Met Life

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© Generali Foundation Collection—Permanent Loan to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Photo: Werner Kaligofsky

Isa Genzken

Met Life, 1997

Color photograph 42 x 59.4 cm, framed 46 x 65 cn Edition postproduction 10/30 A. P. Produced by Generali Foundation 1997

GF0011865.03.0-1997

Artwork text

In this picture of a photomontage, Genzken refers to her exhibition of the same name organized at the Generali Foundation in 1996. Pictures of the Met Life-building in New York were the subject of the poster and the invitation to the exhibition, which included a portfolio of photomontages of the well-known building. Designed by Walter Gropius, it houses the headquarters of the Met Life-insurance company on Park Avenue and is considered a symbol of outgoing modernism. Genzken was primarily interested in the elegantly designed windows of the building. Windows and light are recurring motifs in her work, as demonstrated in sculptures shaped like windows or lamps, or in the film Chicago-Drive (1992). One of her numerous exhibitions was titled “Everybody needs at least one Window.”