The Wunderblock Foundation is a non-profit organization established in 2020 by the painter Katharina Grosse. The foundation has set itself the goals of expanding and deepening our understanding of painting – as well as helping to shape the multifaceted future of this medium, which is constantly being called into question. Its intended central task is the creation of spaces for thought and experience, within which the question of what painting can achieve within the social framework of our world is addressed. It sees itself as an interdisciplinary practice space, a research centre, and an open archive.

With the Wunderblock Award, the foundation promotes outstanding protagonists from various fields. The award is aimed at fostering unusual artistic positions and projects. This form of support is to be continuously expanded.

The Wunderblock Foundation is based in Groß Kreutz, Brandenburg, on the grounds of a former agricultural cooperative. Various buildings on the site will be converted into an ensemble of flexibly usable studio, living, and exhibition spaces. Included in the foundation headquarters will be a library, live-in studios, communal areas, and a large performance space. The extensive grounds will be landscaped and reforested by the visionary Dutch landscape and garden designer Piet Oudolf.

The Wunderblock Foundation is directed by Katharina Grosse in collaboration with her board members. The circle of friends and supporters includes activists, artists, art enthusiasts, curators, scientists, writers, institutions, and companies.

Since the early 2000s, Katharina Grosse (b. 1961, Freiburg im Breisgau) has been counted among the best-known contemporary artists. Grosse’s aesthetic approach is politically driven – her painting is aimed at the transformation of the given and the dissolution of established boundaries. With the Wunderblock Foundation, she wishes to place the field of painting into a larger cultural context and accompany it, in all its complexity, into the future.

Grosse lives and works in Berlin and New Zealand.

Studio Katharina Grosse

Natalija Martinovic (b. 1974, Wolfsburg) studied art history and aesthetics at the Kunsthochschule Kassel (1995-2001) and until 2012 worked in art education and administration as well as in the art trade in Berlin, Kassel, and New York. She has been the head of Studio Katharina Grosse since 2012.

Jasper Hagenberg (b. 1969, Düsseldorf) works as an intellectual property lawyer. One of the main focuses of his consultancy practice is the field of visual arts.