Rosemarie Trockel
«Continental Divide»

Rivalry, competition, ranking – even the art world cannot escape from commercial profit calculations. «Who is the best artist?» – Rosemarie Trockel links this ancient, narcissistic question to the mirror with the motif of the Doppelgänger. of the other and the alter ego. She is in a state of constant circling and fighting with herself, constantly asking the question and suggesting a series of names as the possible answer, including her own.

The raised camera position is reminiscent of a surveillance camera and underlines the sense of interrogation, which is also revealed by the use of a chair as the classic utensil. But this tape, which takes up some of Bruce Nauman's ideas, is not staging social tension and also not addressing gender conflicts, but circles, in the most literal sense of the word, around itself. The dichotomy between life and art, private and public individual, remains unbridgeable, as the title 'Continental Divide' suggests.

Rudolf Frieling