That German artist Katharina Grosse would have ended up collaborating at some point with a fashion house was already in the air since her colourful lunar landscapes were installed at the Venice Art Biennale in 2015. In that case her installation at the Arsenale in Venice featured draped textiles, huge blocks of Styrofoam carved into shapes that resembled fragments of meteorites, rubble, and piles of cement covered in bold and bright colours.
Other installations followed including Grosse's first solo show in China, "Mumbling Mud", a sort of psychedelic experience that comprised a labyrinthine structure of folds made with heavy, coarse fabrics (vaguely reminiscent of Sam Gilliam's drape paintings) draped from the ceiling of the museum and designed to embrace, engulf and swallow visitors and alter their perceptions with their clashing colours.
The more you stared at these installations and at Grosse's dynamic dialogues between her draped fabrics and the architectures surrounding them, the more you thought her work would have been transformed into the set for a catwalk show or the inspiration for a fashion collection.
Instead Grosse was commissioned an installation at the Espace Louis Vuitton in Venice (Calle Ridotto, 1353; on display until 27th November 2022).
A Collateral Event of the 59th International Art Exhibition, Grosse's "Apollo Apollo" is inspired by the artist's experiments with printed photographs on fabrics such as polyester and silk. Images of her painting practice and of her hands covered in bright paint were the starting point for the installation.
"Apollo Apollo" consists in an oroton-like fabric, with colourful prints of the artist's hands, draped across the wall and the floor of the exhibition space. Under the metallic chainmail fabric you can spot some objects, including a coil of rope and a pair of sneakers.
The metallic fluidity and flexibility of this vast expanse of silvery glittering metal is a reference to Venice and in particular to Fortuny's fabrics, gold mosaic tesserae and light reflecting on water, making it shimmer.
On her Facebook page, the artist posted pictures of the research work behind the installation and one picture with a rope half covered in the metallic mesh, perfectly shows the mesmerizing effects Grosse obtained by simply covering random items with the metallic fabric.
As she states about the installation: "The printed image I have chosen comes from a series of photographs showing actions that are connected to my painting practice, though here on the mesh fabric it seems to be a mere residue of an image of a very sharp photographic moment (...) the everyday objects in the work seem to evade their meaning. Under the mesh they seem not as clear as you might want them to be to actually pin them down. It's actually a multiple layer backwards, a removal of what is nameable, what is actually identifiable."
But there are more appointments to jot down in their diaries for Grosse's fans: the artist is also part of the group exhibition (including works by Sam Gilliam, Steven Parrino, Niele Toroni and Megan Rooney) "La Couleur en fugue" (Fugues in Color) at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris (thorugh 29th August).
"The Splinter", the installation for "Fugues in Color" is a monumental celebration of paint and colours: escaping from the canvas, the paint invades walls and floors, hitting the ceiling.
Colours seem to expand from twenty plywood triangular forms and dynamically extend into the architecture, interacting in this way with the Frank Gehry-designed building.
The architectural collaboration between Grosse's work and Gehry's building will continue this autumn when an original work by Grosse commissioned by the Fondation Louis Vuitton will be installed on-site.
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