Mach dich hübsch!

Created in Berlin around 15 years ago, this large-format collage book by Isa Genzken (born 1948) is both a personal diary and artistic manifesto. In it are portraits of the artist and her friends; clippings from advertisements and glamour magazines; male pinups; illustrations of fences and grates from animal enclosures; mostly bare trees, bushes, and forests; columns, faces, and strange details from the artist’s work and installations; and postcards of historical paintings and handwritten notes. Genzken uses brown sticky tape and silver textured textile tape; black, blue, red, and vibrant green neon papers give the book a dramatic structure, creating windows and doors with views in and out. The format of the pages gradually becomes larger throughout the course of the book, giving it an astounding physicality.