Biography
Katharina Grosse
b.1961 in Freiburg/Breisgau
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Katharina Grosse is one of the most inventive and intriguing painters working today. Through a fusion of painting with architecture and sculpture, Grosse produces a physically immersive experience for the viewer, choosing to work directly onto walls and objects using an industrial spray gun. Her spray painted works enliven surfaces as vast and unorthodox as building exteriors, disused bunkers and massive dirt piles, as intimate as her own bed, bookshelves and clothing, as conventional as a stretched canvas or paper. Her method draws from a combination of art historical traditions—from fresco, plein-air painting, Abstract Expressionism and street graffiti.
Colour is essential to Grosse and she achieves intense, visceral arrangements through careful blending and application of primary and secondary colours. Each hue has the function of distinguishing between different movements and her extremely physical process of application is reflected within the pictorial space.
Born and based in Germany, Grosse’s work has been commissioned by institutions around the world, including Amsterdam's De Appel, Paris' Palais de Tokyo, The Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), Brisbane.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2007 GOMA, Queensland Art Gallery, South Bank, Brisbane, Queensland
Serralves, Museu de Arte Contemporanea, Porto
Renaissance Society, Chicago
Gow Langsfrod Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand
2006 De Appel, Amsterdam
Galerie Mark Müller, Zürich
Galería Helga de Alvear, Madrid
The Factory for Art and Design, Copenhagen
Contemporary Arts Centre, Cincinnati
Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
2005 Christopher Grimes Gallery, Los Angeles
Solvent Space, Richmond, Virginia
Constructions á cru, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
2004 Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Stockholm
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense, Denmark
SAFN, Reykjavik
Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Viafarini, Milan
2003 Fred-Thieler-Preis, Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Los Angeles
Galerie Conrads, Dusseldorf
Galerie Mark Müller, Zurich
2002 Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Galerie Gross, München
Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Kunsthalle Kiel
Cool Puppen, Touring
2001 George Fraser Gallery/Billboard, Auckland
Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney
Artsonje Museum, Kyongju, Korea
Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Wien
UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen
2000 Galerie Mark Müller, Zürich (since 1995)
Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg (since 1993)
1999 Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn
Galerie Barbara Gross, München
open house, Chinati Foundation Marfa, Texas
1998 Kunstverein Heilbronn
Todd Gallery, London
Kunsthalle Bern, Projektraum
Sightspacific, Kunstverein Bremerhaven
1997 Petra Bungert Gallery, New York
Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf (since 1995)
1996 Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck
Selected Group Exhibitions
2006 Tokyo-Berlin/Berlin-Tokyo, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
DEUTSCHE WANDSTUCKE Sette scene di nuova pittura germanica, Museion, Bozen
Berlin-Tokyo/Tokyo-Berlin. Die kunst zweier Städte, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
Der Blaue Reiter im 21. Jahrhundert. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Taipei Biennial, Taipei
2005 Extreme Abstraction, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
2004 Raumfürraum, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf und Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Dusseldorf
2003 deutschemalereizweitausenddrei, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main
There’s no land but the land, Meyer Riegger Galerie, Karlsruhe
3D, Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York
German Contmeporary Art, Busan Metropolitan Art Museum, Busan, South Korea
New abstract painting - painting abstract now. Abstraktion in der neuen Malerei,
Museum Morsbrioch Leverkusen
Soziale Fassaden u.a., Städtische Galerie im Lenbachaus, Munich
Grazie, Stiftung Schloß Dyck, Jüchen
PAINTING4, The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham
Caso, Osaka
Process, Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helinski
Final Cuts, Union, London
2002 25. Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo
“Urgent Painting”, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
2001 Milano Europa 2000, PAC, Milano
Ex(o)DUS, Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa
Casino 2001, SMAK, Gent
“Künstlerräume/Sammlerräume”, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen
2000 Zeitwenden, Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
1999 Chroma, Malerei der neunziger Jahre, Kunsthalle Nürnberg
Viereck und Kosmos, Amden und Kunsthaus Glarus
Ausloten: Fünf Positionen autonomer Malerei, Kunstverein Göttingen
Selections Fall '99, The Drawing Center, New York
Zeitwenden, Kunstmuseum Bonn
Bleibe, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Das Gedächtnis der Malerei, Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau
Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst, Nationalgalerie im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
Dr. Paint, Galerie Monika Reitz, Frankfurt
Pictures at an Exhibition, Galerie Nächst St. Stephan, Wien
1998 Every Day, 11th Biennale of Sydney, Sydney
1997 Abstraction/Abstractions - Geómétries Provisoires, Musée d´Art Moderne Saint-Etienne
Topping Out, Städtische Galerie Nordhorn
1996 Farbe - Malerei der 90er Jahre, Kunstmuseum Bonn
1995 Karo Dame, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Stipendiaten, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
Selected Publications
Ausloten: Fünf Positionen autonomer Malerei, exhibition catalogue Kunstverein Göttingen, Göttingen 1999, with an essay by Roman Kurzmeyer.
Farbe - Malerei der 90er Jahre, exhibition catalogue Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn 1996, with an essay by Justus Jonas-Edel.Fuchs, Rainer: Painting: A game of Relation - Notes on Katharina Grosse, in: Parkett, Nr. 63, 2001Katharina Grosse, catalogue Schmidt-Rottluff Stiftung, Düsseldorf 1995, with an essay by Andreas Denk
Katharina Grosse, Nürnberg 1998, with essays by Roman Kurzmeyer, Ellen Seifermann and Armin Zweite
Katharina Grosse, exhibition catalogue Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Bonn 1999, with essays by Nikola Doll and Christoph Schreier.
Katharina Grosse, Location Location Location, catalogue, Düsseldorf 2002, with essays by Beat Wismer, Steffen Boddeker, Angela Schneider, Retrograde Strategies Cooperative, Judy Millar and Roman Kurzmeyer
Katharina Grosse, Cool Puppen, exhibition catalogue Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; Kunstmuseum St. Gallen; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Wolfratshausen 2002, with essays by Jonathan Watkins, Marion Ackermann, Roland Wäspe and Beate Ermacora
Katharina Grosse. Fred Thieler Presi für Malerei 2003, Berlinsche Galerie, Berlin 2003, with a laudation of Armin Zweite
Katharina Grosse. Infinite Logic Conference, exhibition catalogue Magasin 3 Stockholm Konstall, Stockholm 2004, with an essay by Lars Mikael Raattamaa
Katharina Grosse. Double Floor Painting, exhibition catalogue Kunsthallen Brandts Klaedefabrik, Odense 2004, with an essay by Tor Nørretranders and an interview by Cecilie Bepler
Katharina Grosse. Holey Residue, exhibition catalogue de Appel, Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2006, with an essay by Janneke Wesseling
Köhnen, Ralph: From System to Rhizome, in: Künstler, Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst, Ausgabe 66, Munich 2004
Kurzmeyer, Roman: Reflexive, in: Parkett, Nr. 74, 2005, pp.144-146
Orbist, Hans Ulrich: Orly. In conversation with Katharina Grosse in: Parkett, Nr 74, 2005, pp 134-139
Vitamin P. New Perspectives in Painting, New York 2002, with an essay by Eric de Chassey
Volk, Gregory: Uninhibited Thinking in Public Space, in: Parkett, Nr.74, 2005, pp112-117