Jens Kothe at Berthold Pott

Artist: Jens Kothe

Exhibition title: Fency Bodies

Venue: Berthold Pott, Cologne, Germany

Date: September 1 – October 11, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Berthold Pott, Cologne

Wooden inlays are set into black cushions, bare patches as if on a bedsore ground. Tunnel systems imagined in wood, laid out like a labyrinth. They lead deep into the inner workings, like auditory canals or the coils of a brain. Windings that lead to known and unknown spaces, the home of strangely familiar desires. Dark daydreams flashing brightly from sooty textiles. Hollow spaces reaching into inner strongholds, to the bones beneath the flesh. Do you know the feeling of being lost in your own inwardness?

Fency Bodies are strange bodies that carry fences inside them. Not metaphorically, but very real in the form of lattice structures. They offer a glimpse of what lies behind them, enclosed in bulging picture frames. Fences are the simplest of security structures. Those that protect property from foreign intrusion, from unauthorised entry. They are visual boundaries. But what if fences suddenly grew bodies? Extremities sprouting from their ends? Steel legs that would carry the fence from one place to another. Boundaries could become variable, reacting flexibly to needs. Skin is also a boundary between two realms, between interior and exterior. As the shell of the body, it is the only barrier to the outside world. A thin layer that protects the exposed flesh from injury, offers protection from environmental influences. Similar to the thin layer of civilisation that lies just a few metres below the surface of the earth.

Jens Kothe’s (b. 1985) objects are reminiscent of pieces of upholstered furniture that serve as everyday onlookers observing our lives. They remind us of home, captivating us and promising space. They have a presence and yet are mostly unnoticed, filling the empty flat like old acquaintances or, in the darkness of the night, growing up to the ceiling to suck us in and make us disappear into their crevices. The wall works are reminiscent of Gotthard Graubner’s cushion paintings, but they have a hard core, like a wooden skeleton. A strange essential form emerges, a hybrid being with a diffuse corporeality. Like dreamed, dysfunctional body parts that move in the distance. At times, they allow a glimpse of stressed membranes that lie on top of each other, forming a kind of wall of stacked layers. They also resemble individual cells of a leaf, so full of fluid that they seem on the verge of exploding. The objects oscillate between painting and sculpture, expressing a desire for material, a desire for corporeality.

The fabric rises and falls. As if skin were lying on skin. The finest hairs stand up as if in ecstasy. What if one could think in material, in wood, in velvet, in silicone? What if words could express themselves directly in material, give birth to a drawing? It is as if one could actually sink into the objects, as if one could immerse oneself in Kothe’s material works, as if the sculptures yearned to be touched. Somewhere between childish play and hidden sexual obsessions. But they deny the touching hand, the body seeking rest, a functional usability. With the eyes, however, with the voyeuristic gaze, the sculptures can be touched as if with fingers. As if the viewer knew how the objects felt without ever having actually touched them. Just as the tongue intuitively knows how things can be touched in the mouth without having to taste them.

Bodies are not only boundaries, but they also have boundaries themselves. Those who approach without permission violate protective barriers, violate security structures. Transgressing a boundary can quickly turn into an act of violence that leaves cracks, indentations, scars. Intact bodies then suddenly bear wounds, clamps sit on battered skin. Fractures offer a glimpse of an exposed interior. But in the seams the power of self-healing is revealed; the past can be read, for even when healed, the bulging tissue bears visible traces.

Bodies can be limitations, can restrict, can become earthly prisons for the spirit. Bodies can age, deform, and change. Bodies can become brittle, wrinkled, threatening to burst and disappear. They can be fetters that keep the spirit in chains. At the same time, however, bodies can be soft, gentle, and flowing. Skin establishes contact, it is the oldest means of communication. At the same time, physicality can provide the greatest pleasure, harbour the highest form of closeness and intimacy. Kothe’s objects tell of carnal desires and unfulfilled longings.

Surfaces break open, exposing with surgical precision the organic, which strives towards the industrial materials. Light penetrates the darkness, what was closed is broken open. As if the interior had been turned inside out, it now lies exposed in all its vulnerability. Held in the moment of greatest tension, the silicone threatens to burst and spill out of the mould. In Kothe’s work, art can be damaged as if it were actually alive. Scar tissue, even healed tissue, remains visible, inscribed in the skin as a biography. All this resembles a game with ambivalence, with a state of suspension, not rigidly fixed images of the body. A fence permanently separates two areas. In Kothe’s work, they are soft, oscillating boundaries.

-Julia Stellmann, August 2023

German, born 1985, lives and works in Bochum, Germany, Studied 2013-17 at Academy Düsseldorf, Germany (Andreas Gursky class), 2009-2011: National Sculptor School, Oberammergau, 2007-09: TU Dortmund Architecture.

Selected exhibitions:

upcoming: Fency Bodies at Berthold Pott, Cologne, solo, Sept/Oct 2023 (part of DC Open)/ the sieve of secrecy at beacon, Munich (Carolina Aguirre, Helin Alas, Krystel Gardenas, Jeanne Gaigher, Jens Kothe, Brenice Olmedo), group, Sept/Oct 2023 (part of Various Others) / ArtLab Berlin, solo (2024)

past: Cassina Projects, Milan, Italy (solo, April-May 2023), Barbé Urbain, Ghent, BE (duo, Jan-March 2023), Downs & Ross, New York City, USA (solo 2022), Kunstverein Heppenheim, Heppenheim, Germany (solo 2022), Museum Bochum, Germany (group 2021), Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden, Germany (group 2021), Platform 6a, curated by Philippe van Cauteren SMAK, Otegem, BE (group 2020), Museum Ostwall, Dortmund, Germany (group 2020), Efremidis, Berlin, Germany (group 2020), Kunsthaus Essen, Germany (group, 2020), Berthold Pott, Cologne, Germany (solo, 2019), Philara Collection, Düsseldorf, Germany (group 2018), Kunsthalle Bochum, Germany (solo, 2017)

Jens Kothe, Pine Crack II, 2023, Upholstery wadding, construction wood, staples, Textile panne velvet, chalk, pigments, UV protection varnish (Polsterwatte, Konstruktionsholz, Tackernadeln, Textil Panne Samt, Kreide, Pigment, UV Schutzlack), 116,6 x 116 x 17 cm

Jens Kothe, Lime Holes Black II, 2023, Upholstery wadding, construction wood. Lime wood, staples, Textile, acrylic paint, silicone, lampblack pigment (Polsterwatte, Konstruktionsholz, Linden Holz, Tackernadeln, Textil, Acrylfarbe, Lampenruss Pigment, Silikon), 136 x 136 x 18 cm

Jens Kothe, Fency Bodies, 2023, exhibition view, Berthold Pott, Cologne

Jens Kothe, Sewn Cracks / Stitched Cracks I.II, 2023, Upholstery wadding, construction wood, staples, Textile panne velvet, chalk, pigments, UV protection varnish (Polsterwatte, Konstruktionsholz, Tackernadeln, Textil Panne Samt, Kreide, Pigment, UV Schutzlack), 55 x 55 x 12 cm

Jens Kothe, Pine Crack I, 2022, Upholstery wadding, construction wood, staples, Textile panne velvet, chalk, pigments, UV protection varnish (Polsterwatte, Konstruktionsholz, Tackernadeln,Textil Panne Samt, Kreide, Pigment, UV Schutzlack), 118 x 119 x 13 cm

Jens Kothe, Fence I, 2023, Textile Cotton Nettle, Acrylic Binder, Champagne Chalk, Pigments, Steel, Stainless Steel, Galvanized Wire Mesh, PU Foam (Textil Baumwoll Nessel, Acrylbinder, Champagner Kreide, Pigmente, Stahl, Edelstahl, verzinkter Maschendrath, PU Schaum), 219 x 212 x 14 cm

Jens Kothe, Fence II (image left work), 2023, Fence III (image right work), 2023, Textile Cotton Nettle, Acrylic Binder, Champagne Chalk, Pigments, Steel, Stainless Steel, Galvanized Wire Mesh, PU Foam (Textil Baumwoll Nessel, Acrylbinder, Champagner Kreide, Pigmente, Stahl, Edelstahl, verzinkter Maschendrath, PU, 208 x 146 x 15 cm

Jens Kothe, Stapled Cracks I, 2023, Upholstery wadding, construction wood, staples, Textile panne velvet, chalk, pigments, UV protection varnish (Polsterwatte, Konstruktionsholz, Tackernadeln,Textil Panne Samt, Kreide, Pigment, UV Schutzlack), 100 x 130 x 17 cm

Jens Kothe, Fency Bodies, 2023, exhibition view, Berthold Pott, Cologne

Jens Kothe, Stressed Membranes III Black, 2023, Upholstery wadding, textile molleton, jersey, construction wood Acrylic, silicone, pigments, PU foam, UV varnish (Polsterwatte, Textil Molton, Jersey, Konstruktionsholz, Acryl, Silikon, Pigmente, PU Schaum, UV Acryllack), 220 x 140 x 14 cm

Jens Kothe, Fency Bodies, 2023, exhibition view, Berthold Pott, Cologne