Lot 21 | Katharina Fritsch | Maus

FRITSCH, KATHARINA
1956 Essen

Title: Maus.
Date: 1999.
Technique: Synthetic material and highly pigmented acrylic.
Measurement: 18,5 x 24,5 x 6,5cm.


The work is listed on the artists official website (www.katharinafritsch.de).

Provenance:
- Kasper König Collection, Berlin (directly from artist)

Katharina Fritsch - Maus (Mouse)
Katharina Fritsch creates sculptures that replicate everyday objects, with the figures oscillating in their dimensions between miniature and larger-than-life size. By manipulating the size and color of these objects and arranging them in unexpected combinations, she destabilizes the familiar. This is also the case in the depiction of the black mouse. Fritsch's precise production processes, which reach near industrial perfection, include sketches, handmade models, which are translated into casts and finally receive a coating of highly saturated matte paint that creates her signature afterlife effect. For the mouse edition, the highly pigmented acrylic paint was applied to a plastic carrier. As a result of the color alienation, the mouse loses its individual character and thus appears as an mysterious artifact.

Fears and contradictions
Fritsch's works are deeply psychological and full of unsettling religious and spiritual associations. They are described as an attempt to visualize our greatest fears, which are rooted in mythology, religion, cultural history and everyday life. She sees herself as the medium of a vision, the mediator of a higher inspiration. Born in Essen in 1956, the artist studied under Fritz Schwegler at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf between 1977 and 1984 and has been a professor of sculpture since 2001, initially at the Kunstakademie Münster and since 2010 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Katharina Fritsch was represented alongside Hanne Darboven, Eva Hesse, Marina Abramovi? and Rebecca Horn as a female position in the 1984 exhibition "Von hier aus" curated by Kasper König. In 1987, the artist took part in the "Skulptur Projekte Münster" with a depiction of the Madonna of Lourdes.