KATHARINA GROSSE
One of the most important painters of today, Katharina Grosse (b. 1961, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) is internationally recognised for her bold, haptic paintings and saturated use of colour. Since the late 1990s, Grosse has employed a spraying technique to attack, redefine and subvert traditional notions of painting. Her kaleidoscopic vision spills into the physical world, sweeping across walls, floors, ceilings, everyday objects and sculptural structures. Through this radical inclusion of space as a field of action, the artist achieves a paradoxical clash of the expansion of colour with our material existence. Tracing the artist’s thought process or gaze, colour takes on a lifeforce of its own.
Parallel to her in-situ works, the artist continues to pursue her studio paintings. In her most recent canvases, vibrant loops of colour float, almost three-dimensionally, over white ground. As the colours intertwine like loose strands of thread, the paintings record Grosse’s ongoing reflections on density and velocity. Such works present a radical compression of movement and colour, creating the largest amount of action and entertainment possible over the smallest amount of surface.
‘Paint as materiality and color as immediate chromaticity; raw industrial paints; complex layers of color and their various factual and optical entanglements; the use of stencils; the expansion of the painting beyond the boundaries of the canvas – these are some of the most significant methods through which Grosse creates structural openness but also startling fissures and ruptures. Rooted in process and experiment, chance and control, Grosse’s paintings frequently hover between form and dissolution of form and the liminal spaces in between, evoking perceptual uncertainties that are immersive and distracting at once. Ultimately, her paintings remain hermetic, resisting translation into language and narration.’
S. Eckmann, ‘Introduction’, in Katharina Grosse: Studio Paintings 1988–2022, exh. cat., Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, and travelling; Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2022, p. 13
Image: Untitled, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 148 x 121 cm.; 58 1/4 x 47 5/8 in. Photo: Jens Ziehe, © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2023
Artist Talk
Selected Works
Solo Exhibitions
Group Exhibitions
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
Biography
VITA
1961
Born in Freiburg/Breisgau, Germany
1982–1986
Kunstakademie Münster
1990
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1992
Villa Romana Stipend, Florence
1993
Schmidt-Rottluff Stipend
1999
Artist Residence, Chinati-Foundation, Marfa
2001
Artist Residence, Elam School of Fine Art program, Auckland
2002
Andy Warhol Residency Award, Headlands Foundation, San Francisco
2003
Fred-Thieler Prize
2014
Oskar Schlemmer Prize of Baden-Württemberg
2015
Otto-Ritschl Prize, Wiesbaden
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany and Aotearoa New Zealand
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Albertina Museum, Vienna
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Arken Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen
Baltimore Museum of Art
Centre Pompidou, Paris
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Istanbul Modern
Kunsthaus Zürich
Kunstmuseum Bonn
Kunstsammlung NRW, Dusseldorf
Lenbachhaus, Munich
Magasin III, Stockholm
Museum of Recent Art, Bucharest
MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome
Milwaukee Art Museum
Museum Azman, Jakarta
Museum of Fine Arts, Bern
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas
Neues Museum, Nuremberg
Pérez Art Museum, Miami
QAGOMA, Brisbane
Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Serralves Museum, Porto
Sprengel Museum, Hanover
Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Städtische Museen, Freiburg
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
Shifting the Stars
Centre Pompidou-Metz
The Super Eight
Hetzler Marfa
Studio Paintings 1988–2022: Returns, Revisions, Inventions
Kunstmuseum Bonn
Unclarify What Belongs
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
2023
Katharina Grosse: Warum Drei Töne Kein Dreieck Bilden
The Albertina Museum, Vienna
The Bedroom
Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris
Touching How and Why and Where
Gagosian, Hong Kong
Spectrum without Traces
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
Untitled, 2023
Galerie Max Hetzler, Window Gallery, Berlin
Studio Paintings, 1988–2022
Kunstmuseum Bern
2022
Canyon
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Katharina Grosse Studio Paintings, Three Decades: Returns, Revisions, Inventions
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, travelling to:
Kunstmuseum Bern;
Kunstmuseum Bonn
Destroy Me Once, Destroy Me Twice
Roskilde Festival
Apollo, Apollo
Espace Louis Vuitton, Venice
Wolke in Form eines Schwertes / Cloud in the Form of a Sword
Saarland Museum, Moderne Galerie, Saarbrücken
Chill Sleeping
SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah
2021
Chill Seeping from the Walls Gets between Us
HAM Helsinki Art Museum
Als mein Vater Sand war / When my Father Was Sand
Y8 Kunstraum + Yoga e. V., Hamburg
Wolke in Form eines Schwertes / Cloud in the Form of a Sword
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
From The Foam’s Fudge Edge
König Galerie, Seoul
Repetitions Without Origin
Gagosian, Beverly Hills
2020
Separatrix
Gagosian, Rome
It Wasn’t Us
Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin
Is It You?
Baltimore Museum of Art
2019
Mural: Jackson Pollock I Katharina Grosse
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Katharina Grosse I Gotthard Graubner. Farbe absolut x Absolute Color
MKM Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg
Katharina Grosse / Tatiana Trouvé
Gagosian, Basel
Mumbling Mud
chi K11 art space, Guangzhou
2018
Mumbling Mud
chi K11 art museum, Shanghai
Wunderbild
National Gallery, Prague
Le numerose irregolarità: Katharina Grosse I Tatiana Trouvé
Villa Medici, Rome
The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then It Stopped
Carriageworks, Sydney
Prototypes of Imagination
Gagosian, London
2017
This Drove My Mother Up the Wall
South London Gallery
König Galerie, Berlin
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
Gagosian, New York
2016
Rockaway!
MoMA PS1, New York
Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden
Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
2015
Seven Hours, Eight Rooms, Three Trees
Museum Wiesbaden
yes no why later
Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow
The Smoking Kid
König Galerie, Berlin
2014
psycholustro
City of Philadelphia Mural Arts
Wer, ich? Wen, Du?
Kunsthaus Graz
Inside the Speaker
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf
your behavior is at odds with your pretty seedy clothes
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Die Ball
Galerie Mark Müller, Zurich
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin
2013
Two younger women came in and pull out a table
De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art, Tilburg
WUNDERBLOCK
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas
Just Two Of Us
Downtown Brooklyn Plaza, New York
mein schreibtisch, das schneefeld
Kurt-Kurt, Berlin
Snakes lie between her and the shore
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
Fünfzig Frauen Fünfzig Männer
Wolfsberg
Psychopapier
König Galerie, Berlin
2012
Third Man Begins Digging Through Her Pockets
MOCA, Cleveland
They Had Taken Things Along To Eat Together
König Galerie, Berlin
Blue Orange
Public Art Project, Vara
Can You Spell Mixing
Dirimart, Istanbul
2011
MÄNNER SOLLEN FRAUEN WOLLEN
Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
In Seven Days Time
Kunstmuseum Bonn
2010
One Floor Up More Highly
Mass MoCA, North Adams
Barbara Grosse und Katharina Grosse. Installationen und Arbeiten auf Papier
Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg im Breisgau
Come Nino Come
Galeria Helga de Alvear, Madrid
2009
Shadowbox
Temporäre Kunsthalle, Berlin
stuntweed
Neues Museum, Nuremberg
Hello Little Butterfly I Love You What's Your Name
Arken Museum for Moderne Kunst, Ishøj
Blut baut das Herz
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
The Greedy I
Galerie Mark Müller, Zurich
2008
Another Man Who Has Dropped His Paintbrush
Galerie Civica di Modena
Skrow No Repap
FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand
2007
Atoms Outside Eggs
Serralves Museum, Porto
Atoms Inside Balloons
Renaissance Society, Chicago
The Surburban, Chicago
Picture Park
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane
Museum Bochum
This Is Not My Cat
Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland
The Flowershow
FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand
2006
Holey Residue
De Appel Centre, Amsterdam
Taxi und Tour
Galerie Mark Müller, Zurich
Solvent Space, Richmond
Town and Country
The Factory for Art and Design, Copenhagen
Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati
Faux Rocks
Galerìa Helga de Alvear, Madrid
INCAMERA
Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
2005
quote of the day
Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf
The Devil's Punchbowl
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Los Angeles
Chromicum Alumen Comp.
Solvent Space, Richmond
Constructions à cru
Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Something Leadlight
Bergen Kunsthall
2004
Infinite Logic Conference
Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall
Double Floor Painting
Kunsthallen Brandts Klædefabrik, Odense
SAFN, Reykjavik
Perspectives 143: Katharina Grosse
Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston
If Music No Good I No Dance
Viafarini, Milan
Some Atlas
Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon
Everything inside me is sprayed white
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
2003
Fred-Thieler-Preis
Berlinische Galerie, Berlin
Punkbreite bewegt
Galerie Mark Müller, Zurich
ohne sattel reiten II
Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf
Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica
2002
Cool Puppen
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, travelled to:
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Der weisse Saal trifft sich im Wald
Kunstmuseum St.Gallen
Inside the White Cube
White Cube, London
Ich wüsste jetzt nichts
Kunsthalle zu Kiel
Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich
2001
Billboard, Auckland
Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney
Artsonje Museum, Gyeongju
UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
Kunstverein Ruhr, Essen
Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna
2000
Galerie Mark Müller, Zurich
Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg
1999
Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn
Galerie Barbara Gross, Munich
Cheese Gone Bad
The Chinati Foundation, Marfa
Die Farbe hat mich
Kunstverein Bochum
1998
Kunstverein Heilbronn
Todd Gallery, London
Project Space
Kunsthalle Bern
Sightspacific
Kunstverein Bremerhaven
1997
Petra Bungert Gallery, New York
Galerie Conrads, Düsseldorf
1996
Bildflächen-Malerei
Overbeck-Gesellschaft, Lübeck
1995
Galerie Mark Müller, Zurich
1994
Altes Kunstmuseum, Bonn
1993
Kunstverein Hochrhein, Bad Sackingen
1992
Modedeparis
Château de Servières, Marseille
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
Versus
Galerie Freitag, Aachen
Instinctive Gestures
Galerie Max Hetzler, London
On Paper
Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris
The Code Factory
Works from the Eighties and Nineties
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
From Gerhard Richter to Mary Heilmann: Abstract Art from Private Collections and the Museum’s Holdings
Kunst Museum Winterthur
2023
das gelbe Licht 6 Uhr nachmittags
Remembering, envisioning, sensing landscape, curated by Christian Malycha
Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
To Bend the Ear of the Outer World
Gagosian, London (Davies Street and Grosvenor Hill)
Abstract Explorations: 100 Years on Paper
Gagosian, Gstaad
Austria-Germany Painting 1970 to 2020
Albertina Modern, Vienna
2022
Fugues in Color
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris
Ruins & Fragments
Gagosian, Athens
2021
Helsinki Biennial
Out Now
Uferhallen, Berlin
Wonderland
Albertina Modern, Vienna
Hong Kong Exchange
Gagosian, Hong Kong
2020
Alexander Kluge – THE POWER OF MUSIC / THE OPERA – Temple of Seriousness (collaborative project with Katharina Grosse, et al.)
Kunsthalle Weishaupt;
Museum Ulm
Push the Limits
Fondazione Merz, Turin
2019
Amulet or He calls it chaos
Capp Street Foundation, San Francisco
Frozen Gesture: Gesture in painting from Roy Lichtenstein to Katharina Grosse
Kunstmuseum Winterthur
An Exhibition for Notre-Dame
Gagosian, Paris
In the Best of Company – Selected acquisitions of the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, 2009–2019
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin
German Forest
Galerie Neue Meister - Albertinum, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
Collezione MAXXI. Lo spazio dell’immagine
MAXXI – Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome
2018
The Flexible Plan: The Rococo in Contemporary Art
Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
The World on Paper
Kunsthalle by Deutsche Bank, Berlin
Deutscher Wald – Eine Sammlungspräsentation mit Gästen
Galerie Neue Meister – Albertinum, Staaliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
Unpainting
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Deutschland 8
Beijing
Abstract Painting Now!
The Kunsthalle Krems
German Forest
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
Paint on. Dimensionen des Malerischen / Dimensions of the Painterly
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
Mentales Gelb. Sonnenhöchststand / Mentally Yellow (High Noon)
Kunstmuseum Bonn;
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
2017
ARoS Triennial, THE GARDEN – End of Times; Beginning of Times
ARoS Art Museum, Aarhus
2015
Sprayed
Gagosian, London
All the World’s Futures, 56th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Venice
2013
My Crippled Friend
CCAD, Columbus
6a Bienal de Curitiba
Curitiba
An der Isar – Gegenwartskunst aus den Sammlungen der Städtischen Galerie im Lenbachhausund der KiCo-Stiftung
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Mushroom Hunter, Katharina Grosse, Joanne Greenbaum and Chris Martin
The Journal Gallery, New York
2012
Deutsche Malerei: Höhepunkte aus sechs Jahrzehnten
National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow
Sie trocknen ihre Knie mit einem Kissen
Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin
Bildspeicher II
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Grenzgänge
Villa Schöningen, Berlin
Bis hier. 50 Jahre Kunstverein Bochum
Kunstverein Bochum
Fast Forward: Modern Moments 1913–2003
High Museum of Art, Atlanta
I am a Berliner
Convento Carmelo, Sassar, travelled to:
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
The Indiscipline of Painting: International abstraction from the 1960s to now
Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Cornwall
2011
Rudolf Steiner und die Kunst der Gegenwart
Stiftung Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart
Geschmack - vom guten, vom schlechten und vom wirklichen teuren
Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden
The indiscipline of painting
Tate St. Ives, Cornwall
Farbe im Fluss
Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen
2010
Rudolf Steiner und die Kunst der Gegenwart
Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg
Quadriennale Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
If Not In This Period Of Time
Museu de Art de São Paulo - MASP
The 2nd Today’s Documents, Negotiations
Today Art Museum, Beijing
2009
Embrace!
Denver Art Museum
Space as Medium
Miami Art Museum
2008
There is Desire Left (Knock Knock)
Kunstmuseum Bern
De Pont Foundation for Contemporary Art, Tilburg
Shake Before Using
Artium de Alava, Vitoria-Gasteiz
Prospect. 1
New Orleans Triennial
2007
Franchise
Stichting VHDG, Leeuwarden
Sistemi e motivi
Centro di Cultura Contemporanea Strozzina, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
2006
Tokyo–Berlin / Berlin–Tokyo
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, travelled to:
Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin
Deutsche Wandstücke – Sette scene di nuova pittura germanica
Museion, Bolzano
Der blaue Reiter im 21. Jahrhundert
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Dirty Yoga
Taipei Biennial
2005
Extreme Abstraction
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
2004
raumfürraum
Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen
2003
deutschemalereizweitausenddrei
Frankfurter Kunstverein
Contemporary Art of Germany
Busan Metropolitan Art Museum
New abstract painting. Painting abstract now
Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen
Soziale Fassaden u.a.
Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
Grazie
Stiftung Schloß Dyck, Juchen
Painting 4
The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham CASO, Osaka
Process
Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki
Final Cuts
Union, London
2002
25a Bienal de São Paulo
São Paulo
Urgent Painting
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
Minibienal do Chile
Santiago de Chile
2001
milano europa 2000
PAC, Milan
Ex(o)DUS
Haifa Museum of Art
Casino 2001: 1st Quadrennial
Stedelijk Museum Voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent
2000
Zeitwenden
Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien
Bleibe
Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
1999
Chroma, Malerei der neunziger Jahre
Kunsthalle Nürnberg
Selections Fall '99
The Drawing Center, New York
Zeitwenden
Kunstmuseum Bonn
1998
Every Day
11th Biennale of Sydney
1997
Abstraction/Abstractions- Geómétries Provisoires
Musée d'Art Moderne Saint-Etienne, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez
Topping Out
Städtische Galerie Nordhorn
Videos
Publications
Katharina Grosse: Spectrum Without Traces
Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London | Marfa, 2024
Distributed by: Holzwarth Publications
With texts by Jurriaan Benschop and Ulrich Loock
€ 50.00
The Code Factory: Works from the Eighties and Nineties
Exhibition Poster
2024
€ 15.00
Katharina Grosse: Spectrum without Traces
Exhibition Poster
2023
Out of stock
Selected Press
Wallpaper* October 2022
Whitewall September 2022
stl today September 2022
Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin no.24 June 2022
Harpers Bazaar May 2022
Texte Zur Kunst no.120 December 2020
Tagesspiegel nr.24 355 September 2020
Kunstforum International Bd. 268 June – July 2020
Die Zeit n.25 June 2020
Weltkunst Nr.173 June 2020
artnet news August 2020
ocula May 2019
The Sydney Morning Herald January 2018
Muse Magazine 52 November 2018
Dazed Digital December 2018
ArtReview November 2018
The Talks December 2017
Frieze November 2017
artnet news July 2016
Artforum March 2012
