BREMEN.- The American artist and filmmaker Sarah Morris (* 1967) has created a monumental, panoramic mural for the central entrance hall of the Kunsthalle Bremen. Jardim Botânico [Rio] (“Botanical Garden”) is related to the artist’s new series of works entitled Rio but also reacts to the architecture of the museum. The spectacular installation combines luminous colours and abstract grid structures with rectangular and curved forms to form a spectacular environment. The numerous layers of brilliant pigments and household enamels give rise to visual rhythms as well as to tactile, almost relief-like structures.

Morris' paintings and room-filling murals operate in the space between the modernist tradition of geometric-abstract art and contemporary design. Her compositions serve as a vehicle for the artist's reflections on everyday objects, industrial design, architecture and, above all, global metropolises, but also explore the illusory world and superficial aesthetic of the Hollywood film, glossy magazines, fashion and advertising.

Sarah Morris is internationally known both as a painter and filmmaker. From 1998 onward, she has created a series of painterly and filmic portraits of cities which are based on meticulous research. Her most recent works, for instance, are devoted to the processes of staging and transformation of Olympic cities such as those in Munich (2008), Beijing (2009), and Rio de Janeiro (Bye Bye Brazil, 2013). Filmic and photographic impressions often serve as the point of departure for her painterly compositions which, created digitally, may be read as analytical, abstract as well as intuitive translations. The titles of her paintings often refer to familiar buildings, plazas or names of cities. Her observations consistently remain aesthetic and fascinating; they condense the pulsating life of modern capitalism into pure form.

"I experience and see the paintings in this same manner: visceral, after-images, interfaces sometimes presenting something that is repulsive, overwhelming; a system that is larger than you, with moments of inherent complicitness, and yet distance or failure built in.“ (Sarah Morris, 2013)

Acquisition of a painting by Sarah Morris
Through the support of the Patrons' Circle for Contemporary Art the Kunsthalle Bremen has acquired Sarah Morris’ important painting Big Ben, 2012. The series of paintings was developed in the context of Morris’ installation for the London Underground station Gloucester Road, which derives its inspiration from the iconic clock tower of Big Ben in the British capital. The same composition also was the basis for a poster for the Olympic Games in London in 2012.

Sarah Morris was born in 1967 in the United Kingdom. She studied at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island (1985-89); Jesus College, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (1987-88); Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program (1989-90). She has received the American Academy Philip Morris Award, Berlin Prize Fellow (1999-2000) and Joan Mitchell Painting Award.

Morris has had numerous solo exhibitions including at the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford (1999); Kunsthalle Zürich (2000); Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin (2001); Kunstforeningen, Copenhagen (2004), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2005); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2005); Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover (2005); Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2006); Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland (2008); Lenbachhaus, Munich (2008); Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (2009); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main (2009); Wexner Centre for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (20012); Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (2012) and Musée National Fernand Léger, Biot, France (2012).

She has also participated in numerous group exhibitions including Saatchi Collection, London (1998); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (1999); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands (2000); Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany (2000); Sammlung Goetz, Munich (2001); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2002, 2005 and 2006); Tate Britain, London (2003); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2003 and 2007); Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2004); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2005); Kumho Museum of Art, Seoul (2007); Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich (2008); Garage Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2008); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2009); Witte de With, Rotterdam (2009); Guggenheim, New York (2010); MAK, Vienna (2011); Kunsthalle Zürich (2012) and Casa de Vidro Lina Bo Bardi, São Paulo (2013).

Morris has executed site specific works at the Kunsthalle Basel (2002); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2005); Lever House, New York (2006); Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2010); London Underground Gloucester Road Station, London (2012); Federal Courthouse of Bergen, Norway (2012) as well as many other sites.

Morris currently lives and works in New York and London.