Rosemarie Trockel
Secluded, we watch the interrogation from above and behind. In a blank room, dimly lit, the prey sits on a plain wooden chair. Her examiner circles. By now the routine has become familiar. They are searching for an answer. Whatever noble resistance the captive might have mustered was obviously broken some time ago. Wielding anger sparked by bewilderment, her inquisitor relentlessly badgers, threatens and strikes the victim with the same blunt question. The 'correct' answer is yet to pass her lips. At various points, when the frustration becomes too much to take, she is knocked from her chair. Sprawled on the floor, she is ordered to get up, put the furniture right and sit back down. She is clearly shaken and sweaty with trepidation. Everyone knows that she wants to give the right answer. Every single time the fitful question stings the air, the hostage flinches, then chances another response. Her string of answers are tied together by a pathetic hope for relief, yet it is painfully clear that she will never satisfy her interrogator. Things are going nowhere.
In her videotape Continental Divide, (1994) Rosemarie Trockel has doubled herself with a bewigged actress so that she can conduct the brutal inquisition, whilst also being its target. 'Who is the best artist?' she screams at herself over and over. Her question is as hilariously absurd, as it is profound. Playing the hostage to her own inquisitor, she offers back familiar names of artists: Sherman, Merz, Hockney, the Bechers. But things go nowhere.
As the videotape ends we hear the rising strains of Ravel's Bolero, popularised by Bo Derek's movie Ten, in which women were rated according to a points system. The artists' names come from a list complied by Germany's magazine for morons, Focus, which annually ranks the world's 100 best artists in what the editors like to call 'Das neue Focus-Trendbarometer', based on some faux formula which takes into account the artist's age, market prices, nationality, and gallery. Last year Trockel did not even make it onto the list, but is number 30 this year. How fickle a thing, this art world of ours. Kabakov edges out Richter for the number one spot, and poor Paolini pulls up the rear at the lowly 100 spot. Like Trockel, Louise Bourgeois was absent from the 1993 list, but sits at number three this time around, and Mike Kelly who was in first place last year ends up at 17 this year. Enough.
'Who is the best?' I sometimes suspect that no other question is asked more often, and of course, not only by artists. Trockel's comic psycho-drama is not merely an uncomplicated invitation to reflect on how stunting competition can be: the virtues of art's truth are not unfettered by rivalry. The Trendbarometer is a lens that may corrupt the view, but it is a lens nonetheless - beyond the pages of Focus, Trendbarometers are called 'international exhibitions' and 'art history.' Beneath Trockel's perverse and comic question lies a serious one about artistic influence and creation.
As the interrogation continues in the basement of the gallery, on the main floor Trockel has arranged a survey of objects which suggest issues that have been important to her: Stove panels, plaster monster heads, knitted outfits. The installation has the serious demeanour of culture, but the appearance of a Trockel Kaufhalle. This self-styled retrospective is a reflective barometer detailing her career - her bests. In relation to the video below, it suggests that context is everything.
