Hamburg, Ascan Crone Gallery, Rosemarie Trockel, Skulpturen und Bilder, 9 August – 4 September, 1984
Literature
Exhibition Catalogue, Ascan Crone Gallery, Rosemarie Trockel, Skulpturen und Bilder, Hamburg, 1984, p. 7 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
Animals have long provided Trockel with source material for fantasies and projections; they have been all-purpose vehicles for the exploration of otherness. When she has sought to conjure an image that speaks instantly of gaps and distance, she has turned to monkeys, pigs, giraffes, and birds, among many creatures that allow her to open up psychological space between the viewer and the picture’s subject. The animal can be both a stand-in for humans, letting us reflect on ourselves, and a figure of total opposition, helping to identify which qualities specifically do not belong to our own self-definition. G. Williams, ‘Split Nature – Laughter and Malice in Rosemarie Trockel’s Houses for Animals’ in Rosemarie Trockel Post-Menopause, Cologne, 2005/2006, p. 58