NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian is presenting a selection of new works on paper and recent sculptures by Katharina Grosse for the online edition of Frieze New York. These works are on view 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 distinctyet never fully predetermined. Using stencils to either filter or block out areas of negative space, she produces dense, vividly coloured fields modulated with geometric forms and transparent areas. Grosses in situ paintingswhere she renders paint across the surfaces of objects, rooms, or entire buildings and landscapestransform spaces into immersive pictorial events.
A selection of new works on paper are being 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 stencilled shapes are partially veiled by light speckles of sprayed pigment, revealing Grosses 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 aluminium 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 Gagosians weekly Artist Spotlight series for the week of May 1319.
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 Gagosians online channels as an open platform through which to present their work. During this initiative, a single work by each weeks featured artist will be made available for purchase for forty-eight 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 PS 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 K art museum, Shanghai (20182019, travelled to chi K art space, Guangzhou, China, in 2019); Mural: Jackson Pollock/Katharina Grosse, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (20192020); Is It You?, Baltimore Museum of Art (2020); and It Wasnt Us, Hamburger BahnhofMuseum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2020).