calendario eventi  :: 

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4/11/2002

Antipodes

White Cube, London

Katharina Grosse

At the time of writing this brief description just days before the opening, Katharina Grosse's upcoming project Inside the White Cube is yet to be made. In a few days, the painter will begin her work on-site, using the diffuse impact of a compressor to explore and evince a new and unimagined physiognomy for the given gallery space beyond the bounds of its Platonic dimensions.

Whether working site-specifically or autonomously--she paints equally on canvas, aluminium and paper--Grosse's working process might best be described as stochastic: skillful and intentional, yet exuberant and open to chance and random variables in the articulation of different layers, reaches and depths of field, harmonies and clashes of colour. Like the improvisation technologies of dance and music, hers is a highly conscious act that embraces the outcome of its first phase of activity in a non-judgmental way; in other words, nothing can go "wrong" or "right" in terms of the final outcome. Freely exploring the space in the first phase of the working process, she starts to control it in a second phase. Throughout this second phase, she describes herself as "the recipient of her own work," in constant dialectic with the certain "status" that she has created in the previous phase.

As with all abstract art, Grosse's work could be said to function purely in terms of Gestalt; and yet, conversely, it is in this most seemingly essential, indivisible quality that hybrid metaphors and associations proliferate. Laurie Anderson once sang, unforgettably, that language is a virus, and in this painter's hands, the sublime language of abstract painting turns virulent and deeply evocative as it "contaminates" the neutral space and its surroundings in a sudden release of baroque expenditure.

Born in 1961, Katharina Grosse lives and works in Germany. In the early years of her career, she experimented with various unorthodox forms and techniques relating to color-field painting, as well as making chalk drawings in disused urban interiors. Converging circumstances prompted her to make her first spray-painting in a group exhibition at the Kunsthalle Berne in 1998, literally reaching beyond the physical limitations of the brush in order to reveal new visual potentials in the given site. Since that time, Grosse's spectacular site-specific paintings, which range from diaphanous monochromes to explosions of layered psychedelic intensity, are appearing all over the world in private and public contexts, both as temporary and, more recently, permanent commissions.

Inside the White Cube will be open from Tuesday through Saturday, 10am - 6pm, with changing exhibitions opening on the first Tuesday of every month. Inside the White Cube can also be followed as a subsite on the White Cube website: www.whitecube.com For further information please contact Susannah Hyman or Honey Luard on 020 7930 5373.

Inside the White Cube is generously presented in association with Dornbracht, the German manufacturer of high-quality design fittings, accessories and interiors.

Opening Tuesday 5th November 6-8pm

December Daido Moriyama

White Cube, 48 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PB

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