Falling Blue, Rising Red, 1998

With her Falling Blue, Rising Red edition, Rosemarie Trockel returns to the medium that first brought her international acclaim: the knitted image. Drawing on her signature practice of outsourcing the manual labor to knitting machines, Trockel transforms textile patterns into conceptual artworks. Though they resemble simple fabric swatches, her works are layered with cultural and political meaning. Trockel’s knitting works often reference domesticity and traditional gender roles, themes that are subtly evoked here through the use of color. By juxtaposing blue and red – evocative of the pink-blue coding in baby clothes – she reflects on the early social conditioning of gender identity. The precision of the machine-knit structure contrasts with the fluidity of interpretation, inviting the viewer to question the norms embedded in everyday materials. Through this edition, Trockel continues to challenge the sociopolitical positioning of women in art and society, and reclaims textile work as a site of critical inquiry.