Cover Image: KATHARINA GROSSE Untitled, 2017, acrylic on aluminum, 20 7/8 x 26 5/8 x 56 3/4 in (53 x 67.5 x 144 cm) © Katharina Grosse und VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020. Photo: Jens Ziehe. Courtesy Gagosian.
Gagosian is pleased to present a selection of new works on paper and recent sculptures by Katharina Grosse for the online edition of Frieze New York. These works will premiere simultaneously on the Gagosian website and in the inaugural Frieze Viewing Room, accessible at viewingroom.frieze.com and on the Frieze app.
Grosse works with a spray gun, stylizing gesture as a propulsive mark of personal agency while distancing the artistic act from her own hand. Often vast in scale, her spectacular compositions are forceful, dynamic, and distinct—yet never fully predetermined. Using stencils to either filter or block out areas of negative space, she produces dense, vividly colored fields modulated with geometric forms and transparent areas. Grosse’s in situ paintings—where she renders paint across the surfaces of objects, rooms, or entire buildings and landscapes—transform spaces into immersive pictorial events.
A selection of new works on paper will be exhibited for the first time in this presentation. Spraying over a single sheet of paper in broad arcs and zigzags, Grosse creates rhythmic markings. Rough-edged yet crisp stenciled shapes are partially veiled by light speckles of sprayed pigment, revealing Grosse’s ability to alternate between exuberant force and more detailed control. These intensely textural compositions hint at sculptural form as well as at the colossal movements of nature; grounded in deep greens and teal blues, they conjure swirling, aqueous depths.
Also available are four sculptures from a series made in 2017, cast from cut polystyrene into solid aluminum forms that preserve the innate lightness of the original medium. Vibrant layers of acrylic paint are sprayed across the cast metal supports; the sweeping motions of the spray jet explore, enhance, or counteract the spatial contours of the form with clashes of warm and cool hues. The resulting polychrome sculptures exude an industrial artificiality and dynamism while maintaining a sense of the natural and organic through their resemblance to windswept rock formations or shards of bone.
In partnership with Frieze, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of selected works will be donated to Human Rights Watch.
In conjunction with this solo digital presentation, Grosse will also be the featured artist of Gagosian’s weekly Artist Spotlight series for the week of May 13–19.
Artist Spotlight is a new and multifaceted program, devised in response to the COVID-19 crisis, that invites artists whose gallery or public exhibitions have been affected during this period to utilize Gagosian’s online channels as an open platform through which to present their work. During this initiative, a single work by each week’s featured artist will be made available for purchase for 48 hours only.
Katharina Grosse was born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, and lives and works in Berlin. Collections include Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunsthaus Zürich; Kunstmuseum Bern; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin; Lenbachhaus, Munich; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Recent exhibitions and in situ works include Untitled Trumpet, 56th Biennale di Venezia (2015); yes no why later, Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2015); Seven Hours, Eight Rooms, Three Trees, Museum Wiesbaden, Germany (2015); Rockaway, for MoMA PS1’s Rockaway!series at Fort Tilden, New York (2016); Asphalt Air and Hair, ARoS Triennial, Aarhus, Denmark (2017); The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped, Carriageworks, Sydney (2018); Wunderbild, National Gallery, Prague (2018); Mumbling Mud, chi K11 art museum, Shanghai (2018–19, traveled to chi K11 art space, Guangzhou, China, in 2019); Mural: Jackson Pollock/Katharina Grosse, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2019–20); Is It You?, Baltimore Museum of Art (2020); and It Wasn’t Us, Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2020).
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