In her custom-designed Berlin studio, visual artist Katharina Grosse reflects on a life spent following her own path in painting. Known for her monumental, site-related installations and vivid spray-painted environments, artist Katharina Grosse has long challenged conventional ideas of what painting can be – and where it belongs.
Whether working with unstretched canvases, entire buildings, or urban landscapes, she approaches each surface as a terrain of possibility.
In this new episode of Meet the Artists, commissioned by Nowness, Katharina Grosse invites Art Basel to witness the impulse behind her highly conceptual, captivating, and process-driven work.
Speaking candidly about solitude and the power of scale, she reflects on formative experiences of painting outdoors, and works developed while alone in New Zealand – considering how canvases created away from outside influence acquire new context once exposed to an audience. Painting with speed, yet daubed with philosophical meaning, Grosse has found an expressive channel through which to communicate her own understanding, while inviting new interpretation – as a way to challenge fixed ideas of image-making.
“I think our ability to constantly negotiate new perspectives is so much more entertaining and fun and also proposes alternatives.”
[Katharina for ArtBasel by Jeanne-Salomé Rochart]
Katharina Grosse is represented by Gagosian (New York, Basel, London, Hong Kong, Paris, Rome), Max Hetzler (Berlin, London, Paris), and Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder (Vienna). The Messeplatz project was visible during Art Basel in Basel, from 19 – 22 June 2025.
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