Düsseldorf
Katharina Fritsch
K20 Grabbeplatz
Grabbeplatz 5
April 20–September 8, 2002
Tate Modern
Bankside
September 7–December 9, 2001
The Tate press packet calls Katharina Fritsch “one of the most important artists to have emerged from Europe in the last twenty years”; still, she remains something of a critical enigma. Her familiar forms, derived as much from Disney gift shop as medieval reliquary, exert broad appeal, but the purported accessibility can be deceptive. Shifts in scale and hue, single motifs such as the ubiquitous Madonna proliferated into mountains of replicas—these are her means of reenchanting the generic object. Or is it the other way around? Interpretations are split, which might be the point since value and faith are here intimately bound up. Organized by Iwona Blazwick and Susanne Bieber, this show comprises nineteen works realized since 1979.