Bombastic Views

Painters need paint – it could be as simple as that. Julia Gruner (b. 1984, Lüdenscheid), who graduated from Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2015 as a master student of Katharina Grosse, opts for quite a different palette in her »Domestic Paintings« by using products such as Bilou Sweet Galaxy shower gel, Dontodent mouthwash junior Learning Effect, Dresdner Essenz bath concentrate Pure Calm, got2b Glue waterproof hair gel, Rewe Beste Wahl cream with Aceto Balsamico di Modena IPG, Rewe Bio Styrian pumpkin seed oil, and treacle­moon shower cream One Ginger Morning. This creates structure, is then blurred, squeezed on top of one another, resulting in a chemical reaction between the components. The artist spreads this onto a sheet of cling film on a scanner, in a way that occasionally includes a few folds and creases. The effects range from bombastic views and interstellar spaces to childlike doodles. In other words, these ephemeral paintings captured in the scan pique our curiosity about the industrially manufactured products that surround us every day, which, moreover, are perfectly tailored to every ­situation in life, and whose ingredients and manufacturing processes we basically know little about. The Kienbaum Artists’ Books are the ideal platform for such experiments. The publication consists of four elements: a folded poster, which shows a complete scan of a work, as the cover, and three booklets. In the first, Julia Gruner presents details from several works, the second lists the product information in ­detail, and in the third booklet, there is a detailed list of the colors used in the food ­products along with their properties.