd passion-is dispersed. This split par excellence of our time. As she offers in sional muse, lVl a nu and her confines nature of nal'l'ative, self, and fi gurative a rare interview with Cooke published to nre a fitting cipher for stepping further form culminates in Spleen 4, 2002, accompa ny "Spleen ," "the question of the into Tmckel's unique fashioning [rom in which Trockel pa rodies the i.nfa rnous model in terms of what engagement could out of negation. mean t.h es e cl ays is contraciictory and On the reverse of each partition were a mbiguous. rt is a lso a ffected by our points hinged aluminum' plates of bl ack, oran ge, of view. Models arc a matter of one's own yellow, silver, and white that were fl exihle ROCKEL work. There is no model for how to deal enough to respond to the movement of with a model. i" never on firm ground." passing viewers. Providing a contour of I neleed, Troc kel has been giving shape hypersensitive vulnerability mixed with REFUSES to this line of and interro- Mini ma1ist cool (and a distant nod to gation throughout bel' tareer via formal. Blinky Palermo's painting insta llation I b l OBE material- a nd mediu.m- specific pa rtial the People vf , 1977, in Dia's investments. To briefly outline the etymol- collection), the walls' paradoxically hard ogy of parody as it relates here, parodias fragility bulwarked the looping videos PERIODIZED were once inserted in between the rhapi;ody a nd a llimated a. ten::; ion between precise or reeitation of Greek drama. Performers architectura l framing a_nd a parodic would enter to ridicule and quickly relationship to narrative, figure, a nd genre N overtum a ll that came before. Speaking central to "Spleen" fin d Trockel's oeuvre. beside the co nventional taxt, serious parody Tall and beautiful, Manu is eelsy to liHEREBY therefore h as its descenda nts in the recall, walking noncha lantly through a entr'acte and intermezzo of theater and graveYo intolerably real for pa rody that it for Ma nu's consorts to smoke a ciga rette, by Breeht's Berliner Ensemble, 1'rockel's becomes nece!;sary to keep it at a di stance. t.ake a cell phone call , and begin to feel adopts the neut.rality of a To fictiO.n'!; ':IS if.' parody opposes its t.he discomfiting elongation of time. 1\s soundstage to enfold a high-fashion Mother drastic 'thi:=; is too much' (or 'as if not')." Ma nu fina lly awakes and is helped out of Courage/iYlul1u constantly primping in the Within Tt'ockel's "as if not" appronch. the sha lJow ahyss, exiting the graveyard refl ection of a frying pan-and occasionally there is one additional moment from unscatbed a nd seemingly a bit hored, her dancing to music- while a cast of historical "Spleen" to consider. Di splayed in a smn]] characteristic split hetween comic timing caricatures populat.e the rotating grist and corner of the Dia exhibition was a vitrine :'Illduncanny mda ncholia asserts its grip. grind of the scene: ,Jackie Onassis drags a presentation of book cover proposals shown Within "Spleen" Manu is a composite phallic cannon ahout, obsessively burnish- tor the first time. Suhsequently termed persona, role-playing gender, donning a nd ing its reRective shine; Joa n of Arc tU lles in drafts in Trockers most recent survey discarding narrative expectations, and to a boom-box collage of intermittent pop exhibitions, the book covers a nd proposals readily maski.ng appearances (a ll strategies music and historical snippets culled from span decades of ideas tbat exi st in unfin- that extend to T rockel's survey exhihitions Vietnam-era speeches and McCarthyist ished form. Included in "Spleen" was a at KUll stha lle Zurich, "Del ique:=;cence of interrogations; a pair of young male draft that featured a 1993 zine-like, spiral- the Mother," 2010, a nd the Wiels Contem- attendants with flaccid penises sewn to the bound blue cover showing a photo of porary Art Center in Brussels, "F lagra nt outside of their fl esh-colored costumes pull Trockel as a teenager sitting in her older Delight," in 2(12). Manu is a meme for Mother Courage's cart, and two Brigitte sister's bedroom, celebrity photos from the Trockel's long-standi ng, polymorphous Bardot-like talking heads pantomime the 1950s a nd '60s hanging on the wall behinel. use of media- which mutates to include role of commentators a nd chorus. Titled Ieh l

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; FIlOM IOP lffi: Daddy's striptease room. • in sto llo tion 1990. Mixed medio. )ioArt 19'12 x 27'12 x 19';' in. ion, 2002. -De liquesce nce of the leide r. M other o t Kunstholle xed medio . Zu ri ch. 2010. in. Ich kann Obe r m e ine ,sc ence of the Filme n urlache n o t KUllstho ite ("My Films Just M o ke 010 . M e Lo ugh' ), 1993.

ARTINFO.COM MODERN PAINTER S 6 aware, middle-class teenager adrift in the here, with older works hemming in Trock- the lm'ge-scale "knitted painting" series so-called Wirtscha!t.8Wll1lder or "economic el's Wunderkammer-like constTuctions, that preceded tJle vitrine int.erventions miracle" of 's l'apid rebuild- they confronted viewer like a trihe'. greedily absorbed all remaining surface ing in the 1950s and early '60s, it was ac- works looked back, refusing historical light wit.h densely pal.terned monoc hro- by a cal'd conveying in Trockers linearity in their applUition-like assembly: matic gestures. By lining em;h room of the own words how the book's distcll'lion of a swollen bead sculpture, Hydrocephalus / ex hibition with work from form er decades, the imagp was meant. to "somehow lose t.h e Wasser/cop! Ii. 1982, for example, sat 'l'rockel i.nsisted on ;'1 dialectical tacking provincial, homC'maoe, miserabl e atmo- before the sleek, black ceramic finish of a hdween new work a nd returns sphel'e of the whole photo nnd situation." t.hirsty outstrotchedleg, mockingly titled from the past. Both familiar and unfamil- I30th ironic and heavy with pnthos, the Geru('hss/wiptlll' 2 ("Aroma scu.lpture 2''), the gatherings of her pi eces were made cover and caption bear out Trockel's "as 2006, Hnd elbowed in alongside H (JJJ11inuLive strange through proximity, compressed if not" approach to h(er own past. goblinlike Kiss My Aw'Cl, 2008, into a singular gesture that conJronted the fn looking to the framing a nd defram- hunkering below the overflowing hang of viewer as known, imprinted, a nd a nimis- ing of t.he magisterial "Deliquescence of a n unruly knitted work, Unlitled, 1989. tic, before being parceled into stylistic t.he Mother" at Kunsthane Zurich, curilted Archetypes of'mother and father (mas(:uline nuance and comic asides. Filter ed Rne! a tomized throughout the ent.ire exhibition, t.he liquefaction of' the mother is Trockel's vel'sioning of splf. By litendly and precisely maJ:ginalizing her own works, she refu ses to be periodized aJlcl tbereby completed, insisting instead upon boundary condit.ions t.hat can be reconfig ured a ndmHche cru", 1. Initially supine sculptu.ral works like Watching and Sleeping and Co mpo8ing flJ10 Ton my sora , both 2007, propped up more of Trockel's eyeful encount.ers, just as over :20 collages «(rom an ongoing body of them begun in 2004) montaged bodies into a contortion of mas.ked and st.ripped-bare gestures. Fragmented flgures from video stills, photographs, and copies of past drawings alongside unique drawings worked their way into the painterly gestures of the recent collages. Contrasted with the tribal effrontery that. was the vitrine's co mi c yet haunting presence, the collages rccnll Trockel's em·]jest vitrine sculptures but with renewed compression, speed, ancl conflation of refarence. Much could be said of the Beuysian symbolism that ambigu- ously resides within these recent works, mixed with the fn.lternizing proximity of 's displays, hoth integral parts of a yet to be fully t.raced genealogy of influence-not t.o mention the formative importance of Trockel's publication and exhibition collaboration by Beatrix Ruf, it is rather the "this is too and feminine) wcre absorbed in the angular with Monika Spri.ith, Eml de Cologne, much" side of TroclHel's sensibility that looking back of Trockel's round-up, exposing ] 985-93- hut the specters are resolutely takes over t.hrough dissipation, liquefllc- the cultural codes and diches that under- Trocke!'s within these encupsulated ge,;turel;. tion, and condensation. From the lockdown score our need for empathic identification "It is the probity of the artist- feeling style of collages that ran the perimeter of while also giving heterogeneous form to the (herself) unable to push thE' ego to tbe point one back 1'00111 in the show- including lack thut: arises in her regular diffusion of of representing that which is llnnnrratahl e- such phantomlilw images as Mrs. lV!oni- gender, ego, and character. who then assumes parody as the very Ic)rm paer, lWr. Schneider, and Ornament, all And so Daddy's Striptease Room, 1990, a nd patteJ'n of mystery." Agamben writes. 2006, H.nd Nohody Will Survive 2, 2008- a perversely labeled cardboard box housing A::; "A Cosmos" readies itself to unfold in to the two oversized vitrine ;;truet.ures a model of the Cologne Cat.hedral, occupies New York , the voices and images that. piercing two of the middle rooms of a large-scale vitrine with Miss Wanderlust, from the memory of t.hese past. exhibitions Kunstballe's long and narrow floor plan, 2000, a rough-hewn nubile sculpture reveal a dialectical approach thut must be the sound of l11uffledlaughter cut through that kneels and peers out [rom t.he vitrine looked to and listened for els('where. For the impeccable sequencing, ordeT, a nd with binocular ext.ensions in place of eyes. Trockel continues to clear and oplm up transparent barriers of gl ass and Plexi- Likewise, the ceramic wall sculptures one of the most distinctive paths t.hrough glas. Trock el turned the I'etrospective gaze 1.,h

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