This room has several wall-mounted artworks by Katharina Grosse from 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, which is a painting made up of multiple panels assembled to create a single artwork.
Each panel is painted in a bright colour, and when put together, they make a big, colourful picture. Grosse used a special technique that involved using a pressurised sprayer to apply a variety of different colours to the plywood surface. This means that the different colours look like a fine mist. Some parts of the painting are thickly covered with paint, while in other areas, the paint is almost transparent.
The artist chose plywood as the base material, which is key to the overall effect of the work. Plywood's raw surface is more resistant than canvas. In some places, Katharina Grosse has deliberately made the wood's natural grain visible. The panels are not all the same thickness, some are thinner than others, so they don't lie flat against each other. When they are connected to each other, this creates 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 way the different panels are put together creates lots of interesting effects. The bigger surface area makes the work seem to take up more space. The panels are clearly connected to each other, but they are not all the same. The viewer gets the feeling of a work with many parts that is continually replicating itself. The way the bright colours are divided up reminds us of the artist's interest in layering, in the overlapping and fading of visual borders, a theme found throughout her work.
Next, cross Room 115 to Room 116 to see a new canvas installation by Katharina Grosse.