Rosemarie Trockel's work not only treats issues that are intrinsic to art, but also weaves the threads of her own themes: in addition to criticizing the existing art system, it also deals with medially mediated realities, the search for identity, social affiliations and ethnic questions. In her work, Trockel works imaginative thought-constructs into visually convincing artistic designs. She visualises philosophical questions with humour, thus avoiding dogmatic oppositions or even polemics.
The exhibition presents the visitor with a broad range of Trockel's works: drawings, objects, screen-prints, videos and knitting pictures. They successfully combine again and again traditional and new visual media. This is especially evident in the ink, charcoal, pencil, collage and computer drawings. Drawings and sketches are not only experimental fields for reflections and concepts in Trockel's oeuvre; they also form their very own group of works. This becomes particularly clear in the current large format works, which along with videos are well represented in the exhibition.
Curator: Gudrun Inboden, art historian and curator
The ifa agora is the central platform for the network, collection and archive of ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen in the field of art. It is a place of transcultural exchange – just as the agora in ancient Greece was a city’s most important meeting place and marketplace. It shows ifa’s relationships and brings them together online.
With over 20 touring exhibitions currently travelling across the globe and with its diverse event programmes on contemporary art, the ifa links the German art scene with internationally active cultural creators and forms cooperations and networks. The projects, many of which were developed in co-creation with local partners, cover the various disciplines of modern and contemporary fine arts – from current themes in architecture, photography and design to Bauhaus and monographic exhibitions such as Rosemarie Trockel or Marcel Odenbach. These projects generate local meeting platforms and allow international perspectives on topics of global relevance. The ifa also provides loan exhibits to interested museums.
