Julika Rudelius. The Emperor’s New Mall

In her films, photographs and performances, Julika Rudelius (*1968 in Cologne, lives in 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?