1. Katharina Grosse, Déplacer les étoiles, 2024, Exhibition view Katharina Grosse: déplacer les étoiles, Centre Pompidou - Metz, June 01, 2023 - February 24, 2025. Acrylic on fabric and floor, acrylic on asphalt, approx. 1 400 x 4 250 x 3 250 cm; 6 000 x 3 000cm. Copyright. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Courtesy / Centre Pompidou - Metz; Gagosian; Galerie Max Hetzler; Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder © Adagp, Paris, 2024
Shifting the Stars
In "Shifting the Stars", Katharina Grosse expands the possibilities of painting, transforming it from a static, two-dimensional medium into a living, breathing, and evolving experience. Her monumental installations in the Grande Nef and the Forum challenge the viewer to reconsider the role of painting in contemporary art, inviting them to become active participants in a dynamic environment that transcends the traditional boundaries of art and architecture. Through her use of color, space and natural elements, Grosse creates a deeply immersive experience that encourages us to engage with the world in new and unexpected ways.
A monumental drapery made out of overflowing colours
2. Katharina Grosse, Déplacer les étoiles, 2024, Exhibition view Katharina Grosse: déplacer les étoiles, Centre Pompidou - Metz, June 01, 2023 - February 24, 2025. Acrylic on fabric and floor, acrylic on asphalt, approx. 1 400 x 4 250 x 3 250 cm; 6 000 x 3 000cm. Copyright. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Courtesy / Centre Pompidou - Metz; Gagosian; Galerie Max Hetzler; Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder © Adagp, Paris, 2024
In the Grande Nef, Grosse’s use of an 8,250 m² painted drapery is not just an artistic display, but a redefinition of what painting can be. Traditionally, painting is confined to two dimensions, format placed on walls or in frames, limiting our interaction to observation. Grosse’s "Shifting the Stars" installation shatters these confines, by suspending layers of painted fabric from the ceiling of the vast 20-meter-high space, she allows the painting to exist in three dimensions, creating a fabric sculpture that immerses the viewer within it.
The drapery installation, firstly presented at Carriageworks in Sydney, pushes the boundaries of painting by combining it with architecture, sculpture and the natural environment. As visitors walk through the openings in the fabric, they don’t just observe the work, they become part of it.
By doing so, Grosse is exploring the interplay between the observer and the observed. As viewers walk through and interact with the piece, they are no longer passive spectators, they become integral parts of the painting’s narrative. This makes each viewer’s experience personal and unique, affected by their movement, vantage point, and emotional state. The work’s monumental scale allows for moments of both grandeur and intimacy, where the folds and colors surround and enclose the viewer like a sanctuary, yet also overwhelm the senses with the sheer vastness of the space.
The installation allows them to move within and beneath the folds of painted fabric, with vibrant colors merging into diffuse haloes, creating dynamic views and endless perspectives. Grosse uses a spray gun to apply vivid dashes of bright yellows, reds, pinks, and blues, blending these with softer tones and large areas of exposed white fabric. These color fields shift with the natural light in the Grande Nef, changing the experience depending on the time of day and weather conditions.
An archetypal object in the Four
3. Katharina Grosse, The Bed, 2024, Exhibition view Katharina Grosse: déplacer les étoiles, Centre Pompidou - Metz, June 01, 2023 - February 24, 2025. Acrylic on furniture, clothing, various objects, approx. 100 x 600 x 1800 cm. Copyright. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Courtesy / Centre Pompidou - Metz; Gagosian; Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin I Paris I London I Marfa © Adagp, Paris, 2024
"The Bed" installation exhibited in the Forum, delves into one of Grosse’s most personal work. Originally created in 2004, when she painted her own bedroom in Düsseldorf, "The Bed" marked a pivotal moment in Grosse’s career. It represented a dramatic shift in her approach, from working on canvases to painting in situ and directly onto everyday objects, like her bed. For this exhibition at the Centre Pompidou-Metz, she reactivates "The Bed", allowing it to engage in a new dialogue with the architectural space of the Forum.
In "The Bed", Grosse uses the bed as a universal symbol, one that carries deep archetypal meaning. As she describes, "The bed is indeed a totally archetypal piece, everyone knows what it is and what happens when we go to bed, when we dream." The bed, in Grosse’s work, represents both the intimate and the everyday. It is where we sleep, dream, and enter the subconscious. In painting over her own bed, as well as the surrounding objects in her room, Grosse transformed these familiar objects into part of a larger visual narrative.
In the exhibition, "The Bed" installation creates a tension between the deep personal and the monumental. The painted bed becomes a place of transformation, which was once a functional, everyday object is now a surreal piece of art, altered by the spray-painted layers of color that Grosse applies to it. They are no longer just places of rest or relaxation, but sites of artistic intervention, challenging the boundaries between comfort and chaos, between personal space and public display.
The role of nature, trees as living sculpture
4. Katharina Grosse, Ingres Wood, 2018, Villa Medici, Rome, Italy, 260 x 560 x 2.360 cm. Copyright, Photo: Alessandro Vasari; Courtesy : Gagosian © Adagp, Paris, 2024
Nature plays a recurring role in Grosse’s work, particularly her use of trees and natural surfaces in her installations. For more than fifteen years, she has incorporated trees into her works, transforming them into living sculptures. In "Shifting the Stars", ash trees and hornbeams at the entrance of the Grande Nef are wrapped in linen, forming a bridge between the natural and artistic realms.
By painting directly onto trees or using them as sculptural elements in her installations, Grosse draws attention to the tactile, uneven surfaces of nature, which she contrasts with the smooth flow of paint.
In an era dominated by flat, homogenous screens, Grosse’s use of organic, irregular surfaces provides a more visceral and immediate sensory experience. For her, working with the folds of fabric, the textures of soil, or the rough bark of trees offers a more authentic connection to the world around us.
In her installations, the trees serve not just as objects to be looked at but as active participants in the artwork. Wrapped in linen, they become part of the painted environment, interacting with the architecture and the draped fabric of the installation. This interaction creates a powerful dialogue between the human and natural worlds, suggesting that art, like nature, is always evolving and interacting with its surroundings.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Centre Pompidou Metz
Date: 01.06.2024 – 24.02.2025
Curators: Chiara Parisi
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Centre Pompidou Metz
Centre Pompidou Metz
1 Parvis des Droits-de-l'Homme
57 000 Metz
Phone: +33 (0)3 87 15 39 39
Mail: contact@centrepompidou-metz.fr