Jutta Koether

Jutta Koether (b. 1958, Cologne) lives and works in New York and Berlin. Since the 1980s, Koether has utilized appropriation to situate herself within an eclectic artistic genealogy that references idioms from French baroque painting to Symbolism, Post-Impressionism, and Surrealism. What Koether deals with in her paintings, are the formulaic gestures of an exhausted and mostly male self. The evocative magic of such pathos formulas is heightened by motifs typical of her work are garlands, dotted picture outlines, circle shapes, grid-like zones, apples and canes. These visual leitmotifs are deployed like rhetorical effects, sometimes passing through the bodies.

Koether has had several solo exhibitions including Cecily Brown, Jutta Koether: Good Luck Spot I, II (two-person exhibition) at Bortolami in New York (2023); Jutta Koether: Black Place at Artium Museoam Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country in Spain (2022); Jutta Koether: Femme Colonne at Lévy Gorvy in London (2021); Jutta Koether: How Goes It? at Galerie Buchholz in Cologne (2021); Jutta Koether: 4 the Team at Lévy Gorvy in New York (2020); Jutta Koether: Libertine at Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach (2019); Jutta Koether: Early Works 1982-1992 at Galerie Buchholz in Berlin (2019); Tour de Madame, survey exhibition at Museum Brand-horst in Munich (2018) which travelled to MUDAM in Luxembourg (2019); Best of Studios at Campoli Presti in London (2016).

Her work featured in various group exhibitions most recently Amy Sillman: Oh, Clock! at Kunstmuseum Bern in Germany (2024); Nothing Is: Sun Ra and Others’ Covers at UBG in Cologne (2024); A Maze Zanine , Amaze Zaning, A-Mezzanning, Meza-9 at David Zwirner in New York (2022); Souffler de son souffle (Breathing one’s breath) at Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles in Arles (2021); Eternal Seasons: Part II at Lévy Gorvy in Hong Kong (2021); The Stomach and the Port, Liverpool Biennial at Tate Liverpool in Liverpool (2021); Europa. Antike Zukunft at Kunsthalle Steiermark in Graz (2021); Enjoy – the mumok Collection in Change at Mumok in Vienna (2021); Natures Mortes at Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2021).

She has had solo exhibitions in multiple institutions such as Seasons and sacraments at DCA – Dundee Contemporary Arts in Dundee (2013); The Thirst at Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2011); NO. 5 at Bergen Kunsthall in Norway (2008); Änderungen aller Art at Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland (2007); Fantasia Colonia at Koelnischer Kunstverein in Cologne (2006).
Her work was part of The Borgmann Donation Jump into the Future-Art from the 90’s and 2000’s at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2018).
The artist’s work was included in the 2014 Shanghai Biennial; in the Whitney Biennials in 2012 and 2006 and in the 2012 São Paulo Biennial. Koether’s work was extensively featured in an edition of Art Since 1900 edited by Hal Foster, Rosalind Krauss, Yve-Alain Bois, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh and David Joselit.