Jan Köthe has been dealing with stainless steel for his art for more than twenty years. A large number of free-standing sculptures and sculptures were created, creating exciting dialogues between material and intention. Most of his works receive concrete statements through the depictions, which have a socio-cultural background.

The sculptor creates and empathizes with the contrast that can be seen between the coldness and rigidity of steel in the organic forms. The special technique of sensitively controlled cold forming was the basis of a new approach. It allows an intuitive change of the stainless steel to three-dimensional objects with dynamic aesthetics. The result is sculptures and sculptures whose rigid materiality contrasts with the organic form.

Köthe visualizes in his reduced non-figurative form different human emotional states. There are e.g. in his works „Everything has two sides“, „Steadfast“, or „Let yourself bend a little“ expressed these moods and sensitivities. The sculptures, „When the spark leaps“, „The two of us“ or „It remains exciting“ reflect life situations and relationships of people.

An example of the primarily aesthetically influenced works are „Cut Circles“ or „Moving Ovals“. Or Köthe plays with the impossibility that he processes in the sculpture „paradox“.

The series Homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude, begun in 2005, addresses the worldwide concealment of buildings by the artist couple Christo & Jeanne-Claude. In this series Köthe processed his impressions of the Reichstag veiling 1995, especially the lacing and folding of the fabrics. This veiling of the Berlin Reichstag (1995), with thousands of square meters of shiny silvery fabric – like liquid steel – and the lush flow of vertical folds, have inspired Köthe. The stainless steel gets the appearance of a flowing textile, surprising to the haptics of the material, and also represents the artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude.