Although the spectrum of Kai Althoff's work is broad, certain themes recur throughout and form the basis of his artistic project. One of these, as demonstrated in his recent exhibition 'Ich meine es auf jeden Fall schlecht mit Ihnen' ('In Any Case I Wish You Ill') at the Kunsthalle in Zürich, is the individual and his or her relationship to the world, as well as the hopes and conflicts that result from that relationship.¹ Programmatically, the title of the exhibition hints at this tension, and it strikes a more melancholic tone in the small, boudoir like room with the installation Solo für eine befallene Trompete (Solo for an Afflicted Trumpet, 2005): a nearly messy collection of found objects such as bibelots and draperies, paintings by Althoff, some pieces of furniture and several life-size dummies dressed in the style of the nineteenth century. This environment on the one hand, could be the inanimate testimony of a private seclusion, filled with discarded dreams and memories. On the other hand, it has the quality of a glimmering demi-monde that attracts with its mysterious, androgynous figures and the appeal of decadence. In its stage-like character, the installation points to a fundamental issue in Althoff's work - the intricacies of individual desire when exposed to the perception of the world outside.

But while invested in the construction of individual subjectivity, Althoff's works do not adopt a general, universalising perspective; they instead offer idiosyncratic, and often extreme visions of the human condition. In his renderings he makes his figures highly expressive, and in so doing looks at the particular forms and mechanisms through which the individual subject comes into being, as