Whitney Biennial 2012, Kai Althoff

As I go down the list of artists in this year’s Whitney Biennial, I start to think to myself, this year’s Biennial is looking pretty good…

First up is Kai Althoff.

Kai Althoff’s paintings, installations and performances explore sexuality and spirituality of masculine identity. From long-forgotten wars to orgy-like club-land, Kai’s works forces the viewer into unfamiliar territory through a combination of their emotional appeal, generated by color, form, and deceptively naive gestures, and their enigmatic content.

Bio:

Kai Althoff was born in Cologne, Germany in 1966. Althoff has been the subject of solo exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad including: Vancouver Art Gallery; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Kunsthalle Zürich; and Simultanhalle, Cologne. His work has also appeared in many group shows at institutions including: CCS Bard, Hessel Museum of Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt. Althoff was included in “Of Mice and Men,” the 2006 Berlin Biennial. He was most recently included in “Beyond/In Western New York 2010: Alternating Currents” at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.

His work has been included in several books listing contemporary artists, such as Art Now, published by Taschen. He is represented by Gladstone Gallery in New York, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, Gabriele Senn in Vienna, Christian Nagel in Cologne and Galerie NEU in Berlin.  Visit : www.gladstonegallery.com/

This was written by Guadalupe Rosales.

Guadalupe Rosales is a visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Her most recent projects take form of installation, sculpture, textiles, costuming, drawing, and collaborating. Rosales’ work has been shown at Momenta Art (Brooklyn, NY), Participant Inc. (New York, NY), Danspace Project Platform 2010 (New York, NY), Contemporary Museum (Baltimore, MD), New Image (Los Angeles, CA) and many more. Her work has been published in K48, LTTR Issue #5, Paris/LA, Death Magazine and has also blogged for DIS Magazine and I Heart Photograph. She is currently part of the fellowship program Q/A/M http://queerartmentorship.org/