“Her use of objects is both aligned with and yet subverts the discourse of the readymade, using strategies of recycling, juxtaposition, and détournement to reveal the mechanisms that have turned “found” objects into art objects alongside things she herself has fabricated.”

(Piper Marshall)

Meckseper’s work combines the aesthetic language of Modernism with the formal languages of commercial display and advertising. In her shop window installations, mirrored vitrines, large-scale sculptures, and films, Meckseper combines mass-produced everyday objects with images and artefacts of historical events. 

Josephine Meckseper was born in Lilienthal, Germany. Meckseper received a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, USA in 1992.

Meckseper’s work has been included in two Whitney Biennials (2006 and 2010); the Sharjah Biennial (2011); and the Taipei Biennial (2014). In 2007 a major retrospective on her work was organized by the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. Her work has also been featured in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (New Photography, with 2008 Mikhael Subotzky); Meckseper’s large-scale public project, Manhattan Oil Project, was commissioned by the Art Production Fund and installed adjacent to Times Square in New York, in 2012. In 2015 her works were featured in Storylines, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Zabludowicz Collection: 20 Years, London; and America Is Hard to See, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her works are in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles.

She lives and works in New York City, United States.