SELECTED WORKS BY Kai Althoff
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Kai Althoff
Untitled
2001
Boat varnish, watercolour, pen and pencil on board
50 x 40cm |
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Untitled shows a group of black-clad men gathered around a table, immediately suggestive of conspiracy and covert sexual tension. Kai Althoff portrays the intrigue in the paint itself: yellow confronting black, the tenuous texture of the fabric and the oblique fly-on-the-ceiling angle which compresses the subjects into their opposing directions.
His all-male cast of characters gives credence to the corruptibility and heroism of youth. Pictured with an authoritative voyeurism, Kai Althoff infers a complicit approval to their coven. |
Kai Althoff
Untitled
1997
pen, pencil and tape on board
186 x 100cm |
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Kai Althoff's soldiers are drawn with delicate stylised dandyism. Conveyed with refined nobility, debauchery and humanity become indistinguishable; cruelty is portrayed with an acute tenderness. Flattened to an almost decorative motif, Althoff’s scene reads like theatre. Reminiscent of Georg Grosz's depictions of Berlin’s WW1 underworld, deplorable action is staged for consensual pleasure, a chic poster glamorising the (un)desirable. |
Kai Althoff
Untitled
2000
Lacquer, paper, watercolour and varnish on canvas
50 x 50cm |
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Kai Althoff’s paintings of Prussian soldiers flirt with a homoerotic subtext. His decorated brotherhood thinly veils their carnal motives under the guise of authority. He paints his violence with a sensual tenderness, rendered in the creaminess of folk tale fantasy. |
Kai Althoff
Winter
2002
watercolour, metallic paint and varnish on canvas
60 x 40cm |
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In Winter, Althoff uses a variety of media to add an unexpected quality to his graphic composition. Approaching the painting itself as collage, Althoff flaunts difference of style in each separate element to create tension and possible narratives within the unified whole.
Dark dream-like scenes adopt a painterly quality of reverence: a crouching figure is painted over crumpled aluminium foil, creating both a geological texture and reference to gilded religious icons. Sheltered like a grotto by a hard-edged militaristic design, punctuated by photographic images of stylised masculinity, they feed the painting with spirituality. Layers of ephemeral hues and high-gloss varnish create a transcendental illusiveness, perpetually flitting between gravitas and disco chic. |
Kai Althoff
Untitled
1999
watercolour, pen and pencil on board
25.5 x 24cm |
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Kai Althoff’s portrait is rendered with rudimentary simplicity: shape, tone and colour create a totality of exquisite presence. Untitled boasts a contained elegance, deceptive in its complexity. Sexualised with reference to Egon Schiele, Untitled is an overture of dandyism. Kai Althoff tenders this painting with the contrived scrutiny of the most discerning connoisseur. Haughty and self-possessed, Kai Althoff’s boy is a perfect specimen. Both ruffian and swan song, he encapsulates the duplicity and danger of idealised beauty. |
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ARTIST INFORMATION
Kai Althoff's BIOGRAPHY

1966
Born in Cologne, Germany
Currently lives and works in Cologne
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2004
Kai Althoff: Kai Kein Respekt (Kai No Respect)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; ICA, Boston
2003
Vom Monte Scherbelino Sehen
Diözesanmuseum, Freising
2002
Kai Althoff (with Armin Krämer) Kunstverein
Braunschweig, Germany
2001
Impulse Anton Kern Gallery, New York; Galerie Neu, Berlin
Aus Dir Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
2000
Stigmata aus Grossmanssucht Galerie Ascan Crone,
Hamburg
Hau ab, Du Scheusal Galerie Neu, Berlin
1999
Galerie Hoffmann & Senn, Vienna
Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne
1998
Reflux Lux Galerie Neu, Berlin
Bezirk der Widerrede Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
1997
Hilfen und Recht der äußeren Wand (an mich) Anton
Kern Gallery, New York In Search of Eulenkippstadt Robert
Prime Gallery, London Heetz, Nowak, Rehberger Museum of
Contemporary Art, São Paulo
1996
Hakelhug Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne
1995
Hast Du Heute Zeit - Ich Aber Nicht Künstlerhaus, Stuttgart
Modern wird lahmgelegt Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2004
Huts Douglas Hyde
Gallery, Dublin
Dreams and Conflicts: The Dictatorship of the Viewer Venice
Biennale
2003
Chère Paintre, Liebe Maler, Dear Painter
Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
A Perilous Space Magnani, London
actionbutton Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart,
Berlin
2002
Chère Paintre, Liebe Maler, Dear Painter
Centre Pompidou, Paris; Kunsthalle
Wien, Vienna
Drawing Now: 8 Propositions Museum of Modern Art, New York
2001
Drawings Regen Projects, Los
Angeles
Neue Welt Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt
Musterkarte - Modelos de Pintura en Alemania 2001 Galeria
Heinrich Erhardt, Madrid
I Love NY Anton Kern Gallery, New York
2000
Premio Michetti Museo Michetti, Francavilla
al Mare, Switzerland
00 Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New York
Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
1999
German Open Kunst Museum, Wolfsburg, Germany
How will we behave? Robert Prime Gallery, London
Oldnewtown Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York
Who, if not we? Elizabeth Cherry Contemporary Art, Tucson,
Arizona
On paper Stalke Galleri, Copenhagen
Ars Viva 98/99 - Installationen Portikus, Frankfurt
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