NEW YORK, NY.- Lévy Gorvy announced the gallerys representation of German artist Jutta Koether in the United States. Since the early 1980s, Koether has forged a painting practice that reckons with the mediums histories, contradictions, and pleasures. Departing from the question of what it means to paint, and to continue painting, in the present moment, Koether adopts a destabilized authorial position, welcoming collaborations with peers and involving viewers as active participants in the construction of her works meaning. The twinned processes of making and reception, she posits, are never complete but rather contingentcontinuously negotiated as a work moves across different places and times. Mining the discourses of appropriation that shaped Cologne culture in the 80s, as well as those that she encountered when she moved to New York in 1991, Koether made them her own, clearing a space for painting that embraced affect, asynchrony, and dissonance. Using and reusing a range of motifs and materialssuch as grids, X-marks, and red paintshe cultivates the mediums essential strangeness: its ability, despite its myriad determinations, to yield something unanticipated and vital.
Dominique Lévy has commented: We are inspired by Jutta Koethers unique approach to painting. She is a rare artist who has her roots in a deep European tradition and yet profoundly belongs to a very meaningful group of American artists. Rigorously conceptual and contemplative in her language, she comes out of the modernist tradition of 20th century painting. Her constant renegotiation of the dynamics of abstraction and figuration as well as that of the self and the other, connects her to the work of many artists the gallery is committed to.
Lévy Gorvys first exhibition with the artist will be held in the fall of 2020. At the gallerys landmark building at 909 Madison Avenue, Koether will present new paintings as well as a selection of works surveying her career. Coincident with this exhibition, the gallery will publish an editioned artists book, which will shed further light onto some of the quintessential aspects of and questions guiding Koethers practice forward.
At Art Basel in June, Lévy Gorvy will present, as a highlight of the gallerys booth, one of the key paintings in Koethers oeuvre, 100% (Portrait of Robert Johnson), following the paintings exhibition in Luxembourg.
Dominique Lévy has commented: We are inspired by Jutta Koethers unique approach to painting. She is a rare artist who has her roots in a deep European tradition and yet profoundly belongs to a very meaningful group of American artists. Rigorously conceptual and contemplative in her language, she comes out of the modernist tradition of 20th century painting. Her constant renegotiation of the dynamics of abstraction and figuration as well as that of the self and the other, connects her to the work of many artists the gallery is committed to. We are excited to demonstrate this link in Basel and confirm her belonging to this fascinating lineage.
As Koether wrote of this new collaboration:
Renewal is inseparable from radical change:
The cycle Tour de Madame
painted as an ending/beginning (at 60) turned into
Libertine longing leading me to LG.
A place to release transformative energy and do it 100%
(just as Robert Johnsons exalted logic and montaged mind has it manifested).
With that we will get started.
Like a Formula One race car pilot Im stretching out across borders
while touching the ground in intensified/absurd ways.
Images will be studied, tested, driven, to the limits.
Rich, disturbing, strange blasts of images might occur on those
Libertine Grounds.