Weltempfänger (World Receiver), Concrete, steel, and metal radio antennas, Isa Genzken, 1987–89.

isa genzken

Genzken’s concrete Weltempfänger imbue forms with narrative content through a minimum of means. With the simple addition of chrome antennas, blocks of concrete become multiband radio receivers. “My antennas were also meant to be ‘feelers’—things you stretch out to feel something, like the sound of the world and its many tones,” Genzken said. She created dozens of concrete Receivers in the early 1990s. By subtitling each one with the name of an international city, Genzken evoked a global network of Receivers communicating with one another from different locations.