Julia Oschatz. «Romeo Error»

May 17 → June 28, 2025

The project developed by Julia Oschatz for planta1 addresses how the human arrogance to differentiate oneself from animals through inventiveness has become a threatening form of exploitation of the planet's resources and has ended up raising the question of the possible replacement of the human body and even the mind.

The "Romeo Error" tells us about the translation to the biological world of the circumstance experienced by Romeo in William Shakespeare's play, who thought Juliet was dead and committed suicide when she was only asleep.

If scientists mistakenly think or calculate that Romeo or a certain species is dead or extinct, this leads them to care even less about, for example, habitat, food supply or buffer zones and, as a result, the species will in fact become extinct. 

This exhibition therefore serves as a tribute to non-human organisms and animals unknown to us because they are extinct, and as a warning of the disappearance of others if we do not change our indifferent attitude towards other species.

‘In an atmosphere of stoic absurdity, I understand my work as a statement to encourage us to look at ourselves from a different perspective, one that is not as noble, intelligent or safe as we like to believe.’

→  Julia Oschatz

The project specifically designed by Julia for planta1 contains a large number of drawings on paper that capture details of each missing animal and are the germ of the series. Alongside them are several paintings in oil and ink on canvas, a mural painting and a set of video works which, as in previous exhibitions by the artist, are endowed with great iconographic power.

In them, he does not seek to approach the behaviour or physical appearance of these animals, but simply to act behind their usual masks, with those ways close to the absurd that lead us to have to translate their gestures mentally and force us in a certain way to an exercise of greasing our possibly rusty cognitive and reflective capacities.  

Julia Oschatz (Darmstadt, 1970)

Julia Oschatz works with a variety of techniques and approaches in her often room-sized installations, which may include painting, drawing, video, computer animation, sound, and so on.

Alienation from a context we thought we knew is a central theme in his works, which often play with both the laws of physics and our notion of social habits and human psychology.