Based in New York and Berlin, Jutta Koether is a painter, performance artist, musician, critic, and theoretician. Her conceptual paintings challenge the viewer’s understanding of the medium’s terms and histories, often appropriating and retooling elements from the work of male masters. Engaging a range of motifs and materials—such as grids, X-marks, and red paint—she cultivates painting’s ability to yield something unanticipated, vital, and feminine.

Born in Cologne in 1958, Jutta Koether studied art and philosophy at the University of Cologne and the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 1980, she joined the editorial staff of the music and art journal Spex. She has also written for such publications as Eau de Cologne, Artforum, Texte zur Kunst, and Flash Art. She is the author of several books, including f. (1987), which was translated into English and republished by Sternberg Press in 2015. Among her many teaching positions, since 2010, Koether has been Professor for Painting and Drawing at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg.

In 2018, the first in-depth survey dedicated to Koether’s work was organized by the Museum Brandhorst, Munich, and Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean. Solo exhibitions dedicated to her work have also been presented at Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto; PRAXES Center for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland; Academy of Fine Arts Vienna; and Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, among other venues. Her work resides in such collections as the Museum of Modern Art and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Kunsthalle Bern; mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Museum Brandhorst.