Acquisitions/
2007/
Rosemarie Trockel/
Grater 2

Rosemarie Trockel challenges established cultural theories about sexuality, artistic production, and social identity. Trockel has employed knitting, sculpture, drawing, painting, installation, and video to heighten an awareness of difference, especially in relation to the representation, or lack thereof, of women. She frequently borrows from the domestic realm, refer- encing everyday objects traditionally associated with women’s work in her sculptures—stove burners, irons, brooms, soup ladles, and scrub brushes, for example. Displaced and reformulated as products of her artistic labor, Trockel uses these elements of the domestic world to illustrate an open and ambiguous space with undercurrents of aggression.

In Grater 2 Trockel ironically reconfigures a machine-made utensil as a commanding, handcrafted sculpture. The wood grain texture visible beneath the glossy platinum finish of the grater and the two axes attached to its sides suggest that these tools could be used for woodworking—a form of labor usually reserved for men. Countering this intimation of masculine physical labor are the gouges and scratches made by Trockel as she molded the tool’s surface.