05.08.–24.09.1989

The artistic work of Katharina Fritsch (born in 1956 in Essen and living in Düsseldorf) has increasingly attracted attention over the past years, prompting us to present her continuous development in an exhibition and an accompanying catalogue. Within the framework of several important group exhibitions showing contributions by Katharina Fritsch, she has reformulated the currently relevant question pertaining to the contemporary function of sculpture. Among these are works in public space such as "Gelbe Madonna" ("Yellow Madonna") for "Skulptur Projekte in Münster 1987" and proposed projects that couldn't be realised. All works by Katharina Fritsch to date use sculptural means to give unusual answers to the various given situations for which the works were conceived. The theme of Katharina Fritsch's artistic work is questioning the reality of objects, commodities, and motifs which we can perceive every day and which are simultaneously subjected to a collective code of identification. The objects Katharina Fritsch uses are taken from everyday commodity offers, and the artistic concept, in its precise but differing reproduction or serial production, speculates with the phenomena of reality and appearance, standardisation and individuality, originality and the characteristics of commodities. The quality of the work lies in the precision with which Katharina Fritsch supervises the production of her works. Technicalness as expression of perfection is heightened to artistic perfection, in order to express in it the will of an artistic concept of reach the ideal.

Photo: Katrin Schilling