Kai Althoff's Schizophrenic Styles at Galerie Anton Kern

Kai Althoff, a young German artist, presents a solo exhibition at Galerie Anton Kern in New York that deliberately mimics a group show through its stylistic diversity. His work employs illusionist strategies reminiscent of compatriots Sigmar Polke, Albert Oehlen, and Martin Kippenberger, blending abstract color fields, photo-based works, neo-expressionist painting, and sculpture. Althoff, also a pop musician, channels the anxious figuration of German Expressionism, with figures evoking Egon Schiele through attenuated limbs and psychological distress. Scenes are historically ambiguous, featuring Prussian helmets and period coats, and often disturbing: a colossus leans over a bundled figure, a man subdues another, a girl on a bicycle observes. References to Leon Golub's torture squads appear, but the impetus seems personal fantasy rather than political outrage. Other works include comic-like isolated figures, a Basquiat-esque sketch of body fragments, and angular Christ crucifixes painted on resin-coated glass. The same resin blurs photographs from Althoff's student days and serves as a ground for abstract pigment clouds. The exhibition's multiplicity leads visitors to mistake it for a collective show, as Althoff plays with artistic schizophrenia, making and breaking promises of revelation while eschewing authentic sentiment.