Kai Althoff was born in Cologne, Germany in February 1966. He is a multimedia artist and a painter. Borrowing from moments of history, religious iconography, and counter-cultural movements, Althoff creates imaginary environments in which paintings, sculpture, drawing, video, and found objects commingle. Tapping a multitude of sources, from Germanic folk traditions to recent popular culture, from medieval and gothic religious imagery to early modern expressionism, Althoff’s characters inhabit imaginary worlds that serve as allegories for human experience and emotion. His image bank and painterly style also draw on the past, especially early-20th-century German Expressionism, reconfigured by introducing collaged technique. Much of Althoff's work is collaborative. For the 4th Berlin Biennale, Althoff and Lutz Braun created the site-specific installation Kolten Flynn, made up of three vitrines draped in red foil and full of a child’s paintings, drawings, pens and other abandoned materials. Along with Yair Oelbaum, he conceived the dramatic play There we will be buried, which debuted in 2011 at the Dixon Studio in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England. For their U.S.-premiere performance at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the pair portrayed the show’s main characters, Orpah and Lydia, two single mothers searching for a lost daughter. In Die Kleine Bushaltestelle Althoff performed alongside fellow artist Isa Genzken in a 70-minute absurdist comedy shot on home video. Althoff's work has been included in several books listing contemporary artists, such as Art Now, published by Taschen. He is also a musician, releasing solo work under such monikers as Fanal, Engelhardt/Seef/Davis Coop. or Ashley's. He and Justus Köhncke perform as Subtle Tease, and he co-founded the band Workshop with Christoph Rath, Stefan Mohr and Stephan Abry. Althoff is represented by Gladstone Gallery in New York, Galerie NEU in Berlin, and in London.
Exhibitions
Althoff has been the subject of solo exhibitions worldwide, including Kaiki, an exhibition of artist Kai Althoff’s work selected by Saim Demircan at Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea in 2011; Kai Althoff in 2008 at Vancouver Art Gallery;Kai Althoff: Ich meine es auf jeden fall schlecht mit ihnen in 2007 Kunsthalle Zürich; Kai Althoff: Kai kein Respekt in 2004 at Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Immo in 2004 at Simultanhalle, Cologne; Kai Althoff and Armin Kraemer in 2002 at , Braunschweig; and Heetz, Nowak, Rehberger in 1997 at Museo de Arte Contemporanea USP, São Paulo. From 18 September 2016 through 22 January 2017, ' was on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2014, a solo exhibition, ', was presented at Michael Werner Gallery, London. Current group exhibitions include Invisible Adversaries: the Marieluise Hessel Collection, Center for Curatorial Studies, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson and Identity Revisited, The Warehouse, Dallas in 2016; Avatar and Atavism: Outside the Avant-Garde, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf in 2015; Not Yet Titled, Museum Ludwig, Cologne in 2013.
Selected Group Exhibitions
Aperto 93, Venice Biennale, Stand Schafhausen, Venice, 1993 E, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 1993 Wild Walls, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1995 Wunderbar, Kunstverein, Hamburg, 1996 Time Out, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg, 1997 Home Sweet Home, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, 1997 Ars Viva 98/99, Kunstverein Braunschweig, Braunschweig; Brandenburgische Kunstsammlungen, Cottbus; Portikus, Frankfurt, 1998 German Open. Gegenwartskunst in Deutschland, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, 1999 Vom Eindruck zum Ausdruck, Grasslin Collection, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, 2001 Neue Welt, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, 2001 Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, 2002 Chère Paintre, Liebe Maler, Dear Painter at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, 2002, A Perilous Space at Magnani in London, 2003 Lieber Maler, male mir and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2003 Venice Biennale, Museo Correr, Venice, 2003 Painting in Tongues at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2006 Heart of Darkness: Kai Althoff, Ellen Gallagher and EdgarCleijne, Thomas Hirschhorn at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 2006 Make Your Own Life: Artists In & Out of Cologne, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, 2007 Life on Mars at Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, 2008 Between Art and Life: The Painting and Sculpture Collection, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2009 Compass in Hand: Selections from the Judith Rothschild Foundation, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2009 Mapping the Studio: Artists from the Francois Pinault Collection, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 2009 Brandon Stosuy and Kai Althoff: Mirror Me, DISPATCH Projects, New York, 2009 Beyond | In WNY, Alternating Currents, Albright Knox Triennial, New York, 2010 At Home/Not At Home: Works from the Collection of Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art, New York, 2010 A Bigger Splash: Painting after Performance, Tate, London, 2012 The Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2012
