Few artists have pushed painting beyond its traditional limits as boldly as Katharina Grosse. In Arrels, on view at La Llotja from May 28th, 2026 to January 31st, 2027, she fills one of Palma’s most historic buildings with colour, creating an immersive environment that reshapes the way visitors experience space.
Presented by Es Baluard Museu, the exhibition brings Grosse’s expansive artistic language into dialogue with the architecture, history, and atmosphere of the Gothic landmark.
A site-specific art installation where colour becomes architecture
For more than thirty years, Grosse has expanded painting into architecture, landscape, and public space. In Arrels—the Catalan word for “roots”—she creates a vivid landscape inside La Llotja, using sweeping colour to connect walls, floors, and volumes into one continuous experience.
The building is not simply a backdrop. Its structure, scale, and atmosphere become part of the work itself. Painting, sculpture, and architecture blend into a vibrant environment that surrounds the viewer from every direction.
La Llotja as living terrain
Built in the fifteenth century as Palma’s maritime exchange, La Llotja is one of the city’s architectural treasures. Its soaring columns and luminous interior have witnessed centuries of trade, encounters, and cultural life.
In Arrels, Grosse engages directly with this history. The installation responds to the building’s identity as a place shaped by movement and exchange, creating a dialogue between a centuries-old monument and a fleeting artistic intervention. The result balances permanence and change, memory and imagination.
Arrels functions as a single large-scale environment rather than a collection of individual works. As visitors move through the space, colour shifts with light, perspective, and distance, creating a constantly changing experience.
Curated by David Barro and developed in collaboration with Christoph Steinmeyer and Jackie Herbst, the exhibition was co-produced by Es Baluard Museu and the Government of the Balearic Islands.
KATHARINA GROSSE
Arrels, 2026
Courtesy of ES BALUARD MUSEU. Photography by BRUNO DAUREO. © of the work of art, KATHARINA GROSSE, VEGAP, Illes Balears, 2026
