11 renowned female artists based in Germany

Natascha Sadr Haghighian represented Germany at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Shown here wearing a stone mask at a press conference ahead of the art show, she went by the name of Natascha Süder Happelmann for the event. The artist, a two-time Documenta participant, often plays with the notion of identity. She created for instance a website allowing people to swap parts of each other's CVs.

Anne Imhof became the star of the 2017 Venice Biennale with her performance piece "Faust" in the German pavilion, which won her the Golden Lion award. The mammoth work dealt with the themes of power and powerlessness, arbitrary violence, resistance and freedom. She has been commissioned to recreate the piece at London's Tate Modern museum in March 2019.

German-Japanese video artist Hito Steyerl represented Germany in 2015 at the Venice Biennale. She was the first woman to be ranked number one in ArtReview's "Power 100," the magazine's list of the most powerful people in the art world. Her influential work deals with surveillance, military confrontation and the entanglement of corporations.

Rosemarie Trockel gained renown through numerous international exhibitions. Her work often integrates knitted fabrics or black electric hotplates dotting colored surfaces, a reference to stereotypical depictions of the housewife and an ironic homage to the dots used by different Pop Art artists.

Designed to carry statues of British historical figures, London's Trafalgar Square has a plinth at each of its four corners. Since 1999, the fourth plinth has been showcasing different works of art on a temporary basis. German sculptor Katharina Fritsch's giant blue cockerel, "Hahn / Cock," was on display there in 2013. The artist is renowned for her large-scale, monochromatic sculptures.

A 2013 retrospective of Isa Genzken's work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York cemented the sculptor's international reputation. She had previously participated in different art shows including the Documenta and the Sculpture Projects Münster. Her early works deal with the ideals of modern architecture; since the 2000s, she has created apocalyptic installations made of cheap materials.

Katharina Grosse quickly gained renown with her innovative work that opens up new dimensions in painting. The Berlin-based artist's air brushed installations often submerge viewers in a chaotic space of colors. Her works are part of the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Kunsthaus in Zurich, among others.

Rebecca Horn is a pioneering female artist in Germany: She was the first woman to become a professor at the Berlin University of Arts in 1989, as well as the first to be awarded the prestigious Goslar Kaiser Ring Award in 1992. A year later, she also became the first female artist to have a retrospective at New York's Guggenheim Museum.

The Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade was born in Poland. Her installations often include stones, glass, chains, mirrors and clocks. A recent piece at the Berliner Galerie consisted of a huge clock swinging from the ceiling on a chain — a memorably hypnotic work.

She was one of the first artists to create large-format portraits that openly featured image manipulation. Sieverding was awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Prize in 2017. Her work questions the artistic, political and social conditions behind the production and the reception of art.

The Seoul-born Berlin-based artist has held exhibitions throughout the world. For her installations transforming everyday objects into surreal associative works, she often uses materials from the hardware store or household items. At the Documenta 13, she revealed Venetian blinds that moved on their own, making strange sounds. Haegue Yang's pieces are filled with poetry and humor.