Katharina Fritsch

Katharina Fritsch is one of the most important artists to have emerged in Europe in the last twenty years. This book, and the accompanying exhibition, provide the first major survey of her work in this country. Fritsch's work - predominantly sculpture - is both general and specific, recreating types of objects that already exist in the world, and fabricating a kind of platonic version of them to trigger collective recognition. A case of books with no titles or texts symbolises the idea of books; a yellow madonna encapsulates all figures of worship; a group of rats, that in their formal composition and colossal scale suggest a collective of folk stories and myths. At the same time these objects are created according to her own singular inner vision. Each sculpture or installation is made with absolute precision, almost surreal in their perfect realisations of people or objects in the world. Fritsch is also interested in craftsmanship and the traditions around the Arts and Crafts and Bauhaus movements, often producing her works as multiples that can be bought by ordinary people as ornaments for the home. Katharina Fritsch lives and works in Dusseldorf. A retrospective exhibition of her work was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1997, which then transferred to Basel in 1997. She also exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and 1999. Recent show venues include The White Cube in London, and the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York.