Trockel is an internationally renowned German artist who is best known for her knitted 'paintings', her installations, and 'social sculptures'. She has explored gender issues in art history, and much of her works has parodied the materials and methods of Minimalist and Conceptual art.

This wallpaper was produced for Trockel's exhibition 'Bodies of Work 1986-1998' at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, December 1998- February 1999. The paper was used as the backdrop to related exhibits in the 'Egg Room' area of the Whitechapel show. The image on the paper is a photograph of a section of a work by Trockel, 'Egg Curtain', 1998, which consisted of chains of blown eggs threaded together and suspended like a beaded curtain. This was intended in part as a reference to the egg-shell works by Italian Conceptual artist Piero Manzoni, but it was also designed to parody the rigid formality, grid-like structure and heavy industrial materials which characterised much Minimalist sculpture. Indeed each sheet is square - again perhaps a deliberate reference to the Minimalist square and cube, since when hung the sheets do not produce a seamless repeating pattern, but make a virtue of their grid-like format where the joins are obvious.

This paper was made especially for the Whitechapel exhibition, and is one of a number of so-called 'artists' wallpapers', produced in the past decade, and designed specifically for exhibitions and installations rather than for commercial production and domestic use.