Canyon, a new work by Katharina Grosse, is on public display as of 5 October 2022. This installation is the latest artist commission by the Fondation, and comes after works by Olafur Eliasson, Ellsworth Kelly and Adrián Villar Rojas inspired by the architecture of the Frank Gehry building.

Composed of eight 5-millimeter-thick aluminum sheets “petals” spray-painted with acrylic and connected to a beam, Canyon is a response to the artist’s question: “How can a painting appear in a space with no floor and no walls, where air, light, flows and energies circulate?” It is a reference to the characteristics of the “canyon” (the name given to the void that is visible inside the building from the ground up.)

Echoing Frank Gehry’s glass facade – a ship moored to a cascade – the artist has hoisted a kind of cut-out sail using a pulley, in a tense exchange with the architecture. From the work’s conception, a close dialogue has been established between the artist and the architect – a passionate debate around the use of color in a pre-existing building.

Canyon is visible from the Fondation’s different landings. Featuring curves and counter-curves, the work defies gravity by combining elegance and monumentality in a kind of choreography with the building.

This commission is an extension of two new interventions by Katharina Grosse last spring: Splinter (2022), part of the “Color in Fugues” exhibition in Paris; and Apollo, Apollo (2022) in Venice, part of the Fondation’s “Hors les Murs” programme and the 59th Venice Biennale.