Jun 19

Lisa Rommé

Lisa Rommé (Shtormit) is an installation, olfactory, and performance artist, as well as a curator, who has participated in over 140 exhibitions to date. She has exhibited extensively in Moscow and across Europe in Paris, London, Salzburg, Treviso, and Varna. Recent solo exhibitions include features at L'atelier Byzance in Paris, Molecula Gallery, State Literature Museum, and Gallery Na Kashirke in Moscow. Her most recent artist residencies include a 6 month stay at 59 Rivoli in Paris, the Sculpture Quadrennial in Riga, Latvia, Art Residence Normandy in Yvetot, France, ACME residency in London, and Cité internationale des arts in Paris. Publications include various interviews and biographical features by independent publishers in Europe and a critical essay by Electromuseum, a Moscow gallery specializing in media art.

The body of work offers a variety of approaches to deconstructing institutional notions. Lisa’s most recent installations invent contemporary shrines to concepts of vacantness and in regards to ancient gods and titans with spiritually-laced smells of fresh incense. While other pieces such as the Joseph’s Dreams series reflect studies in texture of what appears to be fungus or bacterial samples or replications of microbiology carefully collected into a format. Her fascinating performances revolve around actors interacting with white paint against a wall of text in the White Walls series and violent motions with an inflated plastic object in Emotions. Other installations portray platinum-like pristine panels etched with the words Money Doesn’t Stink in various languages with a gold bullion bar on a pedestal facing the panels.

The commonality in these installation and performative works consists of creating an avant-garde which pushes physical, spiritual, and emotional boundaries. Deeply conceptual and provocative, the art contains a rebellious nature and sometimes a state of confusion such as her Diffusio performance where we cannot tell whether she paints public walls with water stains or attempts to wash away graffiti. In any case, the work remains within a more sophisticated realm of philosophy rather than typical sociological trends. The art comes from a plane of fragmentation and sacralization of memories and senses, by using incense-laced odors and creating shrines and relics to contemporary concepts of desolation, materialism, and etymology. In essence, the work remains a statement on reminiscence and ruminations regarding universal human concepts such as death, envy, love, and miracles. Her work deals with concepts in a subtle manner, she forces the viewer to investigate the art in order to create personal reflections on purpose.

One of her most immersive pieces consists of an olfactory installation titled Temple of Saturnus (pictured above). The installation remains a shrine to the ancient god Saturn and to the titan Kronos (Cronus). Lisa uses descriptive traits in the contemporary shrine to characterize these ancient deities, such as using the emanation of red light symbolizing the violent nature of Kronos devouring his children, while the black color of the clock represents Saturn in terms of the night and restriction. Lisa constructs the shrine in the shape of a French clock with Roman and Greek structures of a facade containing stereobate, doric columns, entablature, and pediment. The smell of spiritual incense seeps from the installation as if to put the viewer in a daze or dream-like status reflecting on ancient gods and titans in a contemporary fashion.

Lisa Rommé can be described as a deeply intellectual artist who creates a personalization of standards and contemporary interactions. She explores the world through the realm of a combination of both ancient and contemporary ideals of consciousness and state of awareness. Lisa offers more questions than answers, making her a deeply philosophical artist who delves into realms of personalized dimensionality regarding fragments of time, space, and memory. With an astonishing career and portfolio, Lisa's work can be viewed as a retrospective of seeking knowledge while also offering contemporary wisdom.