Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects is pleased to present a series of 13 black paintings by Jutta Koether. The straight ensemble of paintings on canvas developed from a layering of expressive abstractions. These layers sometimes encompass highly detailed and fragile inscriptions and sensitive line drawings. Both the color black and the number 13 are rich with cultural and historical meaning, so in these paintings the wealth of connotations is fused with a reflection of mood, emotion, and rational concepts on a simultaneous level. Koether’s paintings insinuate both the Stations of the Cross by Barnett Newman and the black board drawings of Joseph Beuys, but beyond these references they materialize as visual notations of “black noise”. The phenomenon of “black noise”, its denotation between music and visual art, lies at the heart of Koether’s search for productive dissent, for an attempt to turn negative dialectic into a productive force.

Jutta Koether emerged from the art scene in Cologne at the time when Martin Kippenberger and the German “Neue Wilde” painters, such as the artists of the group “Muelheimer Freiheit”, first received international attention. She is a painter, performer, musician, and writer and she has written extensively for the music magazine SPEX. She was included in this year’s Whitney Biennial and her work is currently featured in a solo exhibition at the Koelnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, Germany. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions at Reena Spaulings, New York; Daniel Buchholz Gallery, Cologne; Pat Hearn Gallery, New York; Monika Sprueth Gallery, Cologne; and at the Generali Foundation in Vienna, Austria. She has been included, among others, in “The Big Nothing” at the ICA Philadelphia; in “Lordship and Bondage” at Columbia University; in “Der Horror in der Kunst” at the Kunstverein Graz, Austria; in “Black Bonds” (with Steven Parrino) at the Swiss Institute, NY; in “Brushholder Value” at the Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster; in “Painting the Extended Field” at Magasin 3, Center for Contemporary Art, Malmö; in “When Techno Turns to Poetry”, Kunstwerke, Berlin; and in “Reflex: Die Neunziger” at the Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria. This is Jutta Koether’s second exhibition at the gallery. Her work will be featured in the entire gallery space.