ROSEMARIE TROCKEL (B. 1952)

Across a knitted diptych of black and white, Rosemarie Trockel weaves a beguiling pattern in “o.T”, gestrickt (“untitled”, knitted), 1985. A fusion of craft traditions with avant-garde inquiries, “o.T”, gestrickt is comprised of two woollen canvases, each knit with a repeated motif that seems to extend infinitely. The present work is an early example of Trockel’s Strickbilder or ‘knitted pictures’, which she had begun in 1984. “o.T”, gestrickt is part of the series ‘Made in Germany’, which she created as a riposte to the art critic Wolfgang M. Faust’s belittling belief that women were incapable of producing important and urgent art. Instead, he saw their work as craft. In these textile compositions Trockel responds to the patriarchal art world by using what is considered to be a traditionally feminine medium to make grand, optically complex painterly statements. Confident and minimal, works such as “o.T”, gestrickt explore the stereotypical divisions between art and craft, feminine and masculine, power and powerlessness as a means of destabilising preconceived beliefs.