During her prolific and influential career as a sculptor, Isa Genzken has tirelessly mixed shoddy with shiny, high with low, dumb with clever, all with abundant excess and success. Her fragile but powerful constructions are primarily assembled from a riot of colourful non-artistic materials such as umbrellas, dolls, action figures, plastics, mirrors, and pop culture memorabilia. Her skill lies in channelling a coherent visual and conceptual narrative from such heterogeneous components, revealing a crystalline personal logic behind her iconoclastic strategies. Crucially, Genzken has the ability to continually re-invent her entire artistic process, her practice periodically re-emerging anew like a Phoenix from the ashes.

Empire/Vampire (2004) consists of an array of coloured found objects that sit on a pedestal, requiring the viewer to stand erect in order to engage with them. As with all Genzken’s finest sculptures, it has a visceral power which instantly commands the viewer’s attention, and a mysterious beauty that invites the eye to linger. Affirming Genzken’s position as one of the leading innovators of contemporary sculpture, The Museum of Modern Art in New York has planned a major survey of her work for November 2013.