#rockaway!

Katharina Grosse’s current exhibition at Gagosian, consists of dynamic brightly colored canvases and one cast metal sculpture. Unlike traditional painting, these works are created using a spray gun which creates the unique effects.

Her process is described in the press release-

Embracing the events and incidents that arise as she paints, Grosse opens up surfaces and spaces to the countless perceptual possibilities of the medium. While she is widely known for her temporary and permanent in situ work, which she paints directly onto architecture, interiors, and landscapes, her approach begins in the studio. With calculated focus, she allows new patterns and procedures in her paintings to emerge from action, further multiplying this potential with stencils cut from cardboard and thick foam rubber—tools with which to develop further cuts, layers, and perspectival depths. Grosse’s gestures unfold all at the same time in unmixed acrylic colors, engulfing the viewer in a toxic sublime.

In this exhibition, selected works from several interconnected suites of untitled paintings produced during the last twelve months demonstrate this constant interaction of process and material. Base shapes migrate from one painting to another, appearing in new layers or fusing into clusters that advance and retreat. The paintings record Grosse’s ongoing choices about color, density, and velocity. In one group, monadic forms proclaim their specific hues within larger zones of color. A red shape takes its place amidst expressive jewel-toned streaks. A plane of cerulean blue opens, or perhaps closes, to a black and yellow void. In other more complex orchestrations, these coloristic moments become so compelling that the canvas, which supports it all, is easily forgotten.

Grosse also made news this past summer with her installation for MOMA P.S. 1, titled Rockaway!. Located at Fort Tilden, she used a similar technique to paint an abandoned and soon to be demolished building (due to being structurally unsound after Hurricane Sandy).

Katharina Grosse, “Rockaway!” (2016), from MoMA PS1 at Gateway National Recreation Area at Fort Tilden, New York July 3–November 30, 2016 I was surprised at how few works had stuck in memory after a long year covering galleries, museums, and art fairs, but Katharina Grosse’s inspiring site-specific spray painted mural on an crumbling, abandoned Army building out in the Rockaways stuck with me long after the summer heat had faded.

A meditation in white, pink, and red, the piece referenced the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, which rocked the surrounding area, and was meant to read like waves of paint crashing over the derelict structure. The work lent a surreal beauty to the space, which was slated to be destroyed following the exhibition’s run.

Now on view: MoMA PS1's Katharina Grosse installation in the Rockaways. Grosse has transformed Fort Tilden's dilapidated aquatics building into a monumental and sublime artwork that memorializes this iconic structure, which was rendered structurally unsound by Hurricane Sandy and is set to be demolished in late 2016.

I AND ME Loves_ Katharina Grosse @ Rockaway Beach

What do you get when you take a soon-to-be-demolished aquatics building in Queens, NYC, a few hundred litres of neon red, pink and orange paint and visionary painter & sculptor Katharina Grosse?

A masterpiece, that’s what.

Part of MoMa PS1’s ’Rockaway!’ Public Art festival which features contributions from a long list of international artists (plus Rockaway resident Patti Smith) this Summer, the piece is already being hailed “Summer’s Biggest Instagram” and we can see why.