Julika Rudelius. The Emperor’s New Mall
New Video Works
In her films, photographs and performances, Julika Rudelius (*1968 in Cologne, lives in the Netherlands/Amsterdam) is moved by curiosity to investigate people, stereotypes and milieus that she does not (yet) know and that in most cases are quite different from what she would have thought before. The desire to plunge into these realities and to seek out their contradictions, aesthetics and functional modes marks her artistic output on both the contentual and formal levels. Her point of departure is a fascination and amazement with regard to that which we human beings conceive in order to insert ourselves into socially, politically or culturally formed roles and clichés.
The Emperor’s New Mall in the Weserburg concentrates on perfected surfaces—on our outer appearance, our demeanor, our status symbols and the seductive attraction which they exercise on both the protagonists in the works and the viewers in front of them. How much of this is chosen by us ourselves so as to be actually individual? How much is prescribed by social norms, capitalist values and unconscious influences? What is gesture, what is attitude? And wherein lies their fascination?
Julika Rudelius, Double Surface, 2025
The video work Double Surface (2025) examines the connection between desirable, high-performance, and muscularly designed cars and the optimization of the human body as a paradoxical phenomenon of a highly technologized society. The point of departure is the observation of a highly developed aesthetic through which human bodies are aligned with contemporary objects such as cars. Perfectly modeled surfaces of skin and metal appear so refined that they seem removed from everyday reality. The film develops its own visual language for this fusion and deliberately moves away from familiar stereotypes of perfected bodies on or in front of cars. Alongside the interplay of status symbols and ownership, the protagonists themselves have their say, speaking about aesthetics as well as bodily and lived experience.
The second episode of Double Surface is conceived as an intervention within the existing exhibition installation and further deepens the interplay of surfaces, bodies, and symbols of representation. The scenes depict people with powerful physiques, including bodybuilders, some positioned next to high-performance vehicles and muscular animals. For the first time in one of her videos, Julika Rudelius works with music, composed by Gary Shepherd, opening up a nonverbal narrative space.
This episode can be understood as a reflection on male body forms, aesthetics, and stylizations. In the interaction of image and music, judgment remains deliberately open and fragile. Language, composition, and stylization—central elements of Rudelius’ work—are taken up and expanded here through music.