PETRA LOTTJE
SO SIEHT SIE DER KUNDE
August 24–October 2, 2024
Video Art Screening:
Tuesday, October 1, 6:30 pm
Petra Lottje, Das Mitarbeiterfest, 2024 (Detail)
A quirky beep while swiping the card through an ageing machine and we enter it: a microcosm full of stories, personal destinies, interpersonal relationships and emotions - a department store. With her latest works, Petra Lottje presents us an artistically condensed personal view of a place steeped in tradition that symbolizes the changes in our society. Away from the threat scenarios of online retail and digitalisation discussed in the media, she adopts an unusual perspective and observes the people from close up.
Based on individual observations Petra Lottje draws a portrait of a building. Floors with sales areas, roof terraces, break rooms and a sheltered corner on the outer wall form the invisible framework for the repeated encounters, processes and weekday rituals of the part-time residents who work here: Management meetings, smoking breaks, chicken sales. A sleeping guest (Schlafgast) lies on the floor, inwardly dissolved. From bottom to top, the viewer‘s gaze wanders past the staffing level (Personaldecke), a creature with two heads and countless hands, symbolising the available employees. More would be better. A number of faceless CEOs also remain nameless. Anger and exertion are only one department away from eroticism and burgeoning exuberance at the office party (Mitarbeiterfest). A bouquet of mourning stands in for a colleague who is no longer there. And a dismissal (Kündigung) is a farewell to a life, too. Above everything, the pigeons are enthroned and take what remains.
With dynamic strokes, the artist creates individual portraits, group constellations and atmospherically charged places of action, which as key moments can shed light on our everyday coexistence, our working and living realities. By pausing to look at what is visible on the outside, Petra Lottje visualizes individual inner worlds and possible states of our community on the basis of the smallest social units.
Like splinters in a magnetic field she arranges the people and their attributes on the paper. There are forces of attraction and repulsion here too. Petra Lottje shows us a real stage in which everyone takes on a role for a few hours a day. On a mirror, which is now made of paper, one can read: THIS IS HOW THE CUSTOMER SEES YOU. Whether customer, colleague, superior or family member: How much of yourself do you show the other person? How do you shape your role? Petra Lottje also depicts a world that everyone knows: dreams and needs, demands and disappointments are all part of our lives. What does it take to keep a fragile system in balance despite all our inequalities and dependencies? In Petra Lottje‘s drawings, humanity is at least tangible.
PETRA LOTTJE was born in 1973 in Rheda-Wiedenbrück (NRW) and lives in Berlin. After completing her intermediate diploma in social work, she began studying fine art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Braunschweig - with interim stays in Canada and the USA. After graduating in 2005, Petra Lottje was a master student of Professor J. Armleder. For her video works, one-line drawings and large-format paper collages, the artist has not only received countless scholarships and international attention, but also prizes, nominations and other awards. Her works are part of public and private collections and are regularly presented in exhibitions, most recently at the Centre for Contemporary Art (ZAK) at the Zitadelle Spandau, the Horst Janssen Museum in Oldenburg, the Kunsthaus Potsdam (solo) and the Kunstverein Allgemeiner Konsumverein Braunschweig (solo).
Opening: Friday, August 23, 6–9 pm
ARTIST TALK with Patricia Löwe: Wednesday, September 4, 6:30 pm