Lotta Bartoschewski and Sophia Domagala
28.05. - 13.06.2021
Weltaneignung (World Appropriation)
We have essentially overtaken everything. Everything is “post”—that is, already
afterward. Post-internet, post-capitalism, post-modernism. Were we too slow? Are
we only able to face a world that we think is spinning faster and faster by becoming
faster and faster ourselves? By processing things even more efficiently and
rigorously? Only by growing can we survive, cries the unfettered neoliberal market
that surrounds us. “If acceleration is the problem, then resonance may be the
solution,” proclaims Hartmut Rosa, however, in his book Resonance—A Sociology of
our Relationship to the World. He postulates the hypothesis that “an aimless and
interminable compulsion to increase […] ultimately leads to a problematic, even
pathological relationship to the world […].”[1] For where should we position ourselves once we realize that higher, faster, and further are no longer attractive categories? The artists Lotta Bartoschewski and Sophia Domagala explore Hartmut Rosa’s concept of “world appropriation” in their exhibition of the same name, Weltaneignung. After all, every work of art is always an attempt to situate ourselves
in the world and to determine the exact coordinates between which we operate. At the same time, we appropriate the world through art, through the fact that we are producing something, and evade this aforementioned urge for more—because the things that are being produced here are not subject to any market-inherent logic. Lotta Bartoschewski often uses objects that are not only unconstrained by any market-inherent logic, but also those that we would otherwise reject: one-cent coins
that we have been collecting forever, only to never get round to taking them to the bank, old newspapers with yesterday’s news.
Here in Hanover, an isosceles triangle seems to float above the ground. It invites
visitors to react to it—makes them, even. Because the triangle is placed in the
middle of the space, they have to respond to it: Do they walk around it? Do they step
over it? This narrative opens up a reciprocal game between body and space. The
surfaces of the plaster sculptures, made especially for the space, reveal the negative
imprints of the molds, whose interior Bartoschewski painted and lined. The plaster
records everything, accurately reproducing all the information fed to it previously.
What is then depicted in the plaster is the mirrored trace of human activity. Every
fingerprint, every fiber is visible. One-cent coins are gathered on the structure like
jewelry; through the images imprinted on the coins, they tell their own stories of the
circulation of value and the meanings attributed to them. Another sculpture, a
rectangular frame leaning in a recessed alcove, features imprints of newspaper
clippings. Their raison d’être is no longer drawn from the news they proclaim, but
from the fact that they can be used in a different way. They, too, are only
recognizable in their mirrored form due to the printing process. Bartoschewski places
them in a different context and gives them a new purpose, one that is no longer
linked to usefulness and efficiency.
Sophia Domagala’s striped paintings are positioned differently. They are an endless
sequence of repetitions and the same gestures, softened only by small
discontinuities. The line is the simplest and most universal form, yet also the greatest
and most radical challenge. For no freely painted line will ever be perfect; even the
attempt is doomed to fail. They act like a grid through which a window to the world
emerges. Something that frames the main action and offers it a stage. The space in
between becomes an infinitely expandable resonating body. Domagala contemplates
each stripe thoroughly, like a word. While there was sometimes writing in her work in
the past, it has given way to stripes here, which now take on the task of
corresponding with the viewer. For isn’t writing ultimately stripes and lines strung
together? Domagala systematically explores the vertical line in various states: laid
over a newspaper clipping, as a wall painting, or on canvas. In each instance they
establish new spaces and enter into direct correspondence with the viewer. In each
stripe lies a new chance, a new attempt. All are the same yet each one is different.
While Bartoschewski’s work is established in the space and urges action in a
playfully inviting gesture, space is revealed in Domagala’s work through repetition.
The works of both artists function here as a resonance space in which we can relate
to the world. That is precisely why it is interesting to look at them together. If you
wanted to break it down, you could say: Bartoschewski works disruptively, Domagala
repetitively. According to Rosa, art “keeps your mind open to the fact […] that
another relationship to the world is possible.”[2 ]We thus learn the different ways in
which we can appropriate this world, how we can encounter it, and how we can enter
into correspondence with it. Without any acceleration, only the ability to immerse
ourselves in contemplation. Because when Nas asks, “Whose world is this?”, the
only correct answer is one that Rosa would also like: “The world is yours, the world is
yours—It’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine.”[3]
Laura Helena Wurth: “Weltaneignung (World Appropriation)”, on occasion of the
exhibition
“Lotta Bartoschewski/ Sophia Domagala - WELTANEIGNUNG”, ad/ad – Project
Space, Hannover, 2021
Laura Helena Wurth is an author. She lives and works in Berlin.
[1] See Hartmut Rosa, “Resonanz—Eine Soziologie der Weltbeziehung” (Suhrkamp
Verlag: Berlin, 2016), p.14
[2] Rosa, “Resonanz”, p. 495
[3] See Nas, “The World Is Yours,” by Nasir Jones, Illmatic (Columbia, 1994), LP.
Text by Laura Helena Wurth