Rosemarie Trockel

Sprüth Magers, Cologne
Private Collection
Skarstedt Gallery, New York
Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Flash Art, May 1987, no. 134, illustrated in color on the cover (detail) (ed. no. unknown)

This work is in excellent condition overall. The piece has recently been stretched on a multi-member sturdy stretcher to properly support the material. There are a few airborne particulates resting in the wool fibers as is to be inherently expected of the material. The work is unframed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Born and raised in Western Germany, Rosemarie Trockel emerged in the early 1980s as a principal figure in the German art scene, a member of the generation that dared to follow Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, and Georg Baselitz. Trockel's work was a point of departure from the painting scions that preceded her. Her artistic output, influenced by a feminist sensibility, would play a decisive role in the evolving German Contemporary Art scene at the time. Trockel's brand of feminism is unique and straddles the themes of sex and politics. There is a gravitational pull within her work that is informed by the avant-garde that sustained her generation – Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol.  Trockel embraced Beuys' disdain for traditional materials and was engaged by Warhol's images of consumerism and mass production. The greatest triumph of Trockel's art is that from a polymath of influences, her artistic production appears entirely autonomous as she stood fearlessly in confronting feminist concerns and sexuality.

In 1985, Trockel embarked on her most seminal body of work – not for the images conveyed, but the wool support that they were conveyed upon. Trockel subverts the often female-associated craft of knitting pictures, as her fabrics and patterns are mass machine-produced and computer generated with no trace of the "female" hand of the artist.  Trockel herself once noted, "Art about women's art is just as tedious as the art of men about men's art."  (Véronique Bacchetta, "Rosemarie Trockel: Provocation and Petic Enigma," Parkett 33: Christopher Wool/ Rosemarie Trockel, 1992, p. 40). The machine-knitted wool is patterned with consumerist and political icons like the international sign for wool of the Playboy bunny's ears, effectively challenging the privileged status of the male-dominated province of painting as "high art." In the case of the present work, Made in Western Germany elegantly reiterates, in steel grey upon soft black, a poignant export phrase of the time, just years before the collapse of the Berlin wall.  The use of the word "western" as opposed to "west" deliberately transforms the obvious interpretation into a multivalent one. "Devoid of emotion, the assemblages of Trockel's works are a woven referential interchange of conflicting concerns and struggles, and her poignant references are either the product of the ideological, political or physical propaganda icons that are banal signifiers of our everyday lives." (Sidra Stitch, ed., Rosemarie Trockel, Munich, 1991, p. 34.)