Ohne Titel, 1983
Information about the artwork
- Translated titleUntitled
- MaterialEmulsion paint, oil crayon, and shellac on paper
- Dimensions39.2 x 25.3 cm
- Year of acquisition1986
- Inventory numberUAB 411
- On viewCurrently not exhibited
- Copyright© Rosemarie Trockel. VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn [2026]. Photo: Haydar Koyupinar, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Museum Brandhorst, Munich
More about the artwork
Rosemarie Trockel is considered one of the first German artists to systematically address gender stereotypes, introducing machine-knitted works and household appliances into the battleground of art. Works on paper and vases have been consistent means of expression in her practice since the late 1970s. The five-part series presents hand-painted red grid patterns into which eyes, fingers, noses, and a skull—severed and repeated—are integrated. “We are in the age of partial objects, bricks and leftovers,” wrote the philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari (1930-1992) in 1972. In 1980s Germany, this philosophy gained broader attention and found resonance within feminist discourse. While in other bodies of work Trockel turned the male sexual organ into a “partial object,” here she focuses on human sensory perception: seeing, touching, and smelling. The title of a contemporary catalogue essay accompanying these works quoted the confrontational statement by the Austrian writer Karl Kraus (1874-1936): “Man has five senses, woman only one.” This quote reflects the patriarchal environment in which Trockel developed her own critically ironic strategies.
