Teachers Pack Whitechapel Gallery Isa Genzken: Open, Sesame! 5 April 2009 21 June 2009 Whitechapel Gallery 77 82 Whitechapel High Street London E1 7QX Aldgate East whitechapelgallery.org
Mein Gehirn (My Brain), 1984, plaster, metal, paint, 24 x 20 x 18cm How to use this teachers pack: The pack begins with a conversation between its writers, Rebecca Greathead and Daniel Wallis. It outlines some key information about the artist and the exhibition, giving you some context to pass on to your students. The activities are guidelines that you can vary to suit the vocabulary or ideas that your students will respond to best. We have suggested ways to differentiate for all Key Stages but you may feel that your students will benefit from trying those aimed at a different group. First come activities and discussion points to use in the gallery. It s probably best to read these through first but they are self explanatory and normally only need paper, something to write with and a willingness to have a chat. The school activities can easily be expanded from the length of one lesson to multiple sessions. We ve included images throughout that you can display in the classroom to help prompt the group and remind them of the exhibition. Perhaps talk your ideas through with a colleague. These activities are designed to help all access what can be a challenging exhibition. Keep reminding your students that using their brains is the key. Have fun.
Rebecca This exhibition is crazy are you sure it is all the made by the same artist? Some of the work is quiet and calm, some of it is manic, and there is such a difference in the way things are made. Daniel Maybe we should look at the dates things were made, perhaps the artist has found different ways of working during her career? She studied and worked in Germany. Rebecca Well, these two beautifully finished long wooden pieces on the right of the entrance were made just before the pile of rubbish on a plinth to the left. Most of the works downstairs look like sculptures and the works upstairs looks like piles of rubbish. Daniel I see what you mean, the wooden ellipsoids were made using computer techniques and the plaster lumps even have finger prints on. Some things are made with laborious care like the cast window frames and some things look flung together like the beach huts upstairs. Rebecca There are certainly differences, I wonder what the works might share in common? Daniel There are lots of mirrors and reflective surfaces throughout the show and I can see inside or through nearly all the sculptures. Rebecca Ooh, and some of them are like people, they even have names. This concrete one has an eye. Daniel But lots of them are also like buildings or models of buildings. Three of the works on the upper floor are proposed buildings for the Ground Zero site in New York. Rebecca Yes, a hospital, a Disco and a Memorial tower rebuilt from rubbish Daniel And new buildings for Berlin, a city which must have changed its appearance as much as Isa Genzken s work has in the last 30 years. Rebecca So what about the mannequins in the room upstairs? They look so ugly covered in spray paint and their clothes half off? This scene Strassenfest reminds me of Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon. Daniel That may be the point. If you are not focused on what you might like to buy on Oxford Street it can become terrifying. The sheer amount of objects and signs all competing for attention, their meanings becoming jumbled and distorted.
Rebecca Yes all that stuff wanting to be bought, all those people, all those outfits. But it is also exciting, and sexy too. Daniel Not creative though, no room for making when you are so busy consuming. Rebecca Making can help control or channel the feelings of chaos. Daniel Shall we go away and make something then? Rebecca Why not!
World Receivers, 1987 1999, concrete and metal, various dimensions
Ohr (Ear), 1980, C-print, 175 x 118cm
Gallery Activity 1 (suggested for all Key Stages) The German artist Joseph Beuys became highly influential during the 1960s. He believed that the materials from which a sculpture was made were important as they gave out an energy, which could be felt physically causing a psychic or even healing effect. Using natural materials such as felt, wood, stone or even honey made a ritual connection back to the earth. His idea that a sculpture might be imbued with energy that would allow it to transmit signals to a receiver would have been of great importance during Isa Genzken s artistic development. Isa Genzken mostly uses man-made materials in her work but these too can transmit signals. She has played with this idea by putting aerials into blocks of concrete. These aerials transform the concrete shapes allowing them to send out signals to us more easily. If your students are KS1 - KS3 ask them to put on the Receiving Antennae (collected from the Education Officer) to become an art receiving system. (Have a look at the World Receivers and My Brain sculptures which also have antennae attached). Older students will still benefit from this activity but don t have to wear the Receiving Antennae if you think they may strongly object. Explore the downstairs gallery in pairs. tuning in to the work. Make lists of words that try to describe the signals transmitted by each object. Finish by sitting in front of the work which is emitting the strongest signals. Pairs can then share lists of words with the group and explain why they have tuned into a particular piece. Do the group feel they used their eyes, or their ears, or something else for this activity? If something else what could it be? THIS ACTIVITY NOW SPLITS DEPENDING ON THE AGE GROUP
KS1 KS3 extension for Gallery Activity 1 One of the works in this gallery is a giant image of an ear. Isa Genzken made many images like this, even stopping women in the street and asking to photograph their ears. She felt they were something from the inside, out But they also are receivers of invisible signals. Keep an eye out for elements which make reference to sound. And those that have a passage from the inside to the outside. How many ways are visitors to the gallery framed by or reflected in the work? How do the dimensions of some works mirror those of a person? KS4 and KS5 extension for Gallery Activity 1 In the same pairs as the first part of this activity: Ask pairs to write down the opposite words to those on their tuned in list. Explore the works again making links to these new words. Do the opposite words reveal elements that are not in the work, or what is hidden? The works in the gallery is made over a 30 year time period. Do they have anything in common? Does this give us a clue into what is going on inside Isa Genzken s brain? What seems to interest her? Please return your Receiving Antennae so that future visiting students can also tune into the artist s work.
Luke (Porthole), 1986, concrete and steel, 53 x 22 x 71cm (without pedestal)
Gallery Activity 2 (suggested for all Key Stages) Much of the work in the downstairs gallery seems to have a head and a body. A small hole in the concrete becomes an eye; the windows on tall metal stands could be heads on legs and from certain angles may even frame another visitor s face as they walk past. Some artworks have names of people such as Dan, Luke, Marcel and Isa and perhaps have personalities too. Go upstairs and work your way round to Strassenfest (the room with the mannequins in). Don t think about the work just yet but observe how people move around and look at the work. Think about how and where other visitors stop. What are their facial expressions? What elements do they seem to look closely at? Does anyone check themselves out in the mirror? Find a place to sit near the work. Draw a simple stick figure representing the pose of another visitor looking at the work. Now look at the work more closely. What is it that the people you observed were interested in? Have a look at the range of objects that Isa Genzken uses to give the mannequins personality. Why did she pick these clothes and small objects both on and around the mannequins? What marks has she added to them? Add clothing to your stick person to express a personality. Think about every detail, what colour and type of shoes should they wear? Add three or four small objects to the drawing. Describe your character to the group. Can you describe Isa Genzken s characters in as much detail? Think of all the characters interacting in an installation or scene from a film.
What do you think the story might be?
Banhoff (Station), 1984, plaster, 26 x 23 x 25cm
Memorial Tower (Ground Zero), 2008, various materials, 316 x 80.5 x 90cm
School Activity 1 (suggested for all Key Stages) In many of Isa Genzken s works small additions play with the way we perceive its scale. A tiny tree cause a pizza box to become the size of a supermarket, a tea trolley measures a hospital back against human height, while its title suggests a huge structure. Using found or discarded objects experiment initially with the smallest change or addition that will transform the scale of that object. (For example a small door in a coke can, might imaginatively resize it as a house. A small figure next to a stone could enlarge it to a boulder.) Once this imaginative resizing has been understood by the group ask them to add to and extend their object.
Ohr (Ear), 2002, outdoor project, City Hall, Insbruck
School Activity 2 (suggested for all Key Stages) Isa Genzken had some of her buildings superimposed onto images of landscapes in the same way as an architects model. Ask students to take photographs of their own artworks or just domestic objects. Print and cut them out. Superimpose these over a chosen site. It might be an urban cityscape, the school playground or a desert island. This could also be done digitally. Title the work to give it another dimension.