Kai Althoff neither owns nor rents a studio. Not that his production doesn't merit one--galleries in Cologne, Berlin, and New York all show and sell his work. Althoff simply refuses an extra space, unwilling to divide the spheres of work and life. He prefers that his output, even when large in scale and technically complex, be conceived and, if possible, realized in the privacy and relative autonomy (that is, without the busy appurtenances common to most contemporary artists' places of work) of his carefully furnished two-room apartment in the center of Cologne.Althoff makes paintings with a pearly, nervous touch. His colors are mostly murky; his outlook, ominous yet tender. A half-dozen abstract pieces function nicely as palate cleansers and mood setters. Among them are two so-so hazy rainbow paintings, a couple of Emile Nolde-ish looking landscapes, and one muddy-colored slab I don't know what to make of.Althoff has no trademark style and takes a lot of visual risks. His work can be ugly to look at. Drawings are encased in tacky plastic; the surface of his paintings are often broken and bumpy. The 30 smallish paintings and drawings-which alternate between abstraction and figuration, and are hung in clusters-initially disappear into the looming space of the gallery. Slowly, however, what starts as a fuzzy jumble turns into a tightly woven, if disturbing, exploration of karma and history.



Kai Althoff's portrait is rendered with rudimentary simplicity: shape, tone and colour create a totality of exquisite presence. Untitled boasts a contained elegance, deceptive in its complexity. Sexualised with reference to Egon Schiele, Untitled is an overture of dandyism. Kai Althoff tenders this painting with the contrived scrutiny of the most discerning connoisseur. Haughty and self-possessed, Kai Althoff's boy is a perfect specimen. Both ruffian and swan song, he encapsulates the duplicity and danger of idealised beauty.Kai Althoff's soldiers are drawn with delicate stylised dandyism. Conveyed with refined nobility, debauchery and humanity become indistinguishable; cruelty is portrayed with an acute tenderness. Flattened to an almost decorative motif, Althoff's scene reads like theatre. Reminiscent of Georg Grosz's depictions of Berlin's WW1 underworld, deplorable action is staged for consensual pleasure, a chic poster glamorising the (un)desirable.