You Loved An Image, 2023
Installation, solo show
at NEVERNEVERLAND Amsterdam
Aluminium, Steel, Photo Print, Rhinestones, Print on Paper, Print on Fabric
You Loved An Image is a show by Charlotte Rohde which presents the outcomes of her activities funded by the Stimuleringsfonds Talent Development Grant. During that funding period, Rohde exhibited in Kassel during documenta.15 and in Cologne in collaboration with Hannah Kuhlmann and Elisabeth Prehn. Works from these two presentations now find a new arrangement in Amsterdam, paired with an essay that Rohde wrote from a deeply personal point of view. Finding itself rather in a beta-version than in a final form, the essay observes the semantics/semiotics of contemporary womanhood™, and mirrors the shown works in their ambiguous confidence and longing for recognition™.
This ambiguity peaks in the work Paypal.Me/CharlotteRohde, which references the artist’s idol Bella Hadid as well as the movie The Last Unicorn, in which a witch captures the Unicorn to exhibit it in her midnight carnival. Since a unicorn is only to be recognized by the very few humans, and most unheeding people see merely a horse, the witch puts an illusion on the Unicorn; a second horn seems to appear. Now the audience can see the true nature of the Unicorn – through a lie. Meaning in the case of Paypal.Me/CharlotteRohde: Just because the tears are fake, doesn’t mean I’m not actually sad. But just because I’m actually sad, it doesn’t mean I cannot try to monetize those tears.
This exhibition will serve as the conclusion of a work cycle. To foreshadow the new cycle, the object When God Created The Military Wife is already on display. This object was taken from the artists’ grandparent’s house after they both had passed away in late 2022. Being the granddaughter of a major-general and his wife, Rohde witnessed second-handedly what a representational life looks like. The idea of the military wife’s role is to take pride in sacrificing oneself and putting one’s owns needs behind everyone elses. This calligraphic piece, which glorifies that idea, was gifted to my grandmother as a welcome gift from the other military wives, when they were moved to the U.S. in the seventies. In the show You Loved An Image, the Lyrical I of Rohde solely longs to read and be read, while the Actual I tries to write herself out of the compulsory femininity™ which she occasionally (and guiltily) enjoys so much to perform.
Opera Aperta: Catalogue for Düsseldorf-based Artist Rene Hüls, 2018.
PAYPAL.ME/CHARLOTTEROHDE, 2023
Installation, group show
Aluminium, Steel, Photo Print, Rhinestones
shown at Werkstück/Piece of Work with Elisabeth Prehn and Hannah Kuhlmann at Gold + Beton Cologne, Germany.
Make-up and photography in collaboration with Levi van Gelder.
Letter logo for Melbourne-based Design Agency BLURR. In collaboration with Zeynep Schilling, 2022
CUTE BOY THINGS, 2023
Foil
shown at Werkstück/Piece of Work with Elisabeth Prehn and Hannah Kuhlmann at Gold + Beton Cologne, Germany
Invitation for a private Dinner with Elif Özbay, 2021
Custom Type and NewEdge666 in use for Ornamenta 2024, 2022
PRADA NOSE, 2022
Installation, group show
Aluminium, Rhinestones
shown at Werkstück/Piece of Work with Elisabeth Prehn and Hannah Kuhlmann at Gold + Beton Cologne, Germany
diverse visual identities for exhibitions
VERY AVAILABLE
Installation, Solo-Show
Ceramics, Aluminium, Rhinestones, Photo Prints, Pigment,
Shown at Autohaus.Autohaus, Kassel, Germany, 2022
In my work veryaVailAbLE, I am witnessing her self-representation from one of the cheaper seats in the audience. (The Jury is in the front row; You pay to see ur own production) Trying to balance between bimbofication and girlboss-dom, veryaVailAbLE performs a self-fetishisation in the artist’s name to reclaim itself from the public gaze, while parallely displaying the delicate inner world behind the carefully curated face: If you make yourself hypervulnerable, nobody can attack you anymore ;)
Read the whole text by Levi van Gelder here
Not Fully Human, Not Human At All: Book for Kunstverein in Hamburg and Kadist Paris, published by archive books, 464 pages, offset print, 2021
HOT MESS 2021
Installation
Ceramics, Aluminium, Acrylic Glass, Rhinestones, Wood
Shown in "A Guide to Softer Ware", Duo Show with Vera van de Seyp at soft power, Berlin, Germany, 2021
A Guide To Softer Ware is a collaborative exploration of contemporary and not-so-contemporary languages of instruction in the context of “womanhood”, calling out their binary notions of gender designation as a social construct. Through analysing their own behavior as socialised women, and simultaneously analysing guides by women addressing other women about how to be a woman, Charlotte Rohde and Vera van de Seyp expose the idea of the manual as a (self-)imposed directive, trapped between the imperative to be unconditionally affirmed and the need to be in charge of one’s own narrative.
The format of the manual is used here as a rhetorical construct that explores how the social roles of women have been impacted by the rise of new technologies from the second half of the 20th century until now. With their shared background ranging from (type-)design to creative coding, Charlotte Rohde and Vera van de Seyp (quite literally) deconstruct and reprogramme these languages of instruction: From the wording used in 1960s technical manuals for sewing machines, knitting machines and various domestic appliances addressing women as a new target group to Memes and YouTube tutorials as a phenomenon representing the contemporary internet culture of self-optimization.
With their Guide To Softer Ware the two artists reflect on the supposed need for guidance and the forms this guidance has historically taken and still takes. The exhibition at soft power presents new works by the two artists that may function as a manual for the spectators and simultaneously as type specimens. The use of tools and typography, soap and metal, software and code (and ultimately, the use of the body itself), invites us to question the „softness“ historically/conventionally/subconsciously assigned to certain materials and spaces, to gender and its construction.
In her work HOT MESS 2021, Charlotte explores the idea of 2021 womanhood through niche internet culture, thinking about Naomi Osaka and Britney Spears, who dared to become human under the public eye. Machine-produced and hand-treated, HOT MESS 2021 performs a self-fetishisation to reclaim its body and emotionality from the public gaze.
Icons of Unique: Letterings for Mercedes-Benz G-Class via antoni
LAUF: public artwork proposal for Ornamenta 2024, commissioned for and exhibited at Transferium 2022, group show at Stadtmuseum Pforzheim, 2022
Marguerite Grotesk for Martin Gropius Bau: Custom version of typeface Marguerite Grotesk for the Berlin-based Museum to be used in their new Corporate Design, 2018.
No Applause until I say so ;)
Installation, YouTube Videos (5/7 minutes)
Ceramics, Iron, Acrylic Glass, Silk
Shown in "I Swear, Time Passed", Group Show at De Dood/Het Hem, Zaandam, Netherlands; 2020
Charlotte Rohde is a ShyPerformanceArtist™, working her way from the outside in: from the use of tools that are distant, not-so-distant, to finally the use of her body itself. As the center point of her practice Charlotte creates typefaces as her own visual voices/external bodies. She uses them to execute the performances she is not ready to perform with her own body. Fascinated by the haptic knowledge her hands rather than her head gained on the body of clay, Charlotte also works with ceramics.
In No Applause until I say so ;), Charlotte explores the physical control and theatrical gestures that are necessary for a “good” performance. Thinking about female gymnasts at the Olympics, who have to be top athletes but also wear stage makeup; thinking about Lady Gaga, who performed for three months with a broken hip; the pieces speak about female performance versus performing femininity.
The YouTube tutorials explain how to create bodies out of one’s own body, giving tips and tricks on how to deal with raw material. Taking care of all our own bodies as an anticapitalist, feminist gesture, as learned on social media.
Somewhere between mainstream internet culture, hydrofeminism, and craft, No Applause until I say so ;) depicts a highly personal longing for unconditional intimacy, never-ending applause and ultimate (self-)control.
