In Katharina Grosse’s work, site-specificity and site-dependence are just as characteristic as site-independent pieces. The starting point is always that each painting needs somewhere to grab hold of and from where it can spread out.

In her works on canvas and paper, Grosse concentrated on the elementary gesture of the painter and decorator: a vertical movement from top to bottom. The Reinhard Ernst collection contains three works created around 2000 in which she superimposed colours that are interwoven like warp and weft in a thread system (see other works by Katharina Grosse from the Reinhard Ernst collection). Untitled is also built up from different layers of colour: the pink ground is covered with broad diagonal strokes, on which in turn layers of magenta and blue coloured stripes spread out. The final layer is formed by strong brushstrokes of semi-transparent pearlescent paint.

Katharina Grosse (*1961)

Untitled, 2010

Currently exhibited: Yes (Gallery: Lines against Limits)

Material: Acrylic paint on canvas
Size: 200.8 x 134.7 cm
Inv-Nr.: B_409
Image rights: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Keywords:

Provenance

Previous owner: Christophe Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica; Collection Jean-François & Marie-Aline Prat, 2010
Acquisition: Reinhard Ernst Collection, Christie’s, Paris, 2017

Exhibitions

Solo exhibition:
2011
‘Katharina Grosse: Mr. Caplan’, Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

Learn more

The work of Katharina Grosse contains both site-specific and site-independent works. The starting point for each painting is the fact that it needs something to grab hold of and from where it can spread out. Since the late 1990s, she has been working in her space-related works with the spray gun, a special form of paint application using compressed air, a method also used by Paul Klee or Hans Hartung. She says this removes the painter’s body from the actual application of the paint since controlling the spray gives more authority to the painter’s gaze. In a 2004 interview, she described the process: „Spraying allows you to act upon seeing, while painting lines with a brush is far more related to body movement. The movement of the eye is much more connected to the movement of the spray gun. You move away from scale determined by the body.“ [1]

In her works on canvas and paper, Grosse concentrated on the elementary gesture of the painter and decorator: a vertical movement from top to bottom. The Reinhard Ernst Collection contains three works created around 2000 in which she superimposed colours that are interwoven like warp and weft in a thread system (see other works by Katharina Grosse from the Reinhard Ernst Collection). Untitled is also built up from different layers of colour: the pink ground is covered with broad diagonal strokes, on which in turn layers of magenta and blue coloured stripes spread out. The final layer is formed by strong brushstrokes of semi-transparent pearlescent paint.

Literature references

[1] Katharina Grosse in conversation with Lothar Frangenberg: ‘diskurs. Ein Interview mit Katharina Grosse zu raumbezogenen Sprayarbeiten ihrer letzten Ausstellungen’, conducted on 5.1.2004 in the artist’s studio in Düsseldorf, http://archive.today/V3XhG.