Pamela Rosenkranz’s paintings and sculptures take aim at the empty centers of history, politics, and contemporary culture as a whole. They address the shifting philosophical and scientific meanings of the ‘natural’ and the ‘human’ during the Anthropocene (the geological epoch marked by the impact of human activities on the ecosystem). Rosenkranz deploys a palette of patented icons—polyethylene water bottles, soft drinks, Ralph Lauren latex paint, Viagra, Ilford photo paper, and ASICS sneakers—and augments them with flesh-toned silicone and acrylic paint. Her insistence on the ‘naturalness’ of these seemingly unnatural materials is premised on the fact that they were all produced by human activity.
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Pamela Rosenkranz (b. 1979, Uri, Switzerland) received her MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts, Bern, in 2004, and completed an independent residency at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam in 2012. Her project Our Product was selected to represent Switzerland at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. Previously, her work was featured in the 55th Venice Biennale, The Encyclopedic Palace, curated by Massimiliano Gioni. Rosenkranz’s first solo exhibition in the United States, Because They Try to Bore Holes, took place at Miguel Abreu Gallery in 2012. Other solo and two-person exhibitions include Healing Scrolls (Karma International, Zurich, 2024), Spill Retina (Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, 2024), Alien Blue (Sprüth Magers, Berlin, 2023), All Chemie, with Sigmar Polke, curated by Bice Curiger (Bechtler Stiftung, Uster, Switzerland, 2022), House of Meme (Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 2021), I Wish I Could Cry Blood (Karma International, 2021), Healer (Sprüth Magers, London, 2021), Alien Blue Light (Kreuzgang Fraumünster, Zürich, 2018), Amazon Spirits (Green Blood) (Karma International, 2018), Alien Culture (GAMeC, Bergamo, 2017), She Has No Mouth (Sprüth Magers, Berlin, 2017), Slight Agitation 2/4: Pamela Rosenkranz (Fondazione Prada, Milan, 2017), Anemine (Miguel Abreu Gallery, 2016), My Sexuality (Karma International, 2014), Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting, Reproduction (Kunsthalle Basel, 2012), Untouched by Man (Kunstverein Braunschweig, 2010), No Core (Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, 2012), Our Sun (Swiss Institute, Venice, 2009), and This Is Not My Color / The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, a two-person show with Nikolas Gambaroff (Swiss Institute, New York, 2011). Recently, her work was included in group exhibitions at the New Museum, New York (2026), ARoS, Aarhus (2026), MCA Chicago (2024), Deste Foundation, Hydra, Greece (2023), MIT List Art Center, Cambridge (2022), ICA Los Angeles (2021), the Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin (2020), Sharjah Biennial 14, United Arab Emirates (2020), the Okayama Art Summit (2019), the 15th Lyon Biennale (2019), Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2019), Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris (2019), and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (2018), among others.
Her work is held in the collections of the Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris, Louisana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark, Kunsthaus Glarus, Kunsthaus Zurich, the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Aïshti Foundation, Beirut, the Adrastus Collection, Spain, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others. In 2016, Rosenkranz was the first recipient of the Paul Boesch Art Prize. A monograph on her work, No Core, was published by JRP|Ringier in 2012, and the catalogue for Our Product was published by Koenig Books and the Fridericianum in 2017. In 2021, Alien Culture, the catalogue for Rosenkranz’s exhibitions at GAMeC and the Kreuzgang Fraumünster, was published by Mousse, while House of Meme was published by the Kunsthaus Bregenz to accompany her exhibition of the same title.
Liquid Mimesis, the artist’s third solo exhibition with Miguel Abreu Gallery, was held in the Spring of 2023. Concurrent with the exhibition, Rosenkranz’s Old Tree, a monumental sculpture commission for the High Line at the Spur, was on view at 30th Street and 10th Avenue through September 2024. Rosenkranz was the recipient of the 2025 Swiss Grand Award for Art/Prix Meret Oppenheim. A survey exhibition of Rosenkranz’s work was held at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam in the summer of 2025.
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