[1] Hanne-Rose[2] "Isa" Genzken (pronounced EE-sa GENZ-ken) was raised mostly in the small northern German city of Bad Oldesloe[3] and in Hamburg.

[7] Genzken has worked in studios in Düsseldorf, Cologne (designed in 1993 by architect Frank Tebroke);[8] for short stretches in the United States, in Lower Manhattan and Hoboken, New Jersey;[3] and currently in Berlin.

Her diverse practice draws on the legacies of Constructivism and Minimalism and often involves a critical, open dialogue with Modernist architecture and contemporary visual and material culture.

[9] The column is a recurring motif for Genzken, a "pure" architectural trope on which to explore relationships between "high art" and the mass-produced products of popular culture.

These sculptures consist of sequentially poured and stacked slabs of concrete featuring rough openings, windows and interiors.

[12] A later series consists of other architectural or interior design quotations made from epoxy resin casts, such as column or lamp sculptures.

Presented in a non-sequential but methodical manner, each image is glued against a piece of white card and individually mounted in a simple frame.

[15] Her paintings of suspended hoops, collectively entitled MLR (More Light Research) (1992), recall gymnastics apparatus caught mid-swing and frozen in time.

Since the end of the second half of the 1990s, Genzken has been conceptualizing sculptures and panel paintings in the shape of a bricolage of materials taken from DIY stores and from photographs and newspaper clippings.

As part of her deep-set interest in urban space, she also arranges complex, and often disquieting, installations with mannequins, dolls, photographs, and an array of found objects.

[21] The assemblages from the Empire/Vampire, Who Kills Death series, originally comprising more than twenty sculptures that were created following the attacks of September 11, are combinations of found objects – action figures, plastic vessels, and various elements of consumer detritus – arranged on pedestals in architecturally inspired, post-destruction scenes.

[22] Elefant (2006) is a column of cascading vertical blinds festooned with plastic tubes, foil, artificial flowers, fabric and some tiny toy soldiers and Indians.

She used multiple forms that include, vertical structures, of medium-density fiberboard with inclusion of a mirror foil, spray paint as well as other media.