Jutta Koether’s Paintings Are Funny and Clever—But Can They Do More?

The paintings in Jutta Koether’s recent exhibition at Lévy Gorvy were cooler than you, quicker than you, smarter than you, better read than you, and not afraid to let you know. They moved between enough winking homages to keep professors busy for years: Fauvism, graffiti, Dürer, Ernst, Poussin, Stettheimer, Hartley. The massive Neuer Frau (2019) evoked almost all of these precedents and still found room for a portrait of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with lips like wax candy and ey