POSENENSKE, Charlotte
Work in Progress

This catalogue traces the evolution of Posenenske’s practice from early experiments with mark making to transitional aluminium wall reliefs to industrially fabricated modular sculptures, which are produced in unlimited series and assembled or arranged by consumers at will.

Posenenske exhibited widely during the brief period (1956–68) that she was active as an artist, alongside peers such as Hanne Darboven, Donald Judd, and Sol LeWitt.

Her work is distinguished by its radically open-ended nature: she used permutation and contingency as playful conceptual devices to oppose compositional hierarchy and invite the public to collaborate by reconfiguring her variable sculptures.

Embracing reductive geometry, repetition, and industrial fabrication, she developed a form of mass-produced Minimalism that addressed the pressing socioeconomic concerns of the 1960s by circumventing the art market and rejecting established formal and cultural hierarchies.

Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Charlotte Posenenske: Work in Progress at Dia:Beacon, New York (8 March – 9 September 2019), before travelling to Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (18 October 2019 – 8 March 2020), Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf (4 April – 2 August 2020), and Mudam Luxembourg—Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (2 October 2020 – 10 January 2021).

[publisher's note]

Published by Koenig Books, 2019
Monographs / Exhibition Catalogues