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Ornament as a means of critique: Rosemarie Trockel became known in the 1980s for her knitted pictures. Through her choice of material, Trockel deliberately draws on the traditional role of women in the domestic sphere. However, she does not knit the pictures herself, but has them produced by a computer-controlled knitting machine based on her designs. Despite the potential for mass production, her woollen pictures are always unique pieces. Political symbols, logos and signs are often woven in as recurring elements. In doing so, she raises questions about the socio-political position of art and the role of the female artist.
For her 1987 work ‘Untitled’, Trockel uses the motif of a collage by El Lissitzky and Mikhail Plaksin, which they presented in 1928 in the USSR pavilion at the Press Exhibition in Cologne: the female figure with a hammer and sickle represented the woman of the socialist working class and was regarded as a leading figure of the Russian emancipation movement. Quotations such as ‘Every cook must learn to govern the state’ by Lenin were printed on her body.
By leaving the title blank, she highlights a process whereby women are, consciously or unconsciously, overlooked in the grand narratives of history.