Isa Genzken: Basic Research Paintings, ICA

Isa Genzken, who lives and works in Berlin, is truly a child of the 1960s. She embraced the often violent, leftist ideology of her contemporaries and has now progressed to the uneasiness of human experience in the capitalist world of today.
As one of the most important German artists in recent years, high-profile retrospectives such as at MoMA earlier in 2015 have centred on her large-scale sculptures, installations of found-objects and panel works. The recent Isa Genzken Hauser & Wirth show also had eclectic canvases, covered with coins and Euro notes lining the gallery walls. But little attention has been paid to her equally experimental and vibrant paintings which arguably reveal more about the Genzken's aesthetic and intellectual formation.
ICA London exhibition
The ICA offers a rare opportunity to view Isa Genzken's Basic Research series of 1989 to 1991 in isolation. From a distance, the earthy, textured paintings seem like alien landscapes, but upon closer inspection, these impressions give way to something almost recognisable as urban architecture. However, they never truly give up their identity. There is an unmistakable reference to her ex-husband Gerhard Richter’s abstract paintings in the way that colours melt into each other across the canvas.
Genzken’s effortless, painterly command of light and shadow, form and surface, reveals the breadth of her talent, and deserves as much attention as the colourful, over-the-top assemblages for which she has become a household name.