Sigrid Kogelnik (1935-1997), known as Kiki, lived in New York City from 1962. Born in Graz, the artist abandoned her previous expressionist style of painting and turned entirely to Pop Art. This new art movement was just becoming established. Kogelnik was in close contact with Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg and Tom Wesselmann, among others, attracted attention with her extravagant outfits and created unique works of art that were far ahead of their time. She was not concerned with the glorification of commerce, but posed questions of gender and identity, investigated the ethics of cutting-edge research, especially in medicine, and social change through robotics. Kogelnik's work set her apart from anything familiar: »She was not Pop, she was strictly Kiki«, Wesselmann said of her. The Kunsthaus Zurich is now presenting the first Swiss retrospective of the artist: Kiki Kogelnik. Retrospective runs from March 22 to July 14.
Kogelnik experimented not only in terms of content, but also technically. He used collage and airbrush techniques as well as ceramics, glass and vinyl, which was new for artworks in case of the last one. Around 150 works of art that illustrate his extremely diverse oeuvre are on display at the Kunsthaus Zurich. Among them are the so-called Hangings, which are among Kogelnik's best-known works. The artist made life-size stencils from vinyl, some of which depict her famous artist colleagues. The stencils were hung in rows on department store racks. Kogelnik died of cancer in 1997 at the age of 62.
