Carriageworks unveils The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then it Stopped (2017), a major new commission by renowned German artist Katharina Grosse, representing the third in the Schwartz Carriageworks series of major international projects.
Working in situ, Grosse responds to the unique industrial design and grand scale of the heritage multi-arts precinct with sprawling canvases draped, knotted and hung across and through 8250m² of the architectural elements of the building, saturating audiences in a world of kaleidoscopic colour.
Katharina Grosse, The Horse Trotted Another Couple of Metres, Then it Stopped, 2017, commissioned by Carriageworks. Courtesy the artist and Gagosian © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017. Photograph: Zan Wimberley
For Grosse, painting is an experience in immersive subjectivity, from her canvases and sculptures to her installations, painted directly onto architecture, interiors, and landscapes. Working with a spray gun, she implements multi-dimensional visual effects over surfaces and textures to create sublime and otherworldly environments. She first introduced voluminous fabric into her painting in 2014.
Katharina Grosse explained: ‘I was fascinated by the thought of folding space. I was interested in taking this vast surface and shrinking it by folding or, actually, hiding the entirety of what’s there. I understand a painting as something that, as we view it, travels through us and realigns our connections with the world.’
The world premiere of this monumental work is presented free to the public at Carriageworks from 6 January as part of Sydney Festival 2018 and continues until 8 April 2018.
