Lot 532 D

In the work group 'Basic Research', made in the years 1988-1993, Isa Genzken added a further dimension to her wide oeuvre. Genzken would spread the canvas out on the bare floor of her studio and squeegee the thickly applied oil paint so that the uneven, 'mooncrater'-like structure of the floor would be captured on the canvas. As explained by Christine M. Schneider, several strands of her work come together in these pictures: 'Genzken titled the imprints of her studio floor 'Basic Research' to signalise that she wishes to analyse the foundation on which her works are produced. She uses 'basic research' in these pieces in as much as, by reducing the artist's work to only a few basic elements - namely material, space and surface - she is dealing with the relationship between sculpture, architecture and painting. Copies, reductions of fragments of this floor are taken from the horizontal to the vertical to become a picture. At the same time, the artist leads us to believe that their basis lies in the real architectural surrounding. To transform the floor imprint of a spatial fragment into a picture she uses in turn a technique from her sculptural practice; as with frottage […], like in the casting process she was using for her concrete sculptures at that time, physical contact with a material is captured. With the direct contact of her oil paintings to architecture, in these works Genzken postulates the same reference to reality as she demands from her sculptures'. (Christiane M. Schneider, Basic Research, in: Kasper König et.al., (ed.), Isa Genzken, Sesam, öffne dich!, exhib.cat. Museum Ludwig, Köln, and Whitechapel Gallery, London 2009, p.68)