After initially working as an expressionist painter, Kogelnik evolved into a flamboyant practitioner of Pop Art, experimenting with collage and airbrush techniques, and with new materials such as vinyl along with traditional ones such as ceramics. In visionary fashion, she anticipated issues that are now more topical than ever: questions of gender and sexual identities, ethical concerns surrounding cutting-edge research, especially in medical diagnostics, rationalization and miniaturization through robotics.

The exhibition, curated by Cathérine Hug from the Kunsthaus Zürich in cooperation with Lisa Ortner-Kreil of the Kunstforum Wien, offers a comprehensive overview of Kogelnik’s multifaceted oeuvre via around 150 works from four decades of artistic production, some of them in very large formats. It reveals the art-historical importance of this pioneering figure, who worked primarily in New York but also in Vienna and Bleiburg, moving with consummate ease between familiar companions such as Sam Francis and Claes Oldenburg, and developing her distinct artistic language in relation to contemporaries such as Niki de Saint Phalle, Carolee Schneemann, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

Her iconic ‘Hangings’ – bodily silhouettes cut out from vinyl and draped over clothes hangers – are here, as are large works in glass and ceramic that will be a revelation to Swiss audiences. Kogelnik’s world is full of human figures and animals. Her aesthetic is inspired by space travel and robotics as well as fashion and subculture; her tone is visionary. She uses her identities as an artist, mother and woman as a template for statements about the patriarchy. Audiences are sure to find much that is thought-provoking in an art born out of curiosity and a love of experimentation.

The exhibition is a project by the Kunstforum Wien and is organized in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich and the Kunstmuseum Brandts in Denmark, with assistance from the Kiki Kogelnik Foundation in New York.

Supported by UNIQA Kunstversicherung Schweiz, Albers & Co AG and the Truus and Gerrit van Riemsdijk Foundation.