Public Art in Chicago: AIC: Bluhm Family Terrace [Sculptures by Katharina Fritsch ]

Sculptures by Katharina Fritsch

Temporary Exhibit: April 21, 2012–October 28, 2012

Location: Bluhm Family Terrace

at the Art Institute of Chicago [AIC]

There are three groups of sculptures..

as shown in images below..

All works date to 2009-12 and are courtesy of

Katharina Fritsh and Matthew Mark Gallery, New York.

1. Stilleben / 1st Still Life - by Katharina Fritsch

Figure of a Saint [St. Michael] / Copper, lacquered

Madonna Figure / Copper, lacquered

Hand / Bronze, lacquered

Egg / Plastic, Lacquered

Skull / Epoxy, lacquered

3. Stilleben / 3rd Still Life - by Kathrina Fritsch

Fern / Bronze, lacquered

Skull / Bronze, lacquered

Apple / Bronze, lacquered

Apple - by Katharina Fritsch

Apple / Bronze , lacquered

Sculptures by Katharina Fritsch at Bluhm Family Terrace [AIC]

Some details..

Figure of a Saint [St. Michael]

Copper, lacquered

Skull

Epoxy, lacquered

Madonna Figure

Copper, lacquered

From the AIC Website.. click here..

Katharina Fritsch roots her work in the personal, often drawing from childhood memories of familiar circumstances or chance encounters. Her references engage broad aspects of folklore and culture through meticulous reproductions of everyday objects, which she formally manipulates with shifts in scale and color. Made strange by repetition and siting, her sculptural installations are both seductive and disturbing. In the Proustian sense of activating memory, Fritsch’s works create an unnerving familiarity that is subsequently destabilized by the realization that we are seeing a form, a character, or an object for the very first time.

While Fritsch’s painstakingly handcrafted objects are easily mistaken for manufactured items, the artist employs a complicated and time-consuming fabrication process that begins with sketches and scale models. Molded by hand, worked and reworked, each object is subjected to multiple processes of casting or layering. The completed yet still idiosyncratic forms are then painted in bold, highly saturated colors with matte, nonreflective surfaces, creating a sense of otherworldliness. In Fritsch’s words, “Often my sculptures have a matte surface so that there is no reflection whatsoever from the surroundings. That increases the impression of a vision that one cannot grasp.”

Born in Essen, Germany, Fritsch trained at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, where she continues to live and work.