Welcome to »Katharina Grosse. The Sprayed Dear«, at the Kunstgebäude on Schlossplatz. The exhibition, which is the first retrospective of the artist’s three-dimensional work ever to be shown is curated by the Staatsgalerie as Baden-Wurttemberg’s official State Exhibition for 2025. 

Katharina Grosse’s work invites us to rethink our assumptions about the art of painting. With its deliberately transgressive approach to conventional limitations, her art expands into multiple spaces, cascading across canvases, objects, rooms and entire landscapes. Colour is not bound by the edges of pre-defined surfaces, but becomes a transformational element in its own right, altering our spatial perceptions.

Katharina Grosse was born in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1961. She studied painting in Munster and Düsseldorf, later teaching at major academies of the arts. In 2014, she was awarded the Oskar Schlemmer Prize of the State of Baden-Wurttemberg. Today, she is recognised as one of the most important figures in contemporary art.

For this exhibition, the artist has created three new works, one of which is »The Sprayed Dear«, designed to fill the 26-metre high Dome Room of the Kunstgebäude. The title of the work plays on the English homophones deer, meaning the animal, and dear, meaning beloved or precious. It is also a homage to the iconic golden stag that stands at the pinnacle of the dome—a Stuttgart landmark—and an invitation to visitors to consider the meaning of painting in relation to space.

The exhibition also offers you the chance to discover Katharina Grosse’s work from a new perspective. It is the first retrospective to span the entire period of her development as an artist, from her early experiments with materials to the monumental, immersive installations. You can trace the development of Katharina Grosse's formal technique, her visual and spatial language and her creative thought processes from the beginning, and discover what painting—as a medium, and as a form—means to her today.

Your visit begins in the Marble Hall with a creation from the artist’s childhood—a piece that already has much to tell us about her later work.

The object is a replica of a small empty white eggshell. A hole has been drilled into its bottom so that the egg can be stood upright.

The egg is approximately 6 centimetres long, with a diameter of 4.8 centimetres at its widest point. The surface is uneven, and the upper part is marked by a number of tiny raised bumps. 

The lower half of the egg is coloured almost entirely in radiant dark and pale blue, reminding the viewer of a lake or seascape. Above this are differently sized patches of red, brown, orange and ochre. In some places, the red pen has been dragged down the surface to create lines of red droplets leading to a brown patch. Between the coloured patches are unpainted areas of white eggshell. Here the artist has left visible fingerprints in brown and ochre. 

The artist has used the medium of felt tip pen to paint the egg, using sometimes strong, dynamic lines and sometimes adding a softer, wash-like effect. The curves of the egg mean that the composition changes as the gaze moves around it.

This reproduction of a little decorated egg is very special. It takes us back to Katharina Grosse’s earliest moments as an artist. It is a replica of an egg that the artist painted in 1971, when she was about nine or ten years old. 

In Katharina Grosse’s later work, transience is a central theme. Many of her large-scale installations are removed after they have been exhibited. Some are even deliberately destroyed by the artist. For Katharina Grosse, beauty lies in the unique moment of pleasure experienced by the viewer. The work exists only in the moment it is seen, before disappearing.

This makes this little egg even more special. It has never been shown before.

Stop and look closely at the tiny surfaces, and you can already feel the artist’s joy in playing with colour. Is the blue half of the egg meant to be a lake? Is that a brown boat with a red sail dancing on it? Or is the young artist already intuitively exploring the principles that will be key to her later work? The red lines recall the flowing movement of oil paint. They anticipate the spray paint technique characteristic of Katharina Grosse’s later work. 

The choice of foundation is also interesting. The curves of the egg create a composition with multiple perspectives. Even at this early stage, the artist is thinking beyond the limitations of traditional figurative painting. The uneven surface affects how the colour is distributed, a principle that Katharina Grosse continues to develop today.

Look carefully, and you can make out the artist’s fingerprints on the white eggshell. These, as a direct trace of her body, prefigure something that we also see in the expansive movements of the spray technique in her later works.

Here in the Marble Hall, you can also see a later piece by the artist from 2007. The egg-like shape in this painting reveals a thematic continuity, this time explored with the use of acrylics and the spray technique across a large surface.

To continue your tour, follow the signs to the intermediate room.

»Ghost« is a monumental sculpture made of white polystyrene that extends horizontally through the room. It is approximately two metres high, fifteen metres long and four metres deep. The shape seems organic, almost like a natural rock formation or a glacier field with irregular elevated sections and deep fissures.

The surface is structured, with visible traces of where it has been cut, with jagged edges that resemble worn-down stone. Some areas are smooth, while others have a porous, rubbed-raw texture. In spite of its huge surface area, the lightness of the material gives the sculpture a feeling of transience.

»Ghost« rests on the ground, extending through the room and almost blocking the entrance to the exhibition. Because of its size and irregular shape, it acts as a physical barrier that visitors must find a way round.  The sculpture is unpainted, so that the structure and material take centre stage.

The sculpture before you bears the name »Ghost«. On a number of levels, it requires the visitor to stop and pause. Its monumental size physically blocks the entrance to the Dome Room. This »Ghost« is a barrier that visitors must somehow find a way around. By deliberately placing the sculpture at this location, Katharina Grosse forces us to consider the movement of our bodies in space. 

At the same time, »Ghost« serves as a threshold, a gateway to the other artworks shown here. In the context of Katharina Grosse’s whole oeuvre, »Ghost« can be seen as bridging the two periods of the artist's work that you will see as you move through the exhibition: her early, experimental sculptures and the often expansive paintings that characterise her current practice. 

The form of »Ghost« recalls geological fragments. But with her choice of polystyrene as a medium, a light, malleable and impermanent material, the artist has created a sculpture that is at once solid and fleeting. 

What is most noticeable is something that isn’t there. We look in vain for the intense use of colour for which Katharina Grosse’s work is best known. Her decision to leave »Ghost« unpainted makes it an explicit contrast to »The Sprayed Dear« that you will see in the next room, creating a dialogue between the two works, between the absolute absence and the overwhelming presence of colour. We could almost feel that the artist wants us to take on a more active role at this point, requiring us to imagine a colour in our mind’s eye. Perhaps, therefore, »Ghost« can also be understood as a kind of “latent painting”, where the absence of colour itself imbues the figure with visual tension. 

To continue your tour, please make your way into the Great Dome Room of the Kunstgebäude.

»The Sprayed Dear« is a large-scale, colour-intensive installation that comprises a wave-shaped aluminium sculpture and the entire floor of the Dome Room. The sculpture is about three metres high and fifteen metres long. Its curved form reminds the viewer of a corkscrew curl or a breaking wave. Its surface is sprayed with glowing acrylic colours that run up and down the metal surface in powerful curving lines.

The floor is also painted, meaning that the artwork expands to fill the surface area of the room. The colours appear to blend into each other and overlap, creating a multi-layered, dynamic effect.

The size of the installation and the intensity of the colour transform the entire space. Visitors move around inside the painting, seeing its effect change with their location.

»The Sprayed Dear« was created by Katharina Grosse especially for this exhibition, and is also the title of the exhibition itself. The work fills the entire floor of the Dome Room in the Kunstgebäude. 

A sculpture in the form of a monumental wave of aluminium unfolds across the floor. Like much of Katharina Grosse’s current work, the sculpture is sprayed with bright, overlapping colours. 

The shape, resembling a corkscrew curl, creates an optical flow that directs the gaze of the viewer. But as with other of her works, the artist has not just painted the material of the sculpture. Paint covers the floor area, creating a visual universe that the visitor can enter. 

Here, painting becomes a spatial experience. It is no longer limited to a single object or a specific surface, but has become an immersive environment. For the period of the exhibition, Katharina Grosse has transformed the Dome Room into an architecture of paint. Try it for yourself: take a step into the room, and you immediately find yourself inside the artwork. Depending on how you move and where you stand, the work itself becomes slightly different. For a few fleeting moments, you yourself are part of the installation.

»The Sprayed Dear« explores notions of spatiality and transience, and the relationship between painting and sculpture. 

Is a painting still a painting if it is not a permanent, static object? Is the Dome Room still the Dome Room, or does the artist’s use of colour and paint turn it into a different space? And what will be left of »The Sprayed Dear« once the exhibition closes and the work is removed? Through her artistic choices, and the fleeting nature of her creations, Katharina Grosse invites us to reconsider and expand our understanding of what painting means as an art form, or even to question the notion of “a painting” altogether.

Stay in the Dome Room for now. In the next section of the audio guide, you will learn more about the history and architecture of the Kunstgebäude. 

The Kunstgebäude is one of Stuttgart’s best-known cultural landmarks. Its dome is visible for miles around. Its history as a home for modern art goes back over a hundred years. The building was completed in 1913, to a design by Theodor Fischer. True to the spirit of his time, the architect chose a style that harked back to earlier periods through a combination of different stylistic elements. The external arcade, once described as “the most beautiful arched loggia north of the Alps”, plays on Renaissance motifs. The twenty-six-metre high dome itself has neoclassical features, while the original interior design was based on aspects of the Art Nouveau movement. 

The iconic stag at the pinnacle of the dome references the building that once stood on this spot, the »Neues Lusthaus« or New Pavilion, a hunting lodge where the Dukes of Wurttemberg entertained their guests. The New Pavilion was destroyed in a fire in 1903. 

The Kunstgebäude was originally planned as a gallery for the Wurttemberg Arts Society and Stuttgart Artists’ Association. From the very beginning, it had a close affinity with contemporary art. In 1913, the gallery’s inaugural »Great Stuttgart Exhibition« featured not only traditional figurative painting, but also a few works with Impressionist and early Expressionist elements. 

Just over a decade later, in 1924, the groundbreaking exhibition »New German Art« went much further, presenting the public with a selection of radically modern works. The director of the Staatsgalerie at the time, Otto Fischer, curated the exhibition as a display of the most important contemporary developments in German art, with works by artists like Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka and Ernst Barlach. So the Staatsgalerie has been a guest of the Kunstgebäude before, more than one hundred years ago.

The Kunstgebäude was badly damaged in the Second World War, although the dome was saved. Rebuilt in the 1950s, it was at the heart of Stuttgart’s cultural life for many decades. Over the last few years, it has undergone a complete renovation, and has been lovingly restored to its former glory. It is now a vibrant and lively centre for the arts, available for events and exhibitions to Stuttgart’s many clubs and organisations. 

The next stop is Room 114, where we will see a number of wall-mounted works by Katharina Grosse dating from 2021. 

Before you is a large-format polyptych. This is a wall-mounted work constructed from multiple panels. It is over three and a half metres high and more than seven metres wide. 

The work is constructed from sturdy plywood panels that have been sprayed with acrylic paint. The colour has been applied dynamically, with layers that overlap, sometimes flowing into each other, sometimes ending abruptly. The colours are predominantly light, yet intense tones such as light blue, light green and shades of yellow, contrasting with dark blue and burgundy accents. The paint has been applied to the surface in a variety of ways. Some areas are covered with very thick paint, while others reveal more of the grain of the wood.

The panels are not completely aligned, but are slightly offset, creating shadows that lend the work depth. Because the surface of the work is split over multiple offset panels, your perception of the colours and shapes changes depending on where you are standing and how the light is falling at that moment.

This room displays a number of wall-mounted works created by Katharina Grosse in 2021. These painted plywood panels were originally created as separate pieces, but for this exhibition, the artist wanted to bring them together in a new combination. She has chosen the form of a large polyptych—a painting made up of multiple panels assembled to create a single artwork. 

Katharina Grosse’s signature is evident in the individual, colourfully painted panels. She has used a pressurised spray technique to apply an array of diverse colours to the plywood surface. As a result, the transitions between the different colours appear as a fine mist. Depending on the density of the paintwork, some areas are thickly covered, while in some places, the paint appears almost transparent. The base material chosen by the artist, plywood, is key to the effect of the work overall. Its raw surface is more resistant than canvas. In some places, Katharina Grosse has deliberately allowed the grain of the wood to show through. The panels are not all of the same thickness, some are thinner than others, so that they do not lie flush against each other. Instead, when they are connected to each other, it results in an uneven surface. When paint is applied, it appears to extend beyond the material plane. The edges between the different panels go in and out of focus depending on how the light falls on them.

The assembly of different individual pictures creates multiple effects. The bigger surface area emphasises the spatial presence of the work. The panels clearly have a relationship to each other, but they are not all the same. The viewer has the impression of a work with many parts that is continually replicating itself. The segmentation of the radiant colours reminds us of the artist’s interest in layering, in the overlapping and dissolution of visual borders, a motif found throughout her oeuvre. 

Continue your tour by crossing Room 115 to enter Room 116, where you will see a new canvas installation by Katharina Grosse.

A huge, unpainted canvas is mounted on the wall of the room at a height of about five metres. This canvas, which is also five metres wide, extends into the room to a length of over seven metres.

Unlike many other of Katharina Grosse’s works, in which colour flows freely and vigorously across walls, objects and floors, this canvas is completely white. 

The large, three-dimensional structure is not flat, nor is it stretched evenly across the wall or floor. Instead, it bunches, bulges and bends, so that light wanders unevenly across its surface, creating fine shadows.

This work marks a transition. Although mounted on the wall, it extends into the room as a three-dimensional object. Its monumental dimensions alone lend it a physical presence. The material is bunched and folded, it bulges and falls away. Sometimes it hugs the wall closely, at other times it appears to float free in space. With the shape and size of this work, Katharina Grosse creates a dialogue with the architecture. Try moving around the room and looking at the canvas from different perspectives. How do the creases and shadows change in different lights?

For this work, the artist has chosen a canvas that she has deliberately left unpainted. This represents a radical move away from the dramatic use of the colour for which much of her work is known. In this way, the work asks a question: what happens if the artist chooses not to make an artistic intervention in a space? The canvas installation could be described as an “anti-painting” or a “potential painting.” It makes us think about the possibility of what could have been, rather than what is, consciously deconstructing our expectations. The artist’s decisions in this piece ask a profound question: is it the use of colour that makes an artwork a painting? Or is it enough to know that there is the possibility of colour? 

To continue your tour, walk through Rooms 115 and 114 to Room 113, where you can see early works from Katharina Grosse’s student years in Düsseldorf.

This work measures 46 by 39 centimetres. It is a rectangular panel of polyethylene, a light, flexible synthetic material somewhat similar to wax in appearance. The surface is uneven, with various concave impressions in it. The edges are not entirely straight, either. At some points, they curve outward slightly.

The paint has been applied energetically. An intense, radiant pink dominates the centre, flowing out unevenly towards the edges. In some areas the paint is thick, in other places it appears transparent. Besides pink, darker tones of red, purple and occasionally blue can be seen. These darker shades sometimes flow into each other. At other times, they are applied as individual, marked accents.

Some patches of colour are more like a thick paste, with visible peaks and protrusions. In other places, the paint is finely spattered or shows in faint traces of colour. The edges are not painted all the way along, at some points you can still see the light polyethylene substrate.

The works in this room have two things in common. First, they date from 1987, when Katharina Grosse was studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Second, they are painted on an unusual base. Instead of canvas, the artist has chosen to use polyethylene, a synthetically-produced, slightly shiny substance.

Because of the wax-like surface of this material, paint does not always adhere well to it, giving the paintings an interesting structure. Unlike traditional paintings, they are three-dimensional. Katharina Grosse layers and smears colour, playing with the opposition of opacity and transparency. In some places, the paint has been applied as a kind of impenetrable paste. In others, the artist has deliberately allowed the translucent base material to shine through, creating an illusion of depth.

These paintings, completed by Katharina Grosse as a student, already reveal elements that will go on to characterise her later work. They show clearly that even at this period, she was experimenting with the nature of materiality and looking at the way in which colour can transform space.

We can see the young artist searching for ways to move beyond traditional notions of painting and to free it from the limitations of a two-dimensional visual language. These early works, though, represent not only artistic exploration. They are also a decisive step towards a kind of painting that unfolds from a surface into a three-dimensional space.

Now walk on to Room 112. Here you can see works by the artist from the years 1989-1990, in which she continues to experiment with the art of three-dimensional painting.

This rectangular painting measures 60 by 50 centimetres. It is a vertical composition made up of parallel stripes of colour of varying width and oval shapes.

The colour palette is predominately green, with a spectrum from a dark forest green to pale shades tinged with yellow. Some of the stripes have a certain transparency. You can see deeper layers of paint beneath them. The oval shapes have soft edges and appear in some places to be mere outlines, in others to have been painted over.

The brushstrokes are clearly visible in the thickly-applied paint, which is sometimes smooth, sometimes rough and streaky. At some points, hardened edges of paint protrude, creating additional depth. The painting creates an impression of tranquillity. The overall impression is calm, with a gentle movement created by the layered colour fields.

This painting dates from 1989, when Katharina Grosse was a student at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. At this period, she was fascinated by the idea of creating a kind of “painting without painting”. Superficially, the work shown here still appears to adhere to the classic concept of what a painting ought to be. It is an abstract in oils, on a piece of canvas with clearly defined edges and borders. 

And yet even here, we can see the young artist thinking about paint as a medium, how colours can flow and overlap, how effects of depth and surface are created. Although this particular painting stays within its canvas limits, the semi-transparent, overlapping colours create an illusion of spatial depth. The artist is still exploring layering, building a foundation for her characteristic use of overlapping colour and a spray technique. The composition has an open, dynamic feel, almost as if it is about to leap beyond the edges of the canvas—prefiguring the way in which the edges of paintings appear to dissolve in Katharina Grosse’s later work.   

Take a closer look at the other works in this room. They all date from between 1989 and 1990, and at this stage, still have clearly demarcated areas of colour. In this phase of her work, Katharina Grosse was experimenting with different consistencies, overlapping colours and unconventional techniques. Have you noticed the mint-green painting, for example? The paint has been applied generously with a palette knife to create circular patterns that reveal different layers of paint. These are probably the result of the use of a glazing technique, which requires an application of multiple layers of paint. Out of this absorption with transparency and layering, the artist has created a light, almost ethereal effect. A third painting shows a combination of freely-floating, coloured shapes with consciously placed spaces between them. We find something similar in Katharina Grosse’s later, large-scale wall-mounted works. 

Stay in this room to listen to the next stop of the audio guide.

The object is small and compact, about as big as an adult hand. It is 5 by 12 centimetres square and 8 centimetres high.  Its surface is uneven and slightly shiny. The surface is painted in a deep, dark green, but below this shimmers an older turquoise or blue layer of colour which is most clearly visible at the edges and in the impressions in the surface.

The green paint appears to have been applied unevenly. In some places it is completely opaque, in others it seems smeared or abraded. The sides of the object are unpainted, revealing the natural, waxy substance it is made of. Its surfaces show traces of modelling, with small dents, bumps and worn areas that reflect the light in different ways. Depending on perspective, the colour is sometimes a mossy green, but at other times seems blue.

The object is haptically attractive. You can imagine it would feel pleasant in the hand. The interplay between faded colour and irregular surface creates an effect of age, as if the object has taken shape over a long time.

This object, created in 1989, also dates from Katharina Grosse’s student years. It reveals her early interest in colour as an independent, shaping force. The upper surface is painted in a deep, dark green. But if you look closely, can you see a layer of blue shimmering below? The artist has painted over it, but in some places it is still visible, especially at the edges and in impressions in the surface. The sides have been left untreated, leaving the waxy material in its original condition.

Compare this object with the two other pieces from 1989 in this room. One is painted in a single, vigorous reddish-orange. On one side, an orange thread has been directly embedded into the material. It sometimes protrudes from the edges and sometimes disappears, as if enclosed by the wax-like substance. This creates an additional tension between the soft, amorphous form and the structured, textile components.

In the other piece, the paint thickens to create a relief-like structure. A medley of colours— blues, yellows, reds—clash and confront each other, in paint that has not simply been applied, but has been modelled and layered in an almost sculptural way.

All the works in this room demonstrate Katharina Grosse’s early experimental approach to colour and substance. Colour is not only visually significant. In the form of paint, it takes on a physical agency within the room. The artist is already beginning to explore how paint can take up space and how she can use colour as a sculptural element.

Let’s now move on together into Room 111. This is the final part of the exhibition. Here you can view a group of installations showing the language of form that Katharina Grosse was developing in the four years from 2017 to 2021.

This installation is made of bronze. It is 75.5 centimetres high, 138 centimetres across and 57 centimetres deep. Its shape is complex, with multiple layers and sharp edges that extend outwards in different directions. The surface is uneven, with folds, edges and fractures that make you think of fissured rock faces.

The entire piece is sprayed with acrylic paint, creating an intense interplay of colour. Bright, almost fluorescent yellow, green and red mingle with deep blue, purple and black in overlapping stripes, sometimes blended in gentle transitions, sometimes showing sharp contrasts. The paint follows the structure of the bronze, drawing attention to its edges and thereby creating an additional effect of depth.

The bronze installation stands in its own space in the room. Its shape is full of energy, as if it were moving towards an unseen goal beyond the walls that surround it.

This vibrantly painted installation in bronze is from 2019. The artist has used a spray technique to apply a vigorous array of colours—yellow, green, red, blue, purple and black. Their interrelationship across the surface changes constantly. Sometimes one colour seems to blend gently into the next; at other points, colours clash violently. 

The surface of the bronze is heavily fissured. It has sharp edges, folds and fractures, creating an absorbing interplay of light and shadow. Paint is applied in such a way as to draw attention to structure, lending the model a dynamic energy. The bronze appears almost to be moving outwards, expanding further into space in all directions. 

Compare the powerfully expansive, layered form of this piece with the other works in this room. Two pieces from 2017 show a similar approach to colour and material, but are shaped differently. They are flatter and more compact, and seem to unfold differently, focused more towards a specific direction. 

Another piece, from 2021, is different in some ways yet again. The visual language is denser, more introverted. The surfaces appear more tightly bunched together, with softer transitions between the different components. While the bronze model from 2019 is characterised by a dramatic contrast between bright and dark tones, the contrasts two years later are more nuanced. 

The installations in this room were all created over a period of four years. But even within this relatively short space of time, we can trace a distinctive development in the artist’s work, as she moves from open, experimental shapes, through an animated, expansive phase, to a language of form that is more focused and concentrated.

This brings us to the end of the exhibition. We hope you have enjoyed this journey through Katharina Grosse’s artistic universe. Perhaps you’ve even been able to discover new perspectives on the medium of painting. 

We hope to see you again soon in the Kunstgebäude or Staatsgalerie. For now, all that remains is for us to thank you for taking the time to visit the exhibition with us.

You have been listening to an audio tour created by Historicity and the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.