Jutta Koether

Jutta Koether - Themes from pop culture and gender politics

Born in Cologne, Germany in 1958, Jutta Koether studied art education and philosophy at the University of Cologne from 1977 to 1981 and then worked as an editor for the music and pop culture magazine Spex, first published in 1980, and for which she was also co-editor from 1985 to 2000. She also worked as a reviewer and author for other magazines, in particular for the art magazine Texte zur Kunst, founded in Cologne in 1990, but also for Artforum and Eau de Cologne. Parallel to her writing work, Koether pursued her career as an artist, drawing her subjects primarily from pop culture and gender politics. Her first book, f., published in 1987, was also translated into English. In 1992, Koether moved to New York, where she took part in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Programme until 1993. In 2010, she accepted a position as professor of painting and drawing at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, and has also taught at the School of Visual Arts, Bard College, Cooper Union in New York, and the Berlin University of the Arts.

The canon of Modernism is called into question

Jutta Koether repeatedly takes a critical look at the history of painting in her work. The playful reorganisation of the existing canon, dominated by male artists, is one of her concerns. Her very first well-known series of works, the ‘red paintings’, contain self-portraits as well as new interpretations of classical works of art, whereby Koether does not imitate the painting style of her role models, but satirises it with commentary and confronts it with a decidedly female equivalent. Jutta Koether confronts the resulting contradictions in her debate with established stereotypes and trends with subtle, disarming humour. It is important for the artist to awaken in her audience a new "interpretative interest" in painting, because, according to Koether's conviction, art today, in the age of media oversupply, is only consumed. The social media-dominated world of quick "clicks, likes and followers" must be countered by art with something enduring, valuable and relevant.

Collaboration with other artists

Jutta Koether describes herself as a "painter, performer, participant" and frequently collaborates with other artists on her projects, for example with musicians Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore (both members of the rock band Sonic Youth), Japanese artist Ei Arakawa and painter and conceptual artist Steven Parrino. The collaborations also arise due to her interest in other areas of pop-culture such as music: Koether is interested in hip-hop, techno and punk and incorporates corresponding influences into her paintings. Today, Jutta Koether's works are included in the collections of important institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Saatchi Gallery in London, the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, and many others.

Jutta Koether lives and works in Berlin and New York.