Today
Open
10:00-21:00
With her expansive 'spatial drawings' and fascinating works using handmade paper, Monika Grzymala has developed one of the most unusual approaches to contemporary graphic art. The starting point for her large-scale interventions – often involving strips of adhesive tape stretched across the chosen space – is the searching quality and movement of the drawn line, which she extends into the third dimension by interweaving or knotting the strips together. This 'emancipation' and 'evolution' of the drawn line is Grzymala's primary artistic concern: in her site-responsive installations – which have transformed spaces at the MoMA/Museum of Modern Art in New York (2010), in collector Dian Woodner's private apartment in New York (2010), at the Biennale of Sydney (2012) and at the 49 Nord 6 Est FRAC Lorraine Collection in Metz/France (2011 and 2013), among others – and in her new work devised especially for the Saal der Meisterzeichnung at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, she constantly pushes the boundaries of the line by creating drawings in space. The same applies to her works in handmade paper, which are presented either in frames or as large, suspended sheets. Like arteries, relief lines on paper made by the artist herself flow out from the flat surface of the sheet and evolve into independent, three-dimensional objects – the image and its support become one.
The notion of a 'physical drawing in space' also provides the theme for a new performance project Monika Grzymala has developed with the American choreographer Jeremy Wade, which will be presented as part of this year's "Internationales Sommerfestival" at Kampnagel. The performance will premiere on 8 August 2103.
After completing her training in traditional stone sculpture, Monika Grzymala (*1970) went on to study visual art from 1994 to 2001, among others at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg. She lives and works in Berlin.
The exhibition in the Saal der Meisterzeichnung is the first instalment of "Imprint", a new collaboration between the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the Griffelkunst Vereinigung featuring innovative contemporary approaches to graphic art and printmaking.
To accompany the exhibition, a catalogue has been published in the Griffelkunst series "Portfolio". The publication includes a conversation between Monika Grzymala and Petra Kipphoff as well as a text by Günther Gercken, and is available from the museum shop for € 12. www.freunde-der-kunsthalle.de.