Pay It Forward: Joanne Robertson on Jutta Koether

Blackpool-born creator of uncanny sonic (and visual) worlds, Joanne Robertson, explains the influence of Germany’s multidisciplinary abstract artist Jutta Koether.

I think I saw one of Jutta Koether’s green paintings at an art fair in London almost 20 years ago. The painting was big, and the colours were maybe green and black with bits of yellow; it felt like a warm energy, and perhaps referenced a teenage attitude or awakening. I felt it was somehow connected to underground music as well as the history of painting. My reaction to her work at that moment made me think about how painting can feel like reading a poem or listening to music. It had movement within it that didn’t feel limited to categories. 

I think I had just graduated from Slade and was making new works for a solo show. The studio was next to some train tracks – I had a metallic blue drumkit and lots of big stretchers there. I was playing around with a sort of loose song structure within painting. David Cunningham, who produced my album The Lighter at his place on Fournier Street, watched me paint a big piece that tried these ideas out. You could still find cheap studios in east London then, and everything was overlapping. Jutta and Kim Gordon had their Reverse Karaoke (2005) installation at South London Gallery, which involved audience participation. I loved all the ‘happenings’ and Fluxus art growing up, especially Allan Kaprow, and was very into musique concrète, specifically Luc Ferrari. Jutta’s work and collaborations seemed connected to that. 

A good friend of mine, Heather Leigh, introduced me to her once – I liked her silver skirt and the way she spoke. Heather performed a piece of music, almost inside one of Jutta’s installations, at a museum. One thing Jutta leaves with me, when I’m making art or singing and writing songs, is that it’s OK to think about music and painting together – in an esoteric, conversational way that creates new meaning and tension. The way I produce things leans less on a priori meaning and more on the playful. I like to feel lost and reach within the work. I think a lot about colour and composition in painting and music, and I try not to overcomplicate that – while staying open to jerky, immediate reactions to an in-the-moment feeling.

She’s always someone I go back to, especially her conversation with Mike Kelley in the book, Mike Kelley: Interviews, Conversations and Chit-Chat (1986-2004). In that, she says: “I wanted to include art in such a way that it was attractive or understandable to people who were mostly into music. I knew there were people who thought, ‘Oh God, why do you have to do that?’ But I wanted to find out why people were so resistant, and where does that attitude come from?”