ART CITIES:N.York-Katharina Grosse

Katharina Grosse’s approach to painting is not limited by the traditional rectilinear proportions of the canvas or even the architectural margins of the wall mural. Following a series of significant public commissions in the U.S. in recent years, Katharina Grosse presents new paintings and a sculpture at the Gagosian Gallery in New York.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Gagosian Gallery

Katharina Grosse uses a spray gun and compressor to install her work on building exteriors or within interior spaces, disconnecting the artistic act from the hand, stylizing gesture as a propulsive mark. Throughout her process, equal treatment is given to such surfaces as pieces of furniture as it is to floors, walls, and ceilings. The paint gun functions as an extension of Grosse’s body, thus her work is created in tandem with her own physical movement while painting. While she is widely known for her temporary and permanent in situ works like: “One Floor Up More Highly” (2010) at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts or “yes no why later” (2015) at the Garage Museum, of the largest site-specific installations ever seen in Moscow. Katharina Grosse’s projects often suggest complex narratives through the inclusion of everyday objects, psychedelic vistas, and evocative titles. By building up layers of color with an expressive immediacy, she enables her work to become a material record of its own making and, perhaps, an inscription of her thoughts. But, Grosse says, “I am the painting trickster. Don’t believe me!”. In this exhibition, selected works from several interconnected suites of untitled paintings produced during the last year demonstrate this constant interaction of process and material. Base shapes migrate from one painting to another, appearing in new layers or fusing into clusters that advance and retreat. The paintings record Grosse’s ongoing choices about color, density, and velocity. A recent cast metal sculpture sprawls across the floor, its torqued and rippled surface hosting overlapping sprays and drips. The sculpture transforms as one moves around its smooth crests and sharp-edged cavities. Grosse compresses the natural, the industrial, and the technological, generating fields of color that hover between three and four dimensions.

Info: Gagosian Gallery, 555 West 24th Street, New York, Duration: 19/1-11/3/17, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.gagosian.com