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Pia Rönicke

Biography

Presentation

Pia Rönicke Born in 1974 in Roskilde, Denmark Lives and works in Copenhagen

Pia Rönicke's videos are collages of heterogeneous sounds and images offering a commentary on urban structure and the modernist conception of the city and the environment. Like samplings, these videos designate and underscore the points as film music, photos, comics, images from magazines and her own drawings of cityscapes and gardens. This film work should be read as a permanently evolving composition in which each part is at once autonomous and constitutes a global narrative on the space of living, on the relation between nature and culture, and on architecture as camouflage. While re-visiting the experiments of the 1920s and the critical montage tradition of the 1960s and 1970s, Rönicke's work is at the same time articulated around highly contemporary questions.

Biography

Pia Rönicke Born in 1974 in Roskilde, Denmark Lives and works in Copenhagen

Solo exhibitions

2009

Facing - An Usual Story from a Nameless Country, Monterhermoso, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain

2008

An Usual Story from a Nameless Country, gb agency, Paris

Facing - An Usual Story from a Nameless Country, Casco Projects, Utrecht, The Netherlands

2007

Rosa's Letters, Croy Nielsen, Berlin

2006

Rosa’s Letters - Telling a Story, gb agency, Paris

# 1, The Plan Dictatorship, What is the Plan..., Lunds Konsthall, Lund, Sweden

2005

Without a Name, Andersen_s Contemporary Art, Copenhagen

Land/Documents, Display gallery, Prague

2004

Without a Name, gb agency, Paris

Landscapes of Resistance, Trafo Gallery, Budapest

Rekalde, the City Space for Contemporary Art, Bilbao

Six Architects- An Architectural Rorschach Test, Lunds Kunsthal, Lund (in collaboration with Michael Bears), Sweden

2003

Seven Architects - An Architectural Rorschach Test, Schindler Residency, The Makey Apartments, Los Angeles (in collaboration with Michael Bears)

Fiac, gb agency, Paris

2002

A Place Like Any Other, Gallery Tommy Lund, Copenhagen

2001

Moderna Museet Projekt, Stockholm (cat.)

Dream Operator, Sparwasser HQ Offensive für Zeitgenössische Kunst und Kommunication, Berlin

1999

Outside the Living Room, Udstillingstedet, Copenhagen

Group exhibitions

2010

Les lendemains d’hier, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal, Canada

Rehabilitation, Wiels, Brussels, Belgium

Both Before and After, gb agency, Paris

2009

Nord, Nord-Ouest, gb agency, Paris

2008

Danskjävlar - a Swedish Declaration of Love, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen

Technically Sweet, Participant Inc, New York

2007

Sueño de casa propia, La casa encendida, Madrid

The Other City, What because of modernist housing, Hungarian cultural center, New York

Building Society, La Panera, Lleida, Spain

Imagine Action, Lisson Gallery, London (curated by Emily Pethick)

Archaelogy’s of the future, Recalde Contemporary Art Center, Bilbao

Anachronism, Argos, Brussels (curated by Elena Filipovic)

Momentary Momentum, Parasol Unit, London

Elephant Cemetery, Artist Space, New York

Dibujos animados (Cartoons), Museo Colecciones ICO, Madrid

Modelle für Morgen, European Kunsthalle, Köln

2006

Exportable Goods, Krinzinger Projekte, Vienna

Closely Observed Plans, Transit workshops, Bratislava

Dreamlands Burn, Mucsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest

Version animée 2006, Biennale des nouveaux médias, Centre de l'Image Contemporaine, Saint-Gervais, Geneva

A video parcour, Verein zur Förderung von Kunst und Kultur, Rosa- Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin

Supernova, Expérience Pommery #3, Domaine Pommery, Reims, France

ArchiPeinture, Camden Art Center, London

At the Same Time Somewhere Else, The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh

Videotheque mobile, Ecole d'Architecture de Paris/Belleville, with Le Plateau/Frac Ile de France, Paris

Outside the Living Room, gb agency, Paris

2005

Urban Circlization, Berlin, Lichtenberg City

Petites Compositions entre Amis, Séquence 1, gb agency, Paris

2004

Channel_0, CATV Project, Local TV- Network, AIAV, Japan

Non Standart Cities, Stadtkunstverein, Berlin

Cycle Tracks will abound in Utopia, ACCA, Victoria, Spain

Architectual Adventures, Overgaden, Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen

Country Site, Kunsthallen Brænderigården, Viborg, Denmark

Monument, Cityscape, Copenhagen

Utopia Station Posters, DasTAT/Bockenheimer Depot, Frankfurt ; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Museum in Progress, Vienna

Criss-Cross touring Film Program: Frankfurter Kunstverein, Lunds Konsthal, Sweden

2003

Plunder, Contemporary Art Center, Dundee, England

Ablity, Trafo, Budapest

Projects : Appendiks A Space for Art, Visual Culture, Publication with Jacob Fabricius & Elsebeth Jorgensen, on-line projects www.porksaladpress.org

XVIII Ateliers Internationaux, Frac des Pays de Loire, Carquefou (cat.)

Coup de Cœur - A Sentimental Choice, CRAC Alsace, Altkirch

Poster Project, Utopia Station, 50th Venice Biennale, Venice

Present Perfect, gb agency, Paris

GNS, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (cat.)

Nomadic Structures, Cubitt Gallery, London

Mursollaici, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris

2002

Home Scenes: 8 days of revision, The Schindler House, Los Angeles

Site-seeing: disneyfication of cities?, Künstlerhaus, Vienna

The Fall Exhibition, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (cat.)

Rent-a-Bench, Los Angeles

Culture meets culture, Busan Biennale, Busan (cat.)

Urbane Sequenzen, Kunsthalle Erfurt/Museum Schloss Hardenberg (cat.)

Manifesta 4, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (cat.)

Breathing Space, Parc André Citroën, Paris

Concrete Garden, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford

2001

Dedalic Convention, MAK – Austrian Museum for Applied Arts, Vienna

a‘Blick, Screening touring Nordic and International Venues

Exile Video, Rum46, Aarhus (cat.)

New Settlements, Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen

Projekt S-train, Recent Works, Copenhagen

I love Nature, Exhibition Room OTTO, Copenhagen

Taenk om/What if?, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (cat.)

2000

Site Geist, The Porter Troupe Gallery, San Diego

No Swimming, org. by Heike Ander, Kunstverein Münich

Use your illusion/part 3, Duchamp's Suitcase, Arnolfini, Bristol

Momentum. Nordic Biennale for Contemporary Art, Moss (cat.)

Taenk om/What if?, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (cat.)

1999

Blick Box, screening, Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Dispensing with Formalities, org. by Brett Bloom/Jacob Fabricius, Copenhagen

Video Library, Brands Klædefrabrik, Odense, Denmark

Bibliography

Bibliography

Press articles (selection)

2007

Imagine Action by Dan Fox, Frieze, October.

Imagine Action by Rachel Withers, Artforum, October.

Pia Rönicke by Jennifer Allen, Artforum, September.

2006

Pia Rönicke, Artinvestor, March.

2005

Pia Rönicke by Henrikke Nielsen, Flash Art.

Pia Rönicke by Staffan Boije af Gennäs, Frieze, Nov/Dec.

Wereldberoemd in eigen Land, Metropolis M, #1 February-March.

Pia Rönicke, gb agency by Jean-Max Colard, Art Forum, February

2004

Les feux de la lampe by Elisabeth Lebovici, Libération, 27-28 November.

Romance by Judicael Lavrador, Les Inrockuptibles #469, 24-30 November.

2003

Pia Rönicke by Anaïd Demir, Le Journal des Arts #3, 11 October.

2002

The Concrete Jungle by Lars Bang Larsen, Frieze #69, September.

The Weekend Paper, Kunstrevy, February.

2001

Pia Rönicke by Pernille Albrethsen, NU: The Nordic Art Review, Vol. 3, #5.

New Settlements, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center by Jan Verwoert, Frieze # 61, September.

No Swimming, Kunstverein Munich, by Justin Hoffmann, Frieze # 56, Jan/feb.

New Settlements, Nikolaj Exhibition Building, Copenhagen, by Kristine Kern, NU: The Nordic Art Review, Vol. 3, #3-4.

Take Off, Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, by Line Rosenvinge, NU: The Nordic Art Review, Vol. 3, #2

2000

Momentum 2000, Moss by Jörg Heiser, Frieze # 54, Sept/Oct 2000.

Catalogues

2008

Danskjävlar - a Swedish Declaration of Love, Copenhagen (curated by Bo Nilsson and Maria Gadegaard)

2007

Anachronism, Argos, Brussels (curated by Elena Filipovic).

Elephant Cemetery, Artist Space, New York (curated by Christian Rattemeyer).

2006

Dreamlands Burn, Mucsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest.

#1 The Plan is Dictator! What is the plan, Pia Rönicke, published by Lunds Konsthall, Sweden.

Version animée, Centre pour l’image contemporaine (CIC), Geneva.

2005

Feu de bois, Ateliers Internationaux du Frac des Pays de la Loire, curated by Alexis Vaillant.

Architectual Adventures, Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen.

Monument, Cityscape, Copenhagen.

2003

GNS, Palais de Tokyo, Paris.

Utopia Station Posters, Haus der Kunst, Munich ; Museum in Progress, Vienna.

Poster Project, Utopia Station, 50th Venice Biennale.

2002

The Fall Exhibition, Charlottenborg, Copenhagen.

Culture meets culture, Busan Biannale, Corea.

Urbane Sequenzen, Kunsthalle Erfurt/Museum Schloss Hardenberg.

Manifesta 4, European Biennial of Contemporary Art, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt.

2001

Pia Rönicke, Moderna Museet Projekt, Stockholm.

Blick, Screening touring Nordic and international venues.

Exile Video, Rum46, Aarhus.

Take Off, Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus.

2000

Momentum, Nordic Biennale for Contemporary Art, Moss.

Press Articles and catalogue clips

Click on the underlined parts to download the texts in pdf

Press clips

2009

Bidoun, # 16, english, "Facing", text by Jason Simon, Winter.

2007

Art Forum, english, "Pia Rönicke", text by Jennifer Allen, September.

2005

Flash Art, english, "Pia Rönicke", text by Henrikke Nielsen, November/December.

Frieze, english, "Pia Rönicke", text by Staffan Boije af Gennäs, November/December.

Art Forum, english, "Pia Rönicke, gb agency", text by Jean-Max Colard, February.

2004

Les Inrockuptibles, #469, french, "Romance", text by Judicaël Lavrador, November 24-30.

2002

Frieze, #69, english, "The Concrete Jungle", text by Lars Bang Larsen, September.

2001

NU: The Nordic Art Review, Vol. 3, #5, english, "Pia Rönicke", text by Pernille Albrethsen, May.

Catalogue clips

2008

Danskjävlar - a Swedish Declaration of Love, catalogue of exhibition, text by Élodie Royer, Kunsthal, Copenhagen, (french).

2007

Anachronism, catalogue of exhibition, text by Elena Filipovic, Argos, Brussels, (english).

Fantasmagoria - Dibujo en Movimiento, catalogue of exhibition, text by Montse Badia, Fundacion ICO, Madrid, (english).

2006

Dreamlands Burn, catalogue of exhibition, text by Livia Paldi & Pia Rönicke, Mucsarnok/Kunsthalle Budapest, (english).

Habitat /Variations, catalogue of exhibition, text by Véronique Baccheta, BAC / Bâtiment d’art contemporain, Genève, (french).

2003

Feu de bois, catalogue of exhibition, interview between Alexis Vaillant & Pia Rönicke, Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou, (english).

GNS, catalogue of exhibition, text by Nicolas Bourriaud, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (french/english).

Publication

The plan is dicatator ! What is the plan...

Catalogue acces in line.

Lunds Konsthall

29 pages

ISBN 91-88846-37-7

Lunds Konsthall

SE-220 02 Lunds, Sweden

Works

Facing - An Usual Story from a Nameless Story

“An Usual Story from a Nameless Country” takes as its starting point the encounter between Pia Rönicke and the Kurdish writer Zeynel Abidin Kızılyaprak. This exhibition questions the way stories are lived, told, shared and retransmitted. The key work of the exhibition, the film “Facing”, has been realized in a constant exchange between the artist and the writer: this dialogue is used to forge a common filmic space. Based on the short story “Knock… Knock… Knock…” by Kızılyaprak, the film depicts one of his experiences in a Turkish torture house. It centres around the meeting between Kadir, a young revolutionary, and an old religious man, each helping the other despite their distant systems of belief. The narrative develops through different modes of enunciation: the voice-over passing from the “I” of a character-narrator recounting the facts in the first person singular to the “he” of an omniscient narrator. This simultaneity of discourses and temporalities – from the experience lived in 1980 to its re-enactment, from the writing of the novel to the realization of the film – disrupts the traditional linear narrative and infiltrates the continuity of the story.

Also presented in the exhibition, is series of photographs documenting the shooting as well as a set of film stills, which together create a kind of mise en abîme of this story. The different modes of narrative present in this show, from fiction to documentary, from the autobiography to the collective history, allow for many access points into the story and encourage the viewers to gather and rebuild their own narrative.

Pia Rönicke’s work reveals her fascination with modernist and political utopias while at the same time underlining their disillusioning characteristics. It intertwines her own story, her encounters, and on the spirit of the time: when politicians, writers, artists and architects were working in collaboration in order to create a modern society. In “An Usual Story from a Nameless Country”, the artist revives these same issues, through the prism of the Kurdish situation, individual engagement, identity abuses, disappearance and loss, while reinventing them and conjuring new forms. It is as if the artist’s duty was to continually reread history and inscribe her own vision within it.

The film “Facing - An Usual Story from a Nameless Country” has been produced with the support of Montehermoso Cultural Center (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain), Casco (Utrecht, Netherlands) and of the Danish Art Council.

Rosa's Letters - Telling a story

I started out reading the private letters of Rosa Luxemburg in between times of production, in coffee shops, while I was waiting to be able to start working or have conversation. The reading of the letters became part of my everyday activities. Rosas letters have long been historic documents, but originally they where addressed to one person in a specific moment. So what happens when the letters are transported into a different time and read by the unspecified, I asked myself while reading, not quite sure if it was ok. I felt that the reading was uncannily familiar and relevant. ‘Rosa’s Letters - Telling a Story’ is a scenario, consisting of two films and a model. Making the model for the film, while making the film. Making the film, while working on the model, is a staging of a series of activities that in them selves might seem meaningless, with no particular course or reason, other then creating a scene for the film. You hear a voice in then film. The voice is embodied in a character; an investigator, that contemplates and acts out the scenery of the story. The voice-over is based on fragments from Rosa Luxemburg’s letters. - Letters (1891-1907) to her lover and work partner Leo Jogiches through many years, her lover and friend Konstantin Zetkin (1907-1910). - Letters from her time in prison (1916-1918) in Wronki and Breslau to her friend Sonja Liebknecht and Hans Diefenbach. Recordings is a document of a journey to some of the places where Rosa stayed and from where she wrote her letters. – A compilation of a series of 16 mm filming and the sound recordings of some the places that once were the scenarios of Rosas movements, and the background for her reflections. The recordings cover a fraction of the journey. The journey carries as much importance as what have been captured. The meaning of the film is unresolved, and the document is a fiction. The Model is a prop from the film, with its own life movement of slides projected on the window. The images are from a demonstration in Berlin, the 15th of January 2006, the death day of Rosa Luxemburg. Rosa refused to accept the conditions of reality in a constant battle for a better condition. She believed that it was possible to transform her convictions into real change. But at the same time she also understood that change was only going to happen from the conditions of life. She writes about revolutionary practice: ‘Good organization does not precede action but is the product of it’ and ‘The organization of revolutionary action can and must be learnt in revolution itself, as on can only learn swimming in the water’. When Rosa was imprisoned in Wronki (at that time German, today Polish), she would write about the birds outside her window. The birds are still there, the crows are marching in front of the prison walls. The prison is still there and functioning. But the surroundings have been rendered by the 88 years that have passed. One war, change of country and several changes of regime, now the little city of Wronki will honor Rosa Luxemburg with a street name. Driving through Poland, it was difficult not to think about what Rosa would have thought. On an old railway line a (godstog) was transporting brand new cars to Poland. At the same time we where driving through towns that was falling apart, maybe picturiqs in the moment, but despairing in time. We ended our trip in Berlin, and went around to the places where Rosa had lived and died. At Fredrichsfelde cemetery; we found the recreation of a miniature of the monument Mies van der Rohe had once designed for the assassinated Rosa and her comrades. The first monument and the graves of the murdered was disgraced and destroyed by the Nazi Party. Hannah Arendt quotes Isak Dinesen in ‘Men in Dark Times’: “All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them”. Storytelling is an activity, which has the potential of reconciling the pains of the past. When I read Rosas letters, I felt a loss. The loss is inherent Rosas destiny but everything is gained through the reading. What Hannah Arendt points out is that: Life, activity and thinking first becomes real when it is shared with others. Pia Rönicke

Without a Name

Pia Rönicke's work reveals her fascination for the modernistic utopia, but also underlines its disenchantment. The work stems from her personal background as well as the spirit of Modernism : a time when architects, engineers, politicians, artists and ideologues were united around a common goal to create a modern society.

Her videos (exhibited at Manifesta 2002 and Palais de Tokyo GNS 2003) are visual and sound collages that include fragments from films, advertisements, blueprints, magazines, comics, and the artist's own drawings and photographs. Pia Rönicke's urban landscapes offer a poetic alternative to reality, creating new territories for contemplation and utopia.

For her first solo exhibition in France, Pia Rönicke uses the human experience to question the artist's role in society. A video and sound installation, a slide show, photographs and sculptures recreate Rönicke's meeting with a famous designer, Mrs Le Klint, who lost her name and was unable later on to give identity to her own design objects. Both her and her actions was faceless. Pia Rönicke employs both fact and fiction to trace the designer's journey.

By rejecting amnesia, Pia Rönicke refocuses contemporary social and artistic concerns --inventing new forms -- as if the artist's duty was to continually reassess history and impose her own vision.

Zonen

Pia Rönicke’s concern with urban realities is reactivated in this documentary/ fictional film. Three young danish architects are visiting a site they have proposed to transform into a town for 20 000 people.

The film is based on their theoretical jargon and becomes a commentary on the relation between ideas and their realisation. In “Zonen”, time is strangely suspended between the real and the fictional, the past and the future.

Urban Fiction

Urban Fiction is shaped as a meshwork of allusions and references. The film borrows its style of narration from Jean-Luc Godard’s Masculine Feminine. 15 Precise Facts (1966). It transports us into a hypothetic world of architectural discussion, which we have to imagine as an exchange of ideological statements between le Corbusier and Constant. A polarised encounter, where one feeds into the other. The master and the pupil. The purist and the humanist. Hard-core utopia and cutting-edge vision. Iconic beauty and the beauty of social intercourse. We are not, however, always able to discern the two personae and their arguments, since they are both voiced by the same male protagonist (played by Andrew Stanley). In the film, this tentative ‘human drama’ overlaps with drawings, some of which are by Le Corbusier and Constant, or with still photographs and drawn captions. These reappear in the posters together with fragments of the scripted dialogue/monologue. The urban fiction of the title becomes both subject-matter, setting, style of narration and mode of presentation.

Cell City

“Each cell is 27m3 – a perfect cube. One cell is always associated with another and can never stand alone. In a space with zero gravity a cell can be joined to any six sides of another cell. Apart from the sides already occupied, at least one side must be kept open for viewing.

Each cell is mobile, in the sense that it can be connected and reconnected subject to the above conditions.

Two or more cells can be joined with a passage through them.

One can shape the interior of a cell, whereas the outside surface must remain untouched.

Each person in Cell City community has the right to a cell.

No person can ever have the right to more than one cell.

The day a person leaves the community, their cell will be given to a new member of Cell City.

The number of units in Cell City is to remain constant.

All decisions in Cell City must be made unanimously.

These rules for Cell City are permanent.”

In Transfigured Time

The Life of Schindler House

The Schindler House is a modernist classic built in 1922 by Austrian-born architect Rudol M. Schindler (1887 – 1953) to house two couples and their guests. It became famous as a site for ‘alternative lifestyles’ in the 1920’s and 1930’s and is now run as an artists’residency by MAK, the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna. The soundtrack, which visitors have to listen to through headphone, contains a recorded interview with Robert Sweeney, conservator at the Schindler House. He has held this position since 1980, when Schindler’s ex-wife died and the restoration of the house began. The work’s visual component is a selection of images from Schindler’s family archive and of photographs documenting how this path-breaking one-storey creation was carefully restored. Pia Rönicke highlights moments of the original inhabitants’utopian everyday life as it has survived in period snapshots.

In 2002 I conducted an interview with Robert Sweeney, conservator of Schindler House in Los Angeles. I was also allowed to use photographs from the Schindler family’s private album for a still image film. Together the two elements, the recorder interview and the film, constitute a virtual guided tour of the house.

Robert Sweeney has been the conservator of the house since 1980, after Pauline Schindler’s death. The house was donated to the Friends of Schindler House. After 1980 the house has been extensively rebuilt. Robert Sweeney has been in charge of the reconstruction and in a sense he is one of the authors in the Life of Schindler House.

This is a story about the reconstruction and recreation of a dream, of bringing back the Schindler House to its original state. The so-called ideal state, as evidenced by the original plans and drawings. Not the lived life of the house.

Untilted Eames Model

Storyboard For a City

'Storyboard For a City' is a video sequence created from a series of 23 drawings. The drawings are joined by a road that runs through all 23 pieces of paper. Around the road creates different house structures a city. 'The camera' in the video follows the road and pans over a cityscape slightly from above, as if the 'viewer' would be in a low aeroplane. Even thought the video piece moves in a circle it suggests endless possibilities for new house structures and possible development around the road. In this illusion of a city there is no ultimate architecture, the city is mobile and constantly changing.

A Place Like Any Other

This installation was produced in connection with Moderna Museet Project, and was displaced in the Library of the Culture House in Stockholm. The location of the video installation was important. First of all because it brought accessibility to the piece. The library was the place where people from all over Stockholm would come to read the newspaper, with the subway from all the different suburb.

A housing area in Bredäng, in a southwest suburb of Stockholm is the center of the video piece 'A Place Like Any Other'. Bredäng is a part of the so-called 'million Dwelling Projekt' from the middle 60s and the early 70s, in which identical residential buildings in prefabricated elements were built and placed in the landscape-in this case, a beautiful green and hilly area near lake Mälaren.

The video installation 'A Pace Like Any Other' consists of two video pieces. One is based on interviews with the residents in the housing area. The questions were general and could be raised in any community for example: 'Do you have any possibility to influence you housing areas?' 'Do you believe in local democracy and what does that mean to you?' The generality of the questions reflected something very specific about the area.

The other video follows an architectural tour in the area of Bredäng. 'The Architecture and Cultural Environment of Stockholm' arranged the tour. The tour guide presents Bredäng as a site of historical architectural importance, and talks about the area from an esthetical and structural point of view, very much as it was considered when it was built, -like a sculpture park seen from above.

Bredäng is a place with many different voices, and over 60 different nationalities. It is a place defined by a certain media image, but in fact it has no face , it does not exist. The people living there are anonymous they have no identity and no voice, they have little economical and political power to make a change in the big picture of Stockholm, even in their own local environment.

The other video follows an architectural tour in the area of Bredäng. 'The Architecture and Cultural Environment of Stockholm' arranged the tour. The tour guide presents Bredäng as a site of historical architectural importance, and talks about the area from an esthetical and structural point of view, very much as it was considered when it was built, -like a sculpture park seen from above.

Bredäng is a place with many different voices, and over 60 different nationalities. It is a place defined by a certain media image, but in fact it has no face , it does not exist. The people living there are anonymous they have no identity and no voice, they have little economical and political power to make a change in the big picture of Stockholm, even in their own local environment.

Camouflaging History

From Plan to Realization

Outside The Living Room

'Outside the Living Room' is an investigation of the garden as an attempt to reconcile nature with urbanism. Rönicke's strange visions include Manhattan skycrapers surrounded by dense forest, and rice fields on top of Mies Van der Rohe's Lake Shore Drive Apartments, as utopians of restored balance between urbanism and nature.

Using the collage as medium with images from popular culture she carries on tradition of the Agit-Prop of Dada monyage, as seen by Hanna Höch and John Heartfield, and indeed its pop variations of the early 60's and 70's (e.g. Richard Hamilton and Martha Rosler), and she criticises modernism's way of presupposing one particular way of living. Within her pieces, Rönicke is taking on the role as a kind of poetic urban planner, and by presenting her subjective utopias, she is on one hand revealing a possible future, and on the other, reflecting on their utopian character.

Somewhere Out There

With Rönicke's subtle and seductive collages of sound and images she is commenting on the urban structure and modernism's fallen ideals. Her videos are visual and auditory samplings of film music, photos, comics, nature visions and her own drawings of cityscapes and gardens, creating as a whole a poetic future vision of the space we occupy. There is no linear narrative, but an accumulation of associative images presented in slow tracking shots, takes the viewer into an atmospheric space, where cars are driving to appartment houses, satellites are gliding above the skycrapers, and modern interiors with designed furniture are inhabited by stiffened japanese comic figures and models from lifestyle magazines. It could have been a science fiction movie from the 50's, envisioning the future of modernism, presented with irony and a sense of unavoidable decay, resembling the atmosphere obtained in Kubrick's '2001, A Space Odessey'.