Rosemarie Trockel

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Rosemarie Trockel (born 1952 in Schwerte, Germany) is a German artist, and an important figure in her country's contemporary art movement.

From 1970–1978, Trockel studied anthropology, sociology, theology, and mathematics in pursuit of teaching career. She later studied painting at the Werkkunstschule in Cologne. Her first solo exhibitions were held in Bonn and Cologne in 1983; she gained fame by addressing contemporary concerns, particularly women and their place in the art world. Her work challenged concepts of sexuality, culture, and artistic production.

Trockel's "knitting pictures", produced in 1985, consist of lengths of machine-knitted, woollen material stretched on to frames. The material is patterned with computer-generated geometrical motifs, or with recognizable logos, such as the hammer and sickle motif of the Soviet Union superimposed on a background of red and white stripes reminiscent of the US flag. Another of Trockel's pieces consists of a steel cube fitted with six hot plates in two parallel, diagonal lines, meant to establish a bridge between the feminine domain of cooking and the masculine domain of industrial production. Aside from the knitted, patterned logos she made, she also made a series of pictures of webs spiders had made and their effects if taken lsd, hashish, or mescaline. She says it depicts their loneliness and their weak figures, because their webs would not be strong enough to catch prey to survive. They would eventually die. These spider web series can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, NY.

Trockel's Painting Machine and 56 Brush Strokes is a mechanical contraption of wires and steel rollers, in which 56 paint brushes make small marks on a roll of paper. The brushes are made of human hair and are engraved with the names of the hair's donors.

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