Dagmar Rhodius' art involves the registering of impact, touch pushed to its ultimate, touch as unrelenting pressure. Through impact she creates a durable, indisputable presence: mark becomes not simply sign, but something itself to be signified and yet for which there can be no possible sign, for it has absorbed all signs into its opacity. The density Rhodius achieves, then, resists all translation, all replacement by either synonymous marks or synonymous ideas. It needs no context; the space it negates cannot really be recovered through it. It is an art that seems to articulate pure being, sheer givenness, complete self-identity – identity that resists all qualification. Yet there are subtle shifts in direction within single pieces, breaks fragmenting the density, and in other works displacements leaving echoes of the density in an outline, a residue of emptiness. None of this disturbs the primordial density; it simply becomes objectified in geometrical situations, which makes its immediacy more presentable but does nothing to destract from it.
Rhodius describes how she „drives“ graphite into the pores of the paper, until they become so saturated the paper seems forgotten, or at least something other than paper. She has overcome the opposition between „dark“ touch and „light“ paper that is central to drawing by emphasizing yet overcoming the resistance of paper to the mark that is put on it. This resistance is the heart of drawing, the master of drawing playing this resistance with virtuoso finesse yet finally overcoming it – making the marks dominate.
Rhodius' art is about the completeness of this domination, the absolute overcoming of the resistance of the medium by using one of its elements to lord it over the other. Rhodius takes us to what is a priori in drawing: paper, and the marks put on paper, and without losing the logic of the apriori she shows us the special dynamic role of the marks in it. The power of determination with which she applies them shows their determining role in the logic of drawing – shows that role purely, for in a sense nothing is being drawn except the determining logic. In her work drawing displays itself as such, without any real drama for all the force of the marks.This self-disclosure of drawing works like an ultimate demonstration of art, which has been described in universal terms as the overcoming of the resistance of matter by turning it against itself. In Rhodius', the marks turn the paper against itself.
In the „Impact Marks“ Rhodius lets nature do her work for her. She simply chooses the ripest moment, when the wood that has been „marked“ by flowing water shows at once its resistance and lack of resistance to the fluidity. The art consists in choosing the moment when the wood seems about to give up his power of resistance, to lose just that which makes it solid. It is the moment when the wood seems identical with the water, to flow like water. It is the moment when, to use the language Rhodius borrows from Michel Foucault, the wood becomes a pure „event“, a language Foucault, probably unknowingly, derives from Whiteheadian process philosophy. Rhodius here is not simply showing trust in the process of nature, but in the „artistic“ character of this process, namely, the fact that it will demonstrate the resistance of all things in the very act of overcoming it. Rhodius' art is finally about the forces that make for bodiliness, an exploration of viscerality through an understanding of art, which is finally, after all, about what gives all bodies presence. It is not simply that this comes from a recognition of the forces that „touch“ them, but about how they themselves are full of power.
„Schmidt-Rottluff Stipendiaten“, Monographie, Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, Hrsg. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Förderungsstiftung, Berlin, 1983
Dagmar Rhodius' art involves the registering of impact, touch pushed to its ultimate, touch as unrelenting pressure. Through impact she creates a durable, indisputable presence: mark becomes not simply sign, but something itself to be signified and yet for which there can be no possible sign, for it has absorbed all signs into its opacity. The density Rhodius achieves, then, resists all translation, all replacement by either synonymous marks or synonymous ideas. It needs no context; the space it negates cannot really be recovered through it. It is an art that seems to articulate pure being, sheer givenness, complete self-identity – identity that resists all qualification. Yet there are subtle shifts in direction within single pieces, breaks fragmenting the density, and in other works displacements leaving echoes of the density in an outline, a residue of emptiness. None of this disturbs the primordial density; it simply becomes objectified in geometrical situations, which makes its immediacy more presentable but does nothing to destract from it.
Rhodius describes how she „drives“ graphite into the pores of the paper, until they become so saturated the paper seems forgotten, or at least something other than paper. She has overcome the opposition between „dark“ touch and „light“ paper that is central to drawing by emphasizing yet overcoming the resistance of paper to the mark that is put on it. This resistance is the heart of drawing, the master of drawing playing this resistance with virtuoso finesse yet finally overcoming it – making the marks dominate.
Rhodius' art is about the completeness of this domination, the absolute overcoming of the resistance of the medium by using one of its elements to lord it over the other. Rhodius takes us to what is a priori in drawing: paper, and the marks put on paper, and without losing the logic of the apriori she shows us the special dynamic role of the marks in it. The power of determination with which she applies them shows their determining role in the logic of drawing – shows that role purely, for in a sense nothing is being drawn except the determining logic. In her work drawing displays itself as such, without any real drama for all the force of the marks.This self-disclosure of drawing works like an ultimate demonstration of art, which has been described in universal terms as the overcoming of the resistance of matter by turning it against itself. In Rhodius', the marks turn the paper against itself.
In the „Impact Marks“ Rhodius lets nature do her work for her. She simply chooses the ripest moment, when the wood that has been „marked“ by flowing water shows at once its resistance and lack of resistance to the fluidity. The art consists in choosing the moment when the wood seems about to give up his power of resistance, to lose just that which makes it solid. It is the moment when the wood seems identical with the water, to flow like water. It is the moment when, to use the language Rhodius borrows from Michel Foucault, the wood becomes a pure „event“, a language Foucault, probably unknowingly, derives from Whiteheadian process philosophy. Rhodius here is not simply showing trust in the process of nature, but in the „artistic“ character of this process, namely, the fact that it will demonstrate the resistance of all things in the very act of overcoming it. Rhodius' art is finally about the forces that make for bodiliness, an exploration of viscerality through an understanding of art, which is finally, after all, about what gives all bodies presence. It is not simply that this comes from a recognition of the forces that „touch“ them, but about how they themselves are full of power.
„Schmidt-Rottluff Stipendiaten“, Monographie, Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, Hrsg. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Förderungsstiftung, Berlin, 1983