Matthew Marks Gallery

Schlange / Snake first appeared as part of a group of objects displayed on a glass shelf in Katharina Fritsch’s 2001 exhibition at Tate Modern in London. Since then, the snake has been a recurrent motif in her work, including a version more than five feet long in her outdoor sculpture Figurengruppe / Group of Figures (2006–08), in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In Fritsch’s work the snake is a culturally and psychologically evocative symbol of shared fears and superstitions often expressed in religious stories, folk tales, and legends.