Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
Katharina Fritsch, DE
Birkenkreuz, 2026 © Katharina Fritsch. Photo © Manifesta 16 Ruhr/Ivan Erofeev.
Katharina Fritsch’s work revolves around the precise staging of everyday life, which she transforms into monumental, often unsettlingly smooth and intensely coloured forms. Since the 1980s, she has been creating figures and objects that viewers may perceive as familiar or uncanny – animals, people or objects appear isolated, repeated or on an unexpected scale. In this way, they elude unambiguous interpretation and draw on collective memories of the everyday and religious images or situations. The clear form and intense colour of her objects deeply inscribe themselves into our visual memory, whilst maintaining an unexpected distance.