publications | Justine Otto

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Saša Bogojev in Justine Otto's 'New Traditionalists' at DCV Verlag

The inconspicuous thematic and stylistic shifts which have marked Justine Otto's artistic practice over the years have been regularly commended. They were prompted by the compelling impetus of freedom: the freedom to choose subjects that resonate with a point in time, as well as the freedom to utilize paint and modify her technical approach to fit the atmosphere of a given moment. From working
with female figures at the beginning, through a transition to masculine archetypes (heroes, leaders, or cowboys), to the most recent musician paintings, the Polish-born, Germanbased artist has harnessed the increasingly intense and motivating sensation of experiencing an artistic deliverance. And although they stemmed from different sources of inspiration and were energized by disparate intentions, each chapter of her ever-evolving practice pointed towards the next one, developing an oeuvre that, in a way, imitatesthe dynamics of life.

Larissa Kikol in Justine Otto's Melancholy beneath a hot wind at 'New Traditionalists' at DCV Verlag

...There is no unequivocal answer. The true temperature in Justine Otto’s worlds remains a secret. Whatever it is, the living conditions are in any case inhospitable, so that every movement is a miracle. Even in a fever dream it is difficult to distinguish between shivering, between coldand hot. Rising above that remains the sad romanticism of a man, condemned to loneliness, in the freedom of his solitude. Even the presence of loyal animals (the dogs and horses) does not relieve a certain forlornness. And when the man finally melts into his surroundings, dissolves into this environment, a feeling of leave-taking arises, a sense of melancholy. In this mood the series of portraits seems like a gallery of ancestors and the landscape scenes like nostalgic tales. And yet they are lit up in the here and now, like the glow of the cigarettes.

Jean-Christophe Ammann in Justine Otto's Female Territory at 'Halbpension' at Kerber Verlag

‘Fairy tales are true’, says the artist. What she does is to intensify fairy tale themes by engaging in a medialisation process that blurs their levels of reality. Through the harshness of her pictures, their implacability, Justine Otto creates a reality that is neither overdone nor pathetic, but that touches a nerve in a present time in which extremes are either embedded or exploding, in which the erotic quality of these extremes appear as extended, atrophied, travesties or fetishes of themselves.

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Silke Hohmann in Justine Otto's 'Heroes and Hoaxes' at Hatje Cantz

Justine Otto's heroic paintings work away at the history of painting just as they do at humanity's myths of masculinity. They are broken figures: they stand their ground, but their uniforms, saddle horses, and other symbols of status are permeable or dysfunctional. Speed (2016) shows a rider on he prairie- or is it a German lake welling up under the blue and red sky? A watchful herding dog looks up at the hero, who could be a settler, a Don Quixote or a fugitive. Except that this horse has seemingly unstable wooden posts in the place of legs. 'Speed' of a certain kind may thus be out of the question, but instead we are offered a fast-paced ride though the imagery of art history and pop culture from Emil Nolde to Lassie – and the fragile legs of the horse would seem to serve as an easel. In this manner, all of Otto's subjects and themes are always investigations into painting itself. What is feasible? What is representable? And what are the appropriate techniques? In her new works Otto has emancipated herself from the painter who paints women with a seemingly light hand. In her recent paintings she practices a different form of painting in which she relates figuration and abstraction to one another and makes use of templates. The attention she pays to the heroes is tantamount to a form of liberation, an opening for all of painting's inherent opportunities, things always worthy of reexamination.

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Mark Gisbourne in Justine Otto's 'Heroes and Hoaxes' at Hatje Cantz

The sense of the mental search for and a “gathering” of ideas is emblematic of Justine Otto’s creative synthesis as seen in the figurative-to-abstract aspects of her latest paintings. In seeking the material resolution of an imagined inner picture, there is a processing thesis, a new treatment of surface and material means, as well as the distilled potential and existing inner thoughts about what the immediate idea of a given painting might seek to achieve. Unlike the incised moment of a photographic image, a painting practice always emerges through the interconnected unfolding visual stages of studio-based and accumulative temporal processes.5 The painter’s situational response is that of an initial state of resistance that becomes assimilated and progressively mediated. As any handkunstwerk painter-practitioner knows, no painting is ever easily won, and the pictorial outcome has to be (con)tested and mastered in the continuous processing of its developmental making. This observation is significant when we consider the synthesized subject paintings of someone like Otto. The newly painted works increasingly engage with the pictorial sophistication of translated collage, an aide-mémoire, perhaps, operating in the deconstructed interstices between figuration and abstraction.

Justine Otto, Heroes & Hoaxes, hrsg: Mark Gisbourne, Silke Hohmann, Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2018

Painting XX, hrsg. Sparkassenstiftung Lüneburg, Kann Verlag, Frankfurt, 2017

Farbauftrag, hrsg. Jaqueline Krickl, Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, 2017

Today is tomorrow’s yesterday, hrsg. Städtische Galerie Neunkirchen und kunst galerie fürth, Bexbach, 2014

Kunst? Ja, Kunst !, hrsg. Jean-Christophe Ammann, Verlag Westend, Frankfurt, 2014, S.215-227

Bildgewitter, hrsg. Mark Gisbourne, Clemens Meyer, Harald Wieser, Kerberverlag, Bielefeld/ Berlin, 2013

Halbpension, hrsg. Jean-Christophe Ammann und Anna Wesle, Kerberverlag, Bielefeld/ Berlin, 2013,

Eros und Thanatos, hrsg: Matthias Bleyl, Mark Gisbourne, Wim Pijbes, Thomas Rusche, Hans-Werner Schmidt, Wolfgang Ullrich, Leipzig, Lubok Verlag, 2012

Justine Otto, helter skelter, hrsg: Lüneburgischer Landschaftsverband, Bielefeld/ Leipzig/Berlin, 2011

Salon der gegenwart, Hamburg, Ausst.-Kat. Bielefeld/Leipzig/Berlin, 2011

Kunsthalle macht Schule, Ausst.-Kat. Kunsthalle Darmstadt

Ausgeträumt, Verena Titze im Auftrag des Kunstvereins Markdorf, Ausst.-Kat. Stadtgalerie Markdorf, Friedrichshafen 2011

Große Kunstausstellung Halle/Saale e. V., Halle/Saale 2011

Leben Lieben Leiden. Frauenbilder junger Künstlerinnen, hrsg. von Alexandra Socher, Ausst.-Kat. Kunstverein Celle, Bielfeld/Leipzig/Berlin 2010.

In between. Die Kunst erwachsen zu werden, Ausst.-Kat. Künstlerverein Walkmühle, Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2009.

Christiane Erdmann, Fluchten, Ausst.-Kat. Künstlerverein Walkmühle, Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden 2008.

Die Sammlung Rausch, hrsg. von Nikola Dietrich, Ausst.-Kat. Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, Köln 2007.

Ins Licht gerückt. Kunst aus Aschaffenburg, hrsg. vom Neuen Kunstverein Aschaffenburg, Ausst.-Kat. Neuer Kunstverein Aschaffenburg, Aschaffenburg 2007.

Justine Otto. hide & seek, hrsg. von Barbara von Stechow, Ausst.-Kat. Galerie Barbara von Stechow, Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main 2006.

Zurück zur Figur. Malerei der Gegenwart, hrsg. von Christiane Lange und Florian Matzner, Ausst.-Kat. Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, München, München 2006.

Förderpreis Bildende Kunst der Schering Stiftung 2005, hrsg. von der Schering Stiftung, Berlin, Ausst.-Kat. Berlinische Galerie, Berlin 2005.

Justine Otto. geh‘ doch heim little girl, Ausst.-Kat. 1822-Stiftung der Frankfurter Sparkasse, Frankfurt am Main 2003.