577 & 657 4

Tamara Grcic often incorporates urban or natural spaces into her works. In Blickachsen 13, she responds to the tree stock of the Kurpark, choosing two distinctive tree trunks for her installation “577 & 657”. The title simply quotes the inventory numbers noted on the trees. But it is not only the numbers that mark out the trees as individual, it is also their characteristic growth. Around each trunk, Grcic placed an iridescent stainless steel ring, coated in flip-flop paint from the car industry. Depending on the position and perspective of the observer, the position of the sun or the time of day, the changing colours of the paint have a different effect. This surface appearance on the one hand points to the meaning of colour in nature – in the animal world, for example as a means of camouflage, as a warning, or in courtship display – on the other, in its technical brilliance and artificiality, it stands in direct contrast to the natural world of the park.
Tamara Grcic first studied art history and cultural anthropology, then fine art at the Städelschule. Following numerous major exhibitions at home and abroad, as well as installations in the public space, for example at the Venice Biennale in 2009, she has since 2014 been professor of sculpture at the Kunsthochschule Mainz.