Katharina Grosse
Untitled
Artist
Katharina Grosse
(1961, Freiburg), German
Original Title
Ohne Titel
Date2017
Mediumacrylic on canvas
Dimensions226 × 158 cm
Classifications
paintings
Credit LineKunsthalle Praha
DescriptionKatharina Grosse is an internationally renowned German artist. She creates immersive installations, situated both in exteriors and interiors, using industrial spray guns, which she began to work with during the 1990s as part of her effort to supersede the boundaries of the traditional hanging painting. Working with paint in its raw, industrial form imbued her work with new expressive possibilities and simultaneously allowed her to cover the surrounding space in layers of colour and thus evolve painting toward a monumental spatial presence—in this sense, her work finds an intuitive connection with the American land art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Grosse’s creative process is a celebration of colour, drawing on its spiritual meanings and dimensions as well as its sensory and emotional potential: colour transcends its conventional boundaries and enters into a direct relationship with the viewer. Colours, the bedrock of Grosse’s art, spread out onto different types of surfaces like a veil enveloping the surrounding space—including sculptures, facades, canvass, and everyday objects—and creating a new, imaginative space with a powerful emotive dimension and pronounced haptic qualities. During the creative process, Grosse wears a protective suit and uses stencils while spraying light, colourful aerosol paint which steadily covers the desired surfaces. Layers of paint are applied gradually, merging into distinct, mutually overlapping zones of colour while also preserving their loose, gestural character and pronounced haptic qualities. Each such process creates a new configuration of spatial relationships with a unique atmosphere. Grosse’s approach can be labelled as a new, post-medial iteration of painting which contains a degree of revolt against institutional conceptions of art as a physical, material artefact. Through her paintings and spatial installations, she creates imaginative visions and images. Grosse’s artworks always closely coexist with the spaces they are situated in. Colour can simultaneously be understood as an important transformative feature which allows us to question the contours of our reality, and therefore to enter and experience different mental states. As an initiatory element, colour conveys positive and intense feelings and emotional experiences; it transcends cultural and social barriers, posing questions of social justice, ecology, and sustainability. The viewer becomes part of the artwork and is confronted with the physical reality of the surrounding space and the intensive, expansive gestural dimension of the piece. An important milestone in the evolution of Grosse’s work was painting her own bedroom in 2006. This step entailed a transformation of objects and a new perspective and materiality facilitated by superseding traditional painting in favour of an intensive fusion of painting and life, thus shaping a new, complex reality. Since 2014, her expansive spatial works have also incorporated large textiles, which create spaces within spaces, independently of the spatial plan of the gallery. Via temporary outdoors interventions, Grosse also draws attention to the destructive dimension of the natural elements, expanding her work into the natural environment and temporarily modifying its internal harmony (Untitled, Prospect Biennial, New Orleans, 2008; Rockaway, MoMA PS1, 2016; Asphalt Air and Hair, ARoS Triennial: The Garden – End of Times, Beginning of Time, Aarhus, 2017).
The painting O. T. (2017) exemplifies Grosse’s conception of art as a gradual process of adding individual layers of colour, thus opening varied possibilities of perceiving surface and space. Grosse painted the canvas using an airbrush gun and handmade paper stencils, which allow her to apply paint only to pre-defined surfaces. Although this piece maintains the format of a conventional hanging painting, it nevertheless demonstrates Grosse’s experience with creating spatial installations and processually conceived artworks which become an event, a celebration of colour and its deep symbolic and mystical dimensions, through which she aims to transform our perception of and approach to the surrounding world.
Katharina Grosse (born 1961, Freiburg im Breisgau) grew up in East Germany, grappling with the dark history of her country. She currently lives and works in Berlin. Grosse studied under painter Gotthard Graubner at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, as well as at the Kunstakademie Münster. During her studies in Düsseldorf, she also spent time in Nam June Paik’s studio and developed an interest in video—at one point, she even considered abandoning painting; this would later translate into her innovative approach to the relatively conservative medium of painting. Grosse also teaches painting. She has taught at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee (2000–2009) and subsequently at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (2010–2018). She has attended several scholarships and artist residencies, including the Villa Romana Fellowship in Florence (1992), the Schmidt-Rottluff Scholarship (1993), and the Kunstfonds Bonn e.V. Scholarship (1995). Moreover, Grosse has also received art prizes, such as the Fred Thieler Prize (2003) and the Oskar Schlemmer Prize (2014). Her recent institutional exhibitions and site-specific painterly interventions have included: Chill Seeping from the Walls Gets between Us (HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Finland, 2021); the Helsinki Biennale (2021); It Wasn’t Us (Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 2020/2021); Mural: Jackson Pollock|Katharina Grosse (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2019/2020); Mumbling Mud (chi K11 art museum, Shanghai, 2018/2019; chi K11 art space, Guangzhou, 2019); Wunderbild (National Gallery Prague – Trade Fair Palace, 2018/2019); The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped (Carriageworks, Sydney, 2018); This Drove My Mother Up the Wall (South London Gallery, London, 2017); Asphalt Air and Hair (ARoS Triennial, Aarhus, 2017); Rockaway (as part of Rockaway! in Fort Tilden, commissioned by MoMA PS1, New York, 2016); Untitled Trumpet (56th Venice Biennale, Venice, 2015); Seven Hours, Eight Rooms, Three Trees (Museum Wiesbaden, 2015); Yes No Why Later (Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2015); Psychylustro (Philadelphia Mural Arts Programme, 2014). Grosse’s work is held in the collections of institutions such as the Centres Pompidou in Paris, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The painting O. T. (2017) exemplifies Grosse’s conception of art as a gradual process of adding individual layers of colour, thus opening varied possibilities of perceiving surface and space. Grosse painted the canvas using an airbrush gun and handmade paper stencils, which allow her to apply paint only to pre-defined surfaces. Although this piece maintains the format of a conventional hanging painting, it nevertheless demonstrates Grosse’s experience with creating spatial installations and processually conceived artworks which become an event, a celebration of colour and its deep symbolic and mystical dimensions, through which she aims to transform our perception of and approach to the surrounding world.
Katharina Grosse (born 1961, Freiburg im Breisgau) grew up in East Germany, grappling with the dark history of her country. She currently lives and works in Berlin. Grosse studied under painter Gotthard Graubner at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, as well as at the Kunstakademie Münster. During her studies in Düsseldorf, she also spent time in Nam June Paik’s studio and developed an interest in video—at one point, she even considered abandoning painting; this would later translate into her innovative approach to the relatively conservative medium of painting. Grosse also teaches painting. She has taught at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee (2000–2009) and subsequently at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (2010–2018). She has attended several scholarships and artist residencies, including the Villa Romana Fellowship in Florence (1992), the Schmidt-Rottluff Scholarship (1993), and the Kunstfonds Bonn e.V. Scholarship (1995). Moreover, Grosse has also received art prizes, such as the Fred Thieler Prize (2003) and the Oskar Schlemmer Prize (2014). Her recent institutional exhibitions and site-specific painterly interventions have included: Chill Seeping from the Walls Gets between Us (HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Finland, 2021); the Helsinki Biennale (2021); It Wasn’t Us (Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 2020/2021); Mural: Jackson Pollock|Katharina Grosse (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2019/2020); Mumbling Mud (chi K11 art museum, Shanghai, 2018/2019; chi K11 art space, Guangzhou, 2019); Wunderbild (National Gallery Prague – Trade Fair Palace, 2018/2019); The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped (Carriageworks, Sydney, 2018); This Drove My Mother Up the Wall (South London Gallery, London, 2017); Asphalt Air and Hair (ARoS Triennial, Aarhus, 2017); Rockaway (as part of Rockaway! in Fort Tilden, commissioned by MoMA PS1, New York, 2016); Untitled Trumpet (56th Venice Biennale, Venice, 2015); Seven Hours, Eight Rooms, Three Trees (Museum Wiesbaden, 2015); Yes No Why Later (Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, 2015); Psychylustro (Philadelphia Mural Arts Programme, 2014). Grosse’s work is held in the collections of institutions such as the Centres Pompidou in Paris, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
