Katharina Grosse
Untitled
Acrylic on canvas, 221 × 365 cm

Many of Grosse’s paintings adapt the structure of a grid, a familiar form for plotting data in science and industry. In this grid, however, curves replace rigid lines. The grids provide additional contours in a complicated mesh of colors. Neon tones of red and yellow stand out forcefully, even where overpainted by dark green. The light blue lines, which were the first to be applied, nevertheless shine through all the other layers above them. The billowing optical effects of so many overlaid lines make it difficult to precisely distinguish layers except along borders of the composition, where streaks of paint end without crossing the edges of the canvas.