About Rosemarie Trockel

Rosemarie Trockel (born 1952 in Schwerte, Germany) is one of the most important German contemporary artists, celebrated for her multidisciplinary practice that challenges conventional distinctions between art and craft, high and low culture, and authorship and production. Working across sculpture, painting, textiles, photography, video, and printmaking, Trockel creates artworks that interrogate gender roles, industrial processes, and cultural systems. Her practice is characterized by its conceptual rigor, material diversity, and critical engagement with feminist discourse and institutional critique.

Trockel's artworks are characterized by their use of unconventional materials and industrial fabrication methods. Her iconic knitted paintings—created using computer-programmed knitting machines—feature logos, symbols, and patterns that critique consumer culture and gender stereotypes. By employing traditionally feminine craft techniques within the context of contemporary art, she challenges hierarchies between fine art and applied arts. Her sculptures, installations, and photographs extend these investigations, using found objects, ceramic works, and appropriated imagery to create works that question authorship, originality, and cultural value systems.

Printmaking and edition-making are integral to Trockel's practice. Her limited edition prints, photographs, and signed editions translate her conceptual investigations into highly collectible formats. These fine art prints capture the same critical engagement with materials, processes, and cultural systems that defines her larger installations and sculptures, making her distinctive vision accessible to collectors worldwide. Her prints are sought after for their ability to embody the same feminist critique and institutional questioning that characterizes her multidisciplinary practice.

Throughout her career, Trockel has remained committed to challenging conventional categories and hierarchies within contemporary art. Her artworks continue to influence feminist art and institutional critique, securing her position as one of the most significant German artists whose sculptures, textiles, photographs, and prints redefine the relationship between art, craft, and cultural production.

Notable exhibitions

Rosemarie Trockel has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at leading international museums. Landmark presentations include her retrospective Post-Menopause at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne (2005) and Rosemarie Trockel: Cosmos at the New Museum in New York (2012), which later traveled to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Serpentine Gallery in London. Earlier, her practice was showcased at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1993), cementing her reputation on the European stage.

Her artworks have also been featured prominently in documenta in Kassel and multiple editions of the Venice Biennale, where she represented Germany in 1999. Additional institutional solo shows include the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Kunsthaus Zürich, MAXXI in Rome, and Whitechapel Gallery in London, each affirming her influence on contemporary art and feminist practice.

Trockel's artworks—including her highly collectible limited edition prints, photographs, and signed editions—are held in major international collections worldwide. These exhibitions and institutional holdings confirm her enduring legacy as an artist who redefined the boundaries between art and craft, challenging gender hierarchies and cultural systems through her multidisciplinary practice.