Isa Genzken

Isa Genzken used the architectural column as a starting point for sculpture. Columns are a recurring form throughout her practice, connecting her interest in sculpture, architecture, and the urban environment. What interests me is that the columns still look like architectural structures, but they don't really function as architecture. They are freestanding objects that reference things such as buildings, skyscrapers, monuments, and cities. She takes something that is normally used to support a building and removes that function, making the column itself the artwork.

She uses materieals such as mirrors, holographic foil, tape, photographs, and everyday materials to create the surfaces of the columns. These surfaces are shiny and decorative making them feel like they are not completely static.

The scale of the columns are around or above human height, creating a relationship between the sculpture and the viewer. They have a bodily presence in a gallery space. The viewer must also move around them, and because of the reflective surfaces, the viewer (in a way) can become part of the surface of the work; or at least their reflection is projected back at them from the column.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Image 1: Artsy.Net. 2026. ‘A,B,C,D (2002-2003) by Isa Genzken | Artsy’. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/isa-genzken-a-b-c-d.

Image 2: Graw, Isabelle. 2011. ‘ECCE HOMO: ART and SUBJECTHOOD’. Artforum, November. https://www.artforum.com/features/ecce-homo-art-and-subjecthood-198621/.

Image 3: ‘Kunsthalle Wien’. 2026. In Kunsthalle Wien. https://kunsthallewien.at/en/exhibition/im-isa-genzken-the-only-female-fool.

Image 4: MuseionBZ. 2026. ‘Isa Genzken - Museion’. https://www.museion.it/en/exhibitions/93-isa-genzken.