TILBURG.
In what way can painting be manifest in space? This is a question that Katharina Grosse (Freiburg, 1961) has continued to provide with new answers over the past twenty years, while also painting on canvas. Around 2000 she took an important step in ‘liberating’ painting by incorporating architectural spaces in the painted work. During that same period she began to employ the paint gun as a painterly instrument. Equipped with protective gear, a mask and earplugs, she has since been producing nearly all of her paintings with this device developed for heavy industry. Thanks to the paint gun, which is connected to a compressor by way of a tube, she is able to work more quickly and can paint areas that are difficult to reach.
In the installations of Grosse we don’t face the painted image; it surrounds us. The succession of many vantage points has replaced an overall view of the image, just as a clearly structured composition has given way to the stratification of sprayed streaks of paint. Inherent in that stratification are two different experiences of time. There is the immediacy of the painted image, but there are also the traces of successive actions that have given rise to the image. The contrasting colors function as a referential system in our comprehension of the image. Due the use of the paint gun, only one color can be applied at a time; therefore each new color marks a subsequent moment in the image’s development.
You can visit the exhibition from 16 February to 9 June 2013 in Museum Du Pont. Wilhelminapark, 1. Tilburg.
Fotos: Museum Du Pont.
