For Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015, MoMA commissioned Katharina Gaenssler to create a photo-mural right outside the exhibition galleries on the third-floor platform of the Museum’s Bauhaus Staircase, which is inspired by Walter Gropius’s famous staircase in the Bauhaus building in Dessau, Germany. Gaenssler photographed that stairway, as well as two works that reference it, both in MoMA’s collection: Bauhaus Stairway (1932) by Oskar Schlemmer and Bauhaus Stairway (1988) by Roy Lichtenstein. She collaged the resulting thousands of pictures together in an installation that explores the relationship between MoMA and the influential modernist school, tracing the history of the Bauhaus’s monumental contribution to the history of art and architecture through works of imitation and homage. In the process, she adds a new artwork to this lineage.

From left: Oskar Schlemmer (German, 1888–1943). Bauhaus Stairway. 1932. Oil on canvas, 63 7/8 x 45″ (162.3 x 114.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Philip Johnson; Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997). Bauhaus Stairway. 1988. Oil and magna on canvas, 7′ 10″ x 66″ (238.8 x 167.7 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein

One of the greatest privileges of working with living artists is seeing them at work. Over the course of four days, we watched Gaenssler create her installation on the Museum’s walls (as did some curious visitors). Below are photographs that trace the evolution of the work as it was created, page by page, brushstroke by brushstroke.

Katharina Gaenssler beginning work on the photo-mural, October 27, 2015. Photo: Kristen Gaylord

Gaenssler at work, October 28, 2015. Each sheet of paper is covered in paste, and then placed on the wall and re-coated with a wallpaper paste brush. Photo: Kristen Gaylord

Gaenssler at work, October 29, 2015. Covering the area meant going all the way to the ceiling with the photo-mural, and into the doorway of The Robert B. Menschel Gallery. Photo: Kristen Gaylord

Gaenssler at work, October 30, 2015. The final steps involved Gaenssler adding paper sheets all the way to the edge of the space, then trimming the excess. Also visible: Alexander Calder. Lobster Trap and Fish Tail. Roxbury, Connecticut, 1939. Painted steel wire and sheet aluminum, 8′ 6″ (260 cm) x 9′ 6″ (290 cm) in diameter. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Commissioned by the Advisory Committee for the stairwell of the Museum. Photo: Kristen Gaylord

Katharina Gaenssler (German, b. 1974). Bauhaus Staircase. 2015. Photocopies and wallpaper paste, 12′ 5″ × 32″ (378.5 × 975.4 cm). Installation view of Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, November 7, 2015–March 20, 2016. © 2016 The Museum of Modern Art. Photo: Thomas Griesel

Quentin Bajac, The Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography, has described her photo murals as “all-encompassing and monumental, forcing the viewer to engage with [them] physically and to re-examine the exhibition space itself.” They construct and deconstruct the sites of art production and presentation, but are themselves ephemeral, coming down when the exhibition ends. Gaenssler’s Bauhaus Staircase gains additional poignancy by being the last work exhibited in this space before the stairway and galleries are renovated as part of MoMA’s building project.

Renovation of MoMA’s Bauhaus Staircase begins February 1, however Katharina Gaenssler’s Bauhaus Staircase will remain on view as part of Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 through March 20.