Gebärden und Ausdruck (Gestures and Expression) is the first comprehensive publication on the work of German artist Kai Althoff (*1966).

Fully illustrated and conceived by the artist, the book traces the evolution of the work from the early nineties until today. The texts discuss Althoff’s repertoire of bohemian adolescents, revealing how his untranslatable dialect, hermetic cultural codes and twisted youth motifs are ultimately in service of the work’s epic dimension.

“What is happening here is more a question of the absorption, reduplication, and removal of the core of an existing societal dynamics where convictions, lifestyles, and attitudes previously radically opposed, or even mutually exclusive, have collapsed together into one.” —Anke Kempkes