JUTTA KOETHER
Holding 1, 2019
A curtain is best when it is surface, a recumbent surface, visibly large, painting.
—Jutta Koether
The first of a series of six paintings, Holding 1 (2019) features vertical strips that undulate along a horizontal axis, suggesting threads in a garment. Viewed differently, the axis is a spine, binding two pages in an open book. Such ambiguities are at the heart of Koether’s project, which proceeds from an ethics of pluralism. In her novella f., Koether describes the curtain as a “histrionic form” with “inner tensions and structures of resistance;” she writes of the regulatory function of curtains and the way (indeed, like paintings) they control light.
JUTTA KOETHER
Holding 1
2019
Acrylic on canvas
28 x 22 inches (71.1 x 55.9 cm)
© Jutta Koether
Photo: Tom Powel Imaging