In her series PUBLIC PAINTINGS, Caro Jost refers to the Summer of 2001 in New York City. Riveted by the pulsating life in this city of winners and losers, the artist began putting together her personal archive of material and photographs. In her PUBLIC PAINTINGS Caro Jost focuses on topics of public life. In this case, she resorts to pamphlets for evening courses she had picked up and collected on the streets, in the subways, or in public places back then in New York. She transfers these pamphlets to the canvas as paintings, whereby she intentionally omits individual information. Whereas pamphlets are increasingly disappearing from our everyday lives, the urge for self-improvement revealed in the messages of these courses offered is more present than ever before, above all in the social media. Because Caro Jost detaches the text from its original context, these old documents, most likely printed for a large circulation and mass-distribution back then, are now one-of-a-kind attests to their time. As she works, Caro Jost not only appropriates the aesthetics and language of the ad, she also internalizes the spirit of the times inherent in these objects.