Katharina Gaenssler
24 Jan - 08 Mar 2014
© Katharina Gaenssler
Ackermann / Marc, Demand / Macke A+B, Eliasson / Kandinsky, Grosse / Jawlensky, 2008
Bookobject, 21 volumes, 24901 pages, 24901 photographs, color laser print, embossed cardboard covers
Buchobjekt, 21 Bände, 24901 Seiten, 24901 Fotografien, Farblaserdruck, Umschläge Karton geprägt
41 x 19 x 3,5 - 4,2
Ackermann / Marc, Demand / Macke A+B, Eliasson / Kandinsky, Grosse / Jawlensky, 2008
Bookobject, 21 volumes, 24901 pages, 24901 photographs, color laser print, embossed cardboard covers
Buchobjekt, 21 Bände, 24901 Seiten, 24901 Fotografien, Farblaserdruck, Umschläge Karton geprägt
41 x 19 x 3,5 - 4,2
KATHARINA GAENSSLER
Books
24 January – 8 March 2014
In her works Katharina Gaenssler develops her own way of dealing with photography. Her selected presentational forms are the book and the wall. In her typically large photography installations, which fill entire walls, she translates her visual material into complex, kaleidoscopic views of space.
The exhibition at the Barbara Gross Galerie concentrates on the books that Gaenssler makes when she does her installations; they are a kind of comprehensive visual archive of her projects. Characteristic of the artist’s work is the deliberately large number of photographs she produces —a reaction to the contemporary phenomenon of the steadily increasing flood of information and images.
Gaenssler’s work begins with what could be called a photographic inventory. Most of the photos are of spaces from art contexts, such as Hanne Darboven’s live and work space, or exhibition spaces like the Blauer Reiter at the Lenbachhaus; however, she also works with individual objects such as Raphael’s painting of the Sixtine Madonna, or the process of documenting her own travels.
When photographing, she employs a raster principle that is similar to scanning. She photographs a space from various positions and perspectives. Books are created out of the countless individual pictures. In contrast, only a portion of her photographic archive can be found in the Cubist- or Futurist-looking assemblages papered on the wall.
Gaenssler organizes the individual photographs in the books in the order in which they were taken. In this way, she creates impressive atlases of photographs, which not only depict the space, the object, or an environment in particularly rich detail, but also emphasize the amount of time needed to do the work. The view of the individual detail in the book is focused on structure and content. Here, abstract and specific formal conditions become especially obvious. The number and shape of the volumes vary, depending on the extent of the project, while the thematic context determines the individual design of each book.
In the exhibition, the closed books are presented as objects on pedestals. It is only in conversation of the artist with curators and book experts that the books are opened and discussed, and can then be “experienced” in all of the wealth of their individual design. The book presentations will take place twice a week at predetermined times. For more information, please call us or go to our website at barbaragross.de/exhibitions.
Katharina Gaenssler, born in 1974 in Munich, studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich from 1999 to 2005. In 2007 she received the Förderpreis from the City of Munich for photography; in 2009, she was awarded the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis für Bildende Kunst; in 2011, she received a travel grant to the United States from the Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst; from 2011 to 2013 she had a grant from the Dorothea Erxleben Programm at the HBK Braunschweig, and has been a guest professor at the HFBK in Hamburg since 2013.
Exhibitions (selected): 2013 de sculptura- Blicke in die Dresdner Skulpturensammlung, Kunsthalle Salzburg Museum; 2012 Sixtina, intervention at the exhibition Die Sixtische Madonna. Raffaels Kultbild wird 50, Staatliche Kunst- sammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden; 2012 Rasterfahndung. Das Raster in der Kunst nach 1945, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart; 2012 Déjà-vu? Die Kunst der Wiederholung von Dürer bis YouTube, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe; 2010 Bestandsaufnahme, Neue Galerie Dachau; 2009 Werkschau, Sprengel Museum, Hanover
Upcoming exhibition: 2014 (Mis)Understanding Photography — Works and Manifestos, Museum Folkwang, Essen, June 13 – August 15, 2014
Books
24 January – 8 March 2014
In her works Katharina Gaenssler develops her own way of dealing with photography. Her selected presentational forms are the book and the wall. In her typically large photography installations, which fill entire walls, she translates her visual material into complex, kaleidoscopic views of space.
The exhibition at the Barbara Gross Galerie concentrates on the books that Gaenssler makes when she does her installations; they are a kind of comprehensive visual archive of her projects. Characteristic of the artist’s work is the deliberately large number of photographs she produces —a reaction to the contemporary phenomenon of the steadily increasing flood of information and images.
Gaenssler’s work begins with what could be called a photographic inventory. Most of the photos are of spaces from art contexts, such as Hanne Darboven’s live and work space, or exhibition spaces like the Blauer Reiter at the Lenbachhaus; however, she also works with individual objects such as Raphael’s painting of the Sixtine Madonna, or the process of documenting her own travels.
When photographing, she employs a raster principle that is similar to scanning. She photographs a space from various positions and perspectives. Books are created out of the countless individual pictures. In contrast, only a portion of her photographic archive can be found in the Cubist- or Futurist-looking assemblages papered on the wall.
Gaenssler organizes the individual photographs in the books in the order in which they were taken. In this way, she creates impressive atlases of photographs, which not only depict the space, the object, or an environment in particularly rich detail, but also emphasize the amount of time needed to do the work. The view of the individual detail in the book is focused on structure and content. Here, abstract and specific formal conditions become especially obvious. The number and shape of the volumes vary, depending on the extent of the project, while the thematic context determines the individual design of each book.
In the exhibition, the closed books are presented as objects on pedestals. It is only in conversation of the artist with curators and book experts that the books are opened and discussed, and can then be “experienced” in all of the wealth of their individual design. The book presentations will take place twice a week at predetermined times. For more information, please call us or go to our website at barbaragross.de/exhibitions.
Katharina Gaenssler, born in 1974 in Munich, studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich from 1999 to 2005. In 2007 she received the Förderpreis from the City of Munich for photography; in 2009, she was awarded the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis für Bildende Kunst; in 2011, she received a travel grant to the United States from the Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst; from 2011 to 2013 she had a grant from the Dorothea Erxleben Programm at the HBK Braunschweig, and has been a guest professor at the HFBK in Hamburg since 2013.
Exhibitions (selected): 2013 de sculptura- Blicke in die Dresdner Skulpturensammlung, Kunsthalle Salzburg Museum; 2012 Sixtina, intervention at the exhibition Die Sixtische Madonna. Raffaels Kultbild wird 50, Staatliche Kunst- sammlungen Dresden, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden; 2012 Rasterfahndung. Das Raster in der Kunst nach 1945, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart; 2012 Déjà-vu? Die Kunst der Wiederholung von Dürer bis YouTube, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe; 2010 Bestandsaufnahme, Neue Galerie Dachau; 2009 Werkschau, Sprengel Museum, Hanover
Upcoming exhibition: 2014 (Mis)Understanding Photography — Works and Manifestos, Museum Folkwang, Essen, June 13 – August 15, 2014