Rita Ackermann

The artist Rita Ackermann creates artworks that expose a world where the only inhabitants are overtly sexualized girl-creatures who appear against dark and demonic backgrounds. In her 1995 piece, Should I Call the Ambulance? three naked nymphets lounge in various positions in front of a blazing fire, while a fourth in the foreground sits in her underwear with her legs open talking on the telephone, her face painted white and purple and her expression innocent, happy, and crazed.

Ackermann's work incorporates many mediums and forms, from drawing and painting to collage and performance. In 2011, in collaboration with the director and artist Harmony Korine, she exhibited Shadow Fux at the Swiss Institute in New York where she collaged, painted, and drew over large-scale faces of film stills from Korine's Trash Humpers, to create otherworldly beings that the viewer can feel in their presence.

Ackermann has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Florida, the Ludwig Muzeum, in Budapest, and she has participated in group shows at White Columns, the New Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, and many other institutions. She has published monographs and artist books, and was featured at the 2008 Whitney Biennial.