Galerie
Mark Müller

A group show with works by: Rosa Barba,Sophie Calle, Katharina Grosse, Shilpa Gupta, Mona Hatoum, Jenny Holzer, Emily Jacir, Bouchra Khalili, Barbara Kruger, Cinthia Marcelle, Shirin Neshat, Maria Papadimitriou, Pamela Rosenkranz, Chiharu Shiota, Fiona Tan, Carrie Mae Weems, Sue Williamson

Jeder neue Tag hat zwei Griffe.
Wir können ihn am Griff der Ängstlichkeit oder am Griff der Zuversicht halten.
(H. Beecher, 1813-1887)

With her spectacular site-specific paintings that she fabricates with air guns and vibrant acrylic paints, Katharina Grosse (born 1961 in Freiburg) assumes a central position in contemporary art. Her large-scale works present themselves as pulsating, three-dimensional visual worlds that incorporate the walls, ceiling and floor of the exhibition space.

Everything becomes the canvas for these paintings and is seized by a vibrating charge of colour that disrupts our typical conception of reality and opens up previously unimagined spheres of possibility. Grosse’s works, which the viewer can walk through, are produced in interior and exterior spaces, and reflect upon our interaction with institutional and urban spaces. In 2020, the artist will use the historical hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof along with sections of the museum’s grounds for a new work that incorporates sculptural elements and radically destabilises and renegotiates the existing order of the space of the museum.

German artist Katharina Grosse’s exuberant large-scale, in-situ paintings explore how and where a painted image can appear in our lives. Often painted directly onto and across architectural structures and objects or into landscapes, her extraordinary, colorful works invite visitors to engage with painting on both a visual and a physical level.

For this exhibition at the BMA, the internationally acclaimed artist presents five recent paintings and creates a new site-related environment, Is It You? The immersive installation transforms the central gallery in the Contemporary Wing by suspending spraypainted cloth from the ceiling, extending it across the floor, and creating an enveloping “room” with undulating walls.

The presentation of paintings closes January 3, 2021; the installation Is It You? remains on view through September 19, 2021.

The Way We Are 2.0 brings together on 2,500 square metres more than 180 works from more than 100 artists from various times and contexts in a wide-ranging investigation of content and form. Thematic spaces arise from such perspectives as artistic approaches to identity or traditions of landscape, a varied play with everyday life or aspects of urban life, the meaning of coincidence or of the body, minimalist tendencies or social resistance.