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Katharina Grosse: It’s very fascinating for me

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to reset the idea what a painting can be.

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It’s not like a formal issue only about
volume and color,

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but it’s also how could painting appear
in this public space?

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The surface is very rough and clunky,

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and I do something like a watercolor on top,

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which is quite bizarre.

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So it’s actually a very intimate kind of painting,

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but just on a very large scale.

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So it’s as if you’re thinking out loud,

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that’s a little bit how I work.

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And what comes up in the end is a volume floating
through this forest.

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I saw the space and had immediately the feeling
it could be very, very interesting to work

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with the trees--

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to make the trees a very and significant part
of the overall image that would come about.

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I’m very fascinated by the power of these
iconic images like the tree, the soil,

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the landscape.

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The trees are so strict,
like little soldiers in that park.

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I thought, if I could place something in between
the trees that looks like gigantic driftwood,

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that has come and swept in with some sort of power

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that we can’t explain, but now it’s there.

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The sheer presence of these things of different size

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makes us think of something that must have happened,

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but we can’t quite say what it is.

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The trees are very fragile and small,
but yet they are taller than the work.

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The trees also give a certain scale to my work.

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The buildings around them are quite big
and that’s a big challenge for an outdoor work.

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There’s a big team effort needed to do these
large sculptural works, especially for MetroTech.

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That was the biggest piece I’ve done ever.

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Eighteen pieces we needed to produce in a
relatively short amount of time.

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I made models and then we discussed it via Skype.

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Amaral had to make these works,

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laminate them,

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make them durable and hard
with fiberglass and resin.

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We needed people to handle it, to prime it,

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to get it into place to understand
how the pieces would work together.

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I started to work with my brother three years ago.

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He is an engineer.

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It’s the first time I have somebody in my
team who is not coming from an art context.

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He joined us when I was doing a huge project
for the Temporäre Kunsthalle in Berlin

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where we constructed ellipses that were leaning
against walls.

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And the ellipses were about 30 feet high.

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We had to work with a boat builder and a structural engineer,

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putting them together and hoisting them into place.

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That was a great moment.

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He has a really great way to connect the theoretical
thinking that’s needed

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to understand the engineering process,

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and he knows the language and all the words.

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And then he can still come back to me at the
end of the day and say,

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look we need that kind of bolt here.

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We were very, very close when we were kids.

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He grew into an indispensable member of my team.

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My parents took us to a lot of things when
we were small.

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I was seeing paintings, drawings.

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We would also go to the theatre lots.

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And both my parents are very influential in
that respect.

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My mother would draw and paint,

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but also then cook and bring us to music lessons.

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And she didn’t label herself artist.

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I started to tell myself that I actually had
a mother who was an artist.

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She was the one to find out that
I maybe had visual talent.

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One morning I had done a little watercolor.

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I had copied a black and white photograph
from a newspaper.

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She thought it was amazing.

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She urged me to go on.

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My mom would also make us paint the garage walls.

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She would gather all the kids and say,
let’s make little drawings and

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see what the big picture could be like.

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It was a natural thing to paint things.

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My work is not idea based,
it’s really thought based.

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The thought is a more fluid feel that gets feedback

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and is being changed while I do what I 
do.

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So there is an overall agreement that
I have with myself as I start something.

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That agreement is based on a judgment.

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For example, I want to have two elements coincide
that exclude one another.

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How could that work in that painting or
in that situation that I have in a gallery

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with a certain architectural setup?

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As I work, as I use my painting tools and colors,

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then I am getting an instantaneous feedback
by the materialization of that first agreement

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that might then change the relationship
I have with the agreement.

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All these notions,

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the further steps that are changing again and again,

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that is that thought process that I find infinitely interesting,

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that can’t be fixed and written down as I start.

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I wanted to do something for the Nasher that
was not a sculpture

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and that was not really using the space as
a display space.

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There are two very large glass panels

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and the rest is just walls.

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And you could move through this.

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So you, you had the vista through the building,

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into the garden and in the garden were plants
and sculptures that looked a little bit alike.

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How do you actually make yourself visible
in that situation?

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Something like negative space coinciding
with super large paint movements.

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Quite amazing that my invitation to a sculpture
museum coincides with

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a moment where I wanted to do a negative space of volume

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with a painting sitting on top of that negative space.

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That is a fantastic confrontation of these
two thoughts.

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I started to see that experiment as something
that would just sit in the space

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as if it was taken out of the box and discarded.

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So I did not want the piece in relationship
to other things,

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I just wanted to have it leaning against a wall

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so that it would sit exactly where the wall
and the floor meet

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and that kind of joint would be then
covered by the thing that I do.

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So you can’t really tell the floor
and the wall apart anymore

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because they are in terms of color very close
in the Nasher with the limestone and the floor.

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And I did something for them that
would move out of the space as well.

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So I wanted something that was inside
and was going outside behind the glass panel.

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This is the Kunsthaus in Graz in Austria and
it’s an amazing building.

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It’s a bubble.

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It’s a very organic shape.

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And I’m going to do a show there which has
to do with

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one of my core questions,

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how can painting appear in space and
what do I need to show the painting?

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I don’t want to put walls in the space that then

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enable me to show canvases.

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The metal cage is the roof.

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We made it this way so that I can work in
the space from above.

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These Styrofoam blocks are solid walls
that I could also possibly paint on.

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Other than the Styrofoam blocks I have
no walls that define the space.

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There are no windows except these openings
in the ceiling where I have lights.

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I’m using canvas or some very thick cloth,
maybe some sort of sailcloth.

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And I want to crumple it.

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And at times I want to make a painting on
that surface

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and at other times,

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you can just walk on the canvas or can walk
through the exhibition.

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The painting process is all going to be done
on site.

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We are trying to find out,
how can I build these creases and these folds

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to scale?

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Because I find the space that is coming about
by folding things quite interesting.

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I like that you are walking in a structure
that is difficult to see as a whole.

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I’m really fascinated by that condition
of us being

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in something and at the same time looking at it.

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I think that’s the condition we have all the time.

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That has a lot to do with scale.

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I think that we are able to think so big and
at the same time

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we’re actually quite small in relationship
to what is around us.

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So you’re constantly changing in size as
you walk through.

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The scale shift in this exhibition is really
something that I’m very interested in.

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That, that is also what I thought was in Nasher
so fascinating.

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The dirt room downstairs was the only space

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that didn’t have any relationship to the
outside garden.

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And upstairs I had the more analytical piece
that was actually confronted with,

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with the garden and the plants and so on.

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I’m very adventuresome.

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I grew up hiking and climbing in the mountains.

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Later on I started to be very fascinated
with the space that you encounter

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in landscape and in painting a landscape,

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because you’re sitting somewhere vast
and you have this 360 degree angle around you.

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And then you start to think is there an order?

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What do I perceive?

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And how do I actually design an order
for what I’m surrounded by?

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Landscape is an un-bureaucratic space.

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The hierarchic shift is so fast in landscape.

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Something that was useful a minute ago turns out to be

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not so interesting two steps further
to the right, for example.

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So there is a very unstable,
very fluid sense for hierarchy in landscape.

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WOMAN #1:
I’m really curious to know how the idea

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about the piece came up

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and where you got your inspiration from.

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Katharina Grosse:
Everybody knows a tree, one way or another.

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You go into the park or into the woods.

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But something has happened to the trees,

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we don’t know what it is,

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but they are not where they normally are.

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I love what happens to this material
and to this image when it’s painted.

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That turns it to something else.

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Something that’s not the tree
and at the same time it’s a tree.

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And I love this paradox.

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WOMAN #1:
So that’s where the title originates also?

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Katharina Grosse:
Yeah, you don’t really know.

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You see something far away and then you think,
oh that’s, that looks like a bird.

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And then you come close and it’s a plastic bag.

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And I think this kind of ambiguity is there
all the time.

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WOMAN #1:
Was it the first time that you have been

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working with this kind of material?

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Katharina Grosse:
With a tree?

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Yeah.

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WOMAN #1:
With the tree?

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Katharina Grosse:
I was starting to be interested in this whole

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tradition of the painted sculpture,

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of the painted 3-D thing you know.

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And I’ve used a couple of these things that
are so strong,

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like the dirt or the soil,

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that is so important to our life.

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The woods are really amazing as a structure
as all of a sudden this linear thing splits.

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WOMAN #2: So you had a few pieces,
how did you put them together?

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Katharina Grosse:
You can see, here is a cut.

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That’s the tree.

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This one was put together.

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So it’s all fiction.

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Once you are starting to feel, ah, that’s
a real tree,

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you see the cut.

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It’s more like an edited tree.

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WOMAN #2:
Right.

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Katharina Grosse:
Yeah.

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WOMAN #2:
And how did you choose the colors?

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Katharina Grosse:
It has to do with the light that you have

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in the space.

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The space is quite dark.

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So I wanted to have something that reflects
as well,

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so the yellow was important for me.

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The yellow in front of here does something
totally different

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than the yellow behind the roots.

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Right.

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Because it kind of glows.

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WOMAN #2:
Yeah.

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Katharina Grosse:
The colors I use are so raw, they are not mixed.

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I like this raw, direct thing that they have
with your body.

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It’s like voice, like the voice of a singer I think,

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that’s what color very much has.

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WOMAN #1:
Yeah, you had a lot to say.

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Katharina Grosse:
Yeah, yeah.

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I had a lot to say, yeah, yeah.

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MAN #1:
All the blocks form one large canvas.

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Now that Katharina has painted,
we need to put that canvas back together.

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So that’s why lining up the marks of her
brushstrokes,

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if you will,

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is very important and actually
vital to the sculpture itself.

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Katharina Grosse:
Am I a painter?

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Am I a sculptor?

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I don’t know.

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I’m talking to the world while painting on it.

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Or with it.

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Or in it.

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Therefore there is a collision of things with
the painted image.

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Something comes about by this collision
that can’t be taken apart anymore.

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There is the plastic or sculptural thing.

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If I take it away, the painting isn’t there anymore

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and if I take my painting away,

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then this metamorphosis isn’t there anymore.

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So these things kind of stick together,
even though they are coming from two very

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distinctive worlds.

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It’s not necessary to decide that you are
a painter or a sculptor.

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It doesn’t make your work more radical or
more clear.

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I totally enjoy to look at things.

236
00:18:19,520 --> 00:18:21,427
And I want something cool to look at.

237
00:18:22,039 --> 00:18:24,422
So I make this for myself also a lot.

238
00:18:25,964 --> 00:18:31,663
I immensely enjoy when doing it what
comes out of it during the making.

239
00:18:33,138 --> 00:18:36,200
I amuse myself, you know, I entertain myself.

240
00:18:36,200 --> 00:18:41,692
But it has to be complex and fun and ridiculous and tricky.

241
00:18:41,692 --> 00:18:45,859
There, it’s about tricks, that I play to
myself and to others.

242
00:18:46,539 --> 00:18:49,068
I am the trickster really, the painting trickster.

243
00:18:49,068 --> 00:18:52,430
Don’t believe me, I guess.