This summer at Fort Tilden, a disused military outpost in Queens, MoMA PS1 presents Rockaway!, a new work by the German painter Katharina Grosse in which she covers an abandoned beachside building with methodical splatters of neon red, orange and pink paint. We spoke to Grosse about her project.
Your work often seems like it is done by someone hovering in the sky. Do you see a narrative there? Is it your eye there, or is it a more objective view?
It has to do with a certain kind of absurd scale, so you could choose whether it’s another [person’s] eye, whosever eye that is. But it’s not objective. I think it’s a multidimensional painting and it looks different from all kinds of angles. I do think that scaling it up is very important, so that you have a totally different relationship with the painting, with your body and with the house.
My work is very interfering, even if it’s a beautiful colour or a wave. Inscribing a large painting on a large structure is upsetting at times. That’s what I want to do, of course. I want to be visible as a painter in our social fabric and I’m trying to find out what a painting can do, so I’m trying to use different forms, sizes, situations, set-ups or surfaces for my understanding of painting.
Have you considered the audience for this work?
What I find interesting is that you have to go there to see it. That’s something I’ve been so intrigued by in works like Walter De Maria’s [permanent installation in the New Mexico desert] The Lightning Field.
But people should go [to see Rockaway!]. It’s a very physical experience to see it, rather than see a photo. It’s a great spot, and it will be taken down afterwards. The whole thing will disappear—not only my work but also the house. So it’s just a little moment in our lives. You can’t see it again. You can’t replay it, in a sense.
• Katharina Grosse: Rockaway!, Gateway National Recreation Area at Fort Tilden, New York, until 30 November