Julika Rudelius: …in the days of the bullies

On July 14 from 5–8pm, Julika Rudelius will hold a walk through of the exhibition. Participants are invited to share experiences that relate to issues of power dynamics that the works address. The event is informal, drinks can be consumed, participants can stay as long as they please.

…in the days of the bullies is a survey exhibition of critically acclaimed video works that span over two decades by Julika Rudelius. Curated by Johannes Kaufmann for the Villa Merkel, Esslingen, the selection of works highlight the unique character of a feminist art practice that defies easy categorization in the field of contemporary art.

Rudelius uses video as a means for illuminating problems that she encounters. Her works stage scenarios that interweave verité film, cinema, video installation and pop cultural phenomena at the fringes of history. Her practice approaches power and gender with a focus on interpersonal relations and vulnerabilities that arise in a human need for belonging in late capitalism. The results are contemplative, moving, disturbing and humorous—judgment, in her work, is a communal process. Her situated practice brings complexity to assumptions that accompany reductionism and generalization, allowing viewers to experience problems of narration that give rise to racism, sexism and classism in contemporary culture.

Premiering at Villa Merkel is the three-channel video, Layers of Sentiment (2023). The work features a significant step into script-writing by the artist. Three scenes, performed by actors, present different facets of feminine power struggles—women caught up in varying degrees of success and compromise, even on their own terms. Across the screens, cinematic time and space provide a parallel reality from which viewers can grasp the ennui produced by the promises of a happier life, or personal agency, as it is sold through product design, architecture and social media technologies. This sensibility of subtle corporate dominance is captured in the lingering of the camera on the materiality of surfaces; images border on the visual language of advertising to allow a glimpse into how such things channel physical and psychological behaviours.

Set against this are the roles of the women (in a counterpoint to Train, 2001): a privileged, new mother looks forward to experiences in a lifestyle seemingly devoid of conviviality; a political artist chooses to compromise her values to exhibit her work; an influencer fusses with her smart devices, barely acknowledging the real world that makes her efforts possible. Masculinity is everywhere, but actual men are scarce. A father wanders about a courtyard like a ghost, the son of an art collector—one of the so-called good men—makes an inappropriate gesture to the artist.

The pace of Rudelius’ cinematography allows viewers to sense the shifting boundaries of what informs taste. Taste is revealed as a program to continually redraw the battleground of class cultures, in an inversion of the idea that one can practice democracy through shopping. Through the seemingly soft struggles of the protagonists, we see how sentiment can be weaponized. Her works bring up a salient point in regards to our so-called ‘post-truth’ predicament: Is it not the case that truth is only possible through the telling, and revealing, of fictions, of lies that we tell each other and lies we tell ourselves?

Excerpt by Maxwell Stephens.

The publication for the exhibition Julika Rudelius: …in the days of the bullies will be launched in October 2023. Available from villa-merkel@esslingen.de.

Curation: Johannes Kaufmann
Thanks to the sponsors: The exhibition and production was realized by Villa Merkel, the city of Esslingen am Neckar, the Mondriaan Fund and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.