Katharina Grosse: Solvent Space, Richmond, VA
D. Dominick Lombardi
Using spray paints, compressors and acrylic paints thinned to a viscosity level of 19, Katharina Grosse transforms the industrial looking Solvent Space Gallery into a carnival of colorful passages and abstract splashes and shapes. Evoking works by James Rosenquist and Judy Pfaff, Grosse’s wild lines and tangles overcome the Gallery’s relatively banal, sterile architecture.
Along one main wall, Grosse positioned six slightly overlapping sheets of plywood before she began coloring the space–a structure that was later removed to reveal a ghostly rectangular void. These six plywood sheets appear in a second, smaller gallery adjacent to the main space, where they take on the appearance of colorful neon light reflected off of a thoroughly soaked pavement, or celestial nebulas, colorful sky-writing or a psychedelic version of the northern lights.
The room shakes with bravado here– the artist has made (seemingly) indelible mark on the space, covering all the walls and floor with shimmering saturated color. And like any good oversized work, visitors are consumed by this work, if only for a moment, as though walking very close to movie screen so that images are fractured into shards and spots of light and color.
