The Seamless Real

Julika Rudelius stages a reality in which unbridled power and discipline paradoxically reinforce one another, condensed beneath sleek, polished and blazing surfaces. Bodies — human, animal and mechanical — are presented as instruments of authority, continuously maintained through training and behavioural codes.

Double Surface (2024–2026), commissioned by ROZENSTRAAT and Weserburg Museum, explores masculine lifestyles through immaculate landscapes and nocturnal interiors populated by perfectly composed bodies and vehicles. The work examines the tension between gravity and banality, revealing how extreme bodily regulation is bound up with warding off threat and chaos.

Liaison (2013) documents left-intellectual couples handling firearms for the first time, exposing how effortlessly poses and gestures involving pistols are adopted, and how the attraction of power transcends social class and gender.

Between the video works, a prominent installation of photographs and drawings forms an intermediate space. The drawings render visceral feelings and serve as an initial point of departure for image-making in Rudelius' practice, addressing explicit patriarchal expression alongside devotion, innocence and concealed desire.