KATHARINA GROSSE
WUNDERBILD

Katharina Grosse is best-known for her expansive in-situ paintings, in which she paints directly onto architecture, interiors and landscapes to create vivid, haptic environments. Her bold large-scale paintings propose a direct bodily experience, jolting the viewer towards a new understanding of our relationship to place and to each other.

From June 5 to September 14, 2025, Deichtorhallen Hamburg will present Grosse’s major work Wunderbild, accompanied by a new spatial installation developed especially for Hamburg. The exhibition will also feature a selection of studio paintings as well as drawings and sketch books, that are on view for the first time, and will be complemented by the world premiere of a new documentary film by Claudia Müller, offering special insights into Grosse’s studio process.

Katharina Grosse will transform the 3,000-square-meter Hall for Contemporary Art with Wunderbild, an expansive painting which embraces sculptural and architectural elements. Measuring over 60 meters in length, Wunderbild takes the form of an imposing enfilade of paintings on loose cloth, draped from the ceiling on two sides. First presented at the National Gallery in Prague in 2018, Katharina Grosse restages her large-scale artwork in Hamburg and supplements it with a new sound piece created in collaboration with musician Stefan Schneider, resulting in a unique immersive experience of color and sound.

A further highlight of the exhibition is the Earthwork, a newly conceived spatial work developed specifically for Deichtorhallen Hamburg in the rear section of the hall. Here, Grosse transforms the exhibition space into a landscape of hills, turning the ground into a canvas. The painted terrain forms a striking contrast to the suspended fabric panels of Wunderbild. Colour extends across the floor and continues organically over sculpted mounds of earth. A narrow path leads through the painting on unstable grounds, allowing visitors to experience the work both physically and spatially.