Katharina Grosse Brings Immersive Work to Bustling Brooklyn Commons

German painter Katharina Grosse has long merged natural environments with her bright, three-dimensional work, but has never brought an outdoor installation to New York City—until now. Downtown Brooklyn’s MetroTech Center will be the first New York destination to host the artist’s otherworldly spin on street art, thanks to Public Art Fund’s “Katharina Grosse: Just Two of Us.”

“Just Two of Us” will bring the artist’s bright, jagged brushstrokes to life, intertwining the colorful forms with the green space of MetroTech Center’s wooded commons. Though the artist still works on canvas, utilizing both brush and spray gun to create layered, improvised, graffiti-style paintings, recent years have seen her explore new spatial territories. Painting on everything from aluminum to commercial furniture, her work is often a hybrid of painting and sculpture, seeking to expand its study of light, color, and form by seamlessly including the surrounding environment. No stranger to painting from a crane in order to reach high ceilings, Grosse will be on-site for the installation of “Just Two of Us,” painting in the plaza. [Read PAF’s post about the installation and see its images from MetroTech, pictured].

Public Art Fund, dedicated to the creation of cutting-edge free exhibitions in the public sphere, has shown outdoor work by everyone from Matthew Day Jackson to Do Ho Suh, and recruited Grosse, one of its highest-profile artists ever, for their 20th year partnering with Forest City Ratner at MetroTech. “Just Two of Us,” expected to recall “technicolor firewood or meteors that have fallen from the sky,” as PAF describes, is appropriately grand for the occasion.

“Katharina Grosse: Just Two of Us” will be on view at MetroTech Center, October 27, 2013 – September 14, 2014. See the artist’s work for sale on Artsy.