Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Artist Notes: Katrin Grote-Baker in Berlin









dear stacey and addison,
just wanted to send you some pics of the opening.....it was gooooood!
wishing you a happy weekend
sending you much love from berlin
katrin




https://vimeo.com/129765983
qui e il video di me...3 minuti...dai una occhiata



















Katrin Grote-Baker's work is a product of her name. It is hyphenated. Two halves, like the left and right sides of her brain exist independently, and brilliantly. Each shines on its own, without any need to integrate, or any need to reconcile, or to become one.





On the one hand we are stood upright by her primal abstractions with their powerful felt rhythms and their driving force. This is body work. Physical work. Emotional work. It erupts like a volcano; it freezes like lava that has run its course.




Then there is the other work. The work that by contrast uses prescribed calligraphic gestures that appeal to our more cerebral selves. We are pulled in by such a more familiar experience. Our minds purr to be so engaged by passages which flow in directions by which we have been nurtured.




And that is the question! Nature vs. nurture. Which do we respond to? Which do we appreciate? Which do we believe? Katrin Grote-Baker roasts us on that spit.

If we have to choose, who am I to side against nature; somehow I believe the body work more. Something about it cannot lie. Its pulsating forms know no artifice. They come as they are. They are what they are. We take them or leave them, and where they leave their stamp, well, that place is warm blooded, and runs deep.

The truth is, however, that Katrin has been well aware of these opposing forces in her life for a long time. How can she honor each of them, not compromise them without abandoning one or the other? Does bringing them together end up cancelling them each out. Aren't they better separate? Does she really have to chose only one of them? The world tells her yes: "You have to be consistent." But she tells herself something else. "I need both. They don't go together, but they both matter to me! Why not!" 


But the truth is, again, that it is all coming together after all. The triumph that is Katrin Grote-Baker is one. You can see it. The fierce and floral forms of the body dressed in the lyrical lines of the mind. Like linen or lace draped elegantly around the primal mother. At last.

Take one more look.






Addison Parks
Spring Hill, 2015







Katrin Grote-Baker

(0049) 0170 971 7668
www.katringrote.com
info@katringrote.com

Atelier:

Atelierhaus Weissensee
Raum 2012
Neumagener Str.25
13088 Berlin