ROSEMARIE TROCKEL

born 1952, Schwerte, Germany; lives and works in Cologne Yvonne, 1997 HD color video, sound, 2:49 minute loop
Courtesy of Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, Germany

In Yvonne, the namesake baby and other friends wear hand-knitted garments that play star roles in this humorous narrative. The video evokes a sense of domesticity and the intimacy of the handmade. Trockel filmed it after having made a series of machine-knitted works, exhibited as paintings, which challenged assumptions about wool as indicative of women’s labor and the primacy of painting in a male-dominated art world.