Capsule 04: Adele Röder

Adele Röder (born in 1980 in Dresden, lives in London) sees her work as migratory, or what she calls "homeless": "The idea of homelessness means that I give an idea space to grow without (initially) over thinking materiality." Accordingly, her work always assumes different forms – although the artist usually resorts to textiles as the carrier medium, since textiles correspond to her desire for a material that is both flexible and intimately linked with the body. With their various uses, textiles allow for numerous interpretations or "speculative materializations" (Röder) of a motif. Röder has thus developed comprehensive series of digital designs in recent years – with up to 600 designs per series – that can assume a wide variety of textile forms, e.g. an image, a curtain, a portable garment, or a hammock. With this approach, the artist confronts not only the artwork's static form, but also questions its original location, i.e. whether it is in the design or in the materialization. At the same time, the "disembodied" digital designs are in contrast to the close connection of textiles to the body.

In 2012, Röder opened a pop-up store in Milan, where customers could choose designs by the artist from the "COMCORRÖDER" series (2010) for different sample garments – simple coats and capes. They were asked to select a design with which they identified; in this way, the coats and capes became a zone for self-projection. Just as Röder's series motifs can assume different manifestations, functional elements, such as the store's neon lighting, also reappear in later exhibitions. This practice of reformulation and testing in different contexts can be viewed as another layer in Röder's confrontation with the (in)stability of artistic production.

Röder's approach is characterized by collaboration. She has thus far primarily worked with Kerstin Brätsch under the name DAS INSTITUT – a platform to express their common interest in ephemeral forms of artistic work and artistic exchange. Only recently has Röder also begun to exhibit her work under her own name.

For the Capsule exhibition 04 at the Haus der Kunst, Adele Röder will develop a new work dedicated to the significance of patterns in textiles. Materials from her own archives, as well as her own motifs, find a new form here – whether as silkscreen prints on textiles, as garments or other formats.