Katharina Grosse's 'Arrels' Transforms Palma's Llotja into Painted Landscape

German artist Katharina Grosse has installed 'Arrels' at the Llotja de Palma, a 15th-century Gothic building in Mallorca, running from May 28, 2026 to January 31, 2027. Curated by David Barro, director of Es Baluard Museu, the project cannot physically alter the heritage structure, so Grosse instead fills the interior with mounds of soil and a large uprooted tree, partially buried, with manipulated roots suggesting drama. The entire ensemble—earth, tree, and covered floor—is spray-painted, making nature itself the pigment. Grosse, born in Freiberg im Breisgau in the early 1960s, has long used spray guns to distance the artistic act from the hand, painting in situ since her first aerosol monochrome at Kunsthalle Bern in 1998. Her practice erases boundaries between painting, sculpture, and architecture; for her, 'everything is painting.' At the Llotja, the container and the work become one, accessible from all sides. In September 2026, Grosse will open 'Black Bed' at the Munch Museum in Oslo, a reinterpretation of her 2004 work 'Das Bett,' where she spray-painted her Düsseldorf bedroom.