Lot 16 | Nicole Eisenman | Untitled

EISENMAN, NICOLE
1965 Verdun

Title: Untitled.
Date: 2007.
Technique: Pencil and charcoal over watercolour on vellum.
Measurement: 30,5 x 28cm.
Notation: Signed and dated lower right: Nicole Eisenman 2007.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed. Not examined out of the frame.


Provenance:
- Barbara Weiss Collection, Berlin
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin

"Kunst muss Widerstand haben" (Art must have resistance)
As an American-Jewish artist with a queer background and German-Austrian roots, Nicole Eisenman is considered a strong representative of diversity and opposition to conservative voices. Her paintings are primarily figurative depictions of queer, often non-binary figures that break with art-historical traditions and eternal myths by interpreting them from a mostly female perspective.

Examination of the male ideal
This can also be applied to the 2007 work, in which Eisenman clearly draws on the visual language of modernist watercolor and charcoal sketches, such as those by George Grosz and Otto Dix. The headgear she uses on the male figure, a bowler hat, alludes to the time of the industrial revolution. The man, who is unclothed apart from his walking stick, which he holds like a sceptre, and a bowler hat, is staged as a ruler. He reaches for the female figure, who bends down next to him and presents her sexual organ. On the other side stands a small boy looking up at him in awe, while a tearful figure emerges from the shadow in the background. Like a dystopian power play, the satirical, caricaturally exaggerated scene opens up to the viewer, reaching a further climax with the subtle lettering "father" on the man's chest. With her work, the artist questions and criticizes the socially prescribed role of the man as a successful businessman, as a dominant lover, as an absolutist ruler, as a physical ideal based on the ancient model and as a father figure.

Skulptur Projekte Münster
In 2006, Eisenman is shown in the exhibition " Das Achte Feld" (The Eighth Field) conceived by Kasper König at the Museum Ludwig, where the themes of transsexuality, gender and drag are artistically negotiated. In 2017, the artist also participated in "Skulptur Projekte Münster" with a fountain and five figures positioned in loose poses around the water basin. Although "Sketch for a mountain" was very popular with visitors at its opening, it hit the headlines due to discriminatory and right-wing extremist attacks. Since 2021, it has been accessible by the public again as a sign of resistance against hatred and exclusion, thanks to the commitment of the "Dein Brunnen für Münster" association and a large number of donations.