DUCK AND COVER
A “text is a tissue [or fabric] of quotations”, drawn from “innumerable centers of culture”, wrote Roland Barthes in his programmatic essay on intertextuality. Applied to the works of Gabriele Rothemann, her images are the result of such a “play on meaning, of appropriation and transformation” (S. Schütze): She collects illustrations from the print media, in order to understand their impact but also to tap into concrete events and unknown parts of the world — pursuing an interest she has maintained to this day and that has produced an extensive archive of documentation.
In her exhibition at Raum mit Licht Gabriele Rothemann provides an insight into her imagery, showing selected photographs and drawings completed over a period of 25 years that are embedded in the artist’s reference system. The “representative” image is contrasted with the “study material” used, the small delicate watercolour of the oversized, high contrast Indian ink drawing, the original inspiration and its depiction. The emotional and formal qualities of the image’s sources flow into these frequently labour-intensive works in concentrated form during this process, producing works that are also always unique. “The images of Gabriele Rothemann defy any classification …documentary material and still life, commemorative and allegorical at the same time.” (S. Schütze) An intervention developed specially for the gallery is once again a specific expression of the relationship between the original and its depiction.
Text by Ruth Horak
*”Duck and Cover” is an expression used to warn people to seek shelter, for example as the title of a 1950s American civil defence film intended to raise awareness among children of how to protect themselves in the case of an atomic bomb strike, or when Gabriele Rothemann heard it on a trip to Los Angeles on 17 October 1989, as the ground began to quake.
GABRIELE ROTHEMANN (*1960 in Offenbach am Main, D), studied photography at the Kunsthochschule Kassel, which she completed at the Kunsthochschule Düsseldorf, under Professor Fritz Schwegler. 1987, awarded the position of Meisterschülerin.
Alongside numerous awards and stipends, a year she spent studying under John Baldessari and Michael Asher at the California Institute of the Arts (DAAD 1988/1989), Los Angeles, and a year at the Deutsche Akademie in Rome, Villa Massimo (1996/1997), were of deep significance. Her photographs and drawings frequently relate to an archive of images from newspapers and magazines she has been compiling since 1984, images with striking content or formal characteristics. These works are all condensed versions, or transformations, of these images from the collective memory.
Having taught at Zurich University of the Arts and at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, in 2001 she was appointed to teach at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she founded the class for Photography as Fine Art.