Margret Eicher
Year of birth, place
Role at the ZKM
- Artist of the Collection
Biography
In the works by Berlin-based artist Margret Eicher (born 1955 in Viersen, DE), Baroque pictorial art meets digital collage and material artistry meets the creation of electronic motifs. From 1973 to 1979, the artist studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy under Fritz Schwegler and Rolf Sackenheim with a focus on drawing. After completing her studies, however, she turned away from drawing and became part of the Copy Art movement as she developed the technique of CopyCollage, duplicating motifs that are in the public domain by means of ordinary laser copies. Since the early 2000s, the artist has become known for her Medientapisserien® (media tapestries): digital montages of image motifs connected with the information society of the 21st century, which she has produced as woven tapestries. Inside the ornamental borders that frame Margret Eicher’s wall hangings and collages, space and time intertwine: the works move between mystical narratives and complex media worlds in a hybrid manner, skillfully defamiliarizing imagery that the artist appropriates from art history and popular culture, such as film, advertising, and video games. Margret Eicher’s works are thus iconological interpretations of our visual culture, which confirm social theorist Niklas Luhmann’s proposition that “Whatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which we live, we know through the mass media.”
Education
1973-79 Studied at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Awards/Scholarships (selection)
1989 Scholarship from the Land Rhineland-Palatinate
1994 Scholarship from the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg
1995 Scholarship from the Kunstfond Bonn e.V.
1996 Second Prize in the Copy-Art competition of the 'Internationale Grafik Triennale', Grenchen
Solo exhibitions (selection)
1983 Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt
1988 »Hirschmann und Vogelfrau«, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe
1989 »Normale Dunkelheit am späten Vormittag«, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen
1994 »Über den Gebrauch der Muster«, Kunstverein Freiburg; Kunsthalle Mannheim; Galerie Halskratz (Angelo Falzone), Mannheim
1995 »LOBLOB«, Kunstraum Wuppertal
1996 »Herrschende Muster«, Nassauischer Kunstverein Wiesbaden e.V.; Galerie Ulrike Buschlinger, Wiesbaden; subsequently at Dortmunder Kunstverein e.V., Dortmund
1997 »Ruhe Bitte«, Städtische Galerie Rähnitzgasse und Schloss Pillnitz, Dresden
Group exhibitions (selection)
1990 The 'Junge Künstler' prize from Saar Ferngas AG, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen
1992 »Mythos Rhein«, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen
1993 »Gewalt der Gegenwart«, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe
1994 »Architektur der Ideen«, Kunsthaus Hamburg
1995 »Begreifungskräfte Künstlerinnen heute«, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe; subsequently at Museum Ulm/Stadthaus, Ulm; »Frauen(t)räume«, Galerie Horst Dietrich, Berlin
Museums/Collections
Landesmuseum Mainz; Städtische Sammlung in the Prinz Max Palais, Karlsruhe; Städtische Sammlung Mainz; Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim; Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen; Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern
Literature (selection)
Galerie Halskratz; Falzone, Angelo (ed.): »Jörg Czeschla & Margret Eicher - Musée Trouve«, Mannheim 1992; Kunstverein Freiburg; Städtische Kunsthalle Mannheim;
Galerie Halskratz, Mannheim; Eicher, Margret (ed.): »Margret Eicher - Über den Gebrauch von Mustern - Raumbezogene Copycollagen«, Mannheim 1994; Galerie Buschlinger, Wiesbaden; Nassauischer Kunstverein e.V., Wiesbaden; Dortmunder Kunstverein e.V. (ed.): »Margret Eicher - Herrschende Muster«, Mannheim 1996; Berg, Stephan: "Ornament und Herrschaft - Zu Margret Eichers Copy-Collagen", »Kunstforum International - Ästhetik des Reisens«, Vol. 136, Cologne 1997