Goff + Rosenthal is pleased to present a series of five new paintings and several colored drawings by Susanne Kühn.

Over the past nine years, Susanne Kühn's work has evolved from predominantly otherworldly landscapes gradually infiltrated by women traversing the terrain to interior settings which continue to feature external views and individual portraits. Her complex paintings examine the interaction of various artistic languages that become resolved within the painting. They experiment with the historic and the contemporary; the familiar and the foreign, and play with the equilibrium of the painterly elements to form a unique three-dimensional space that is completely her own. Intensely private interiors with Renaissance proportions are juxtaposed with romanticizing yet grotesque exteriors that draw on multiple traditions (such as Japanese, German, and comic-book artificiality).

Kühn's postmodern awareness of the multiplicity of sources permeating our everyday lives extends even to details such as ornaments, picture frames, children's building blocks, ornate fabrics and books. Many of her latest paintings feature art books which ostensibly could have influenced her work: a book on the woodcuts of Hokusai or a soft cover edition on Holbein's oeuvre. However, since they are not part of a still-life but rather used by her protagonists, it becomes clear that Kühn's interest lies in the double layering of reading: reality and fiction, identification and historic curiosity; examining the values within our cultural boundaries.

The fleeting reality of her paintings, in which everything appears recognizable from a distance, only shatters on closer inspection and their surreal nature becomes apparent. Flat paint and brushstrokes emerge as delicate abstractions of form and color; while a tectonic interweaving of room segments within room segments indicates the paintings' endless fracturing. Like actors on a stage, Kühn's protagonists are cast within these rooms. However, instead of any sense of mobility the figures are restricted, frozen in a precise spot and cocooned within the scenery, never quite the focal point of the scene and far less secure in their position than they initially appeared. Usually featuring solitary figures, this show presents one of her latest works, "Katja", which includes two figures, one of whom is partially hidden. A further notable aspect is that "Flo's Studium" introduces Kühn's first male figure.

Born in Leipzig in 1969, Kühn completed her master's of art degree in painting and graphic art at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig. From 1995 to 2002, she had fellowships that allowed her to live and study in New York and Cambridge, Massachusetts where she had a Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard University.

Her solo exhibition at the Kunstverein Freiburg in Germany in 2007 will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver in 2008. Hatje Cantz published a hardcover monograph on Kühn's work in September 2007. Additionally, Kühn's work has been exhibited in various group shows: "Future Tense: Reshaping the Landscape", 2008, Neuberger Museum of Art, USA; "Böhmen liegt am Meer", Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, Germany; "House Trip", Artforum 2007, Berlin, Germany.

Kühns work has been reviewed in ART (2/08), Künstler - Kritisches Lexikon der Gegenwartskunst (2/08), Die ZEIT Magazin Leben (12/07), Der Spiegel (9/07), Art in America (2/06), Monopol (10/04), FAZ(3/02), NY Times (12/00), Artforum (10/99), among others.