"Sexwork: Art Myth Reality"

"Sexwork: Art Myth Reality"

NEUE GESELLSCHAFT FÜR BILDENDE KUNST
Oranienstraße 25
December 16–February 25

Unlike pornography, prostitution does not lend itself to the virtual pleasures of the Internet, which has taken porn from shady shops to private desktops and pop culture over the last decade. While some critics are discussing the spread of porn—see Texte zur Kunst’s current issue—the exhibition “Sexwork: Art Myth Reality” charts the globalization of an industry that seems to move both prostitutes and clients around the world with the same ease as spam.

Featuring works by thirty-five international artists and collectives—including practitioners—the sprawling exhibition is divided into three locations and themes, which attempt to avoid voyeurism while offering a realistic picture of prostitution today. It’s a difficult balance to maintain, and the curatorial team—Stéphane Bauer, Boris von Brauchitsch, Katharina Kaiser, Maika Leffers, Jörg Leidig, Judith Siegmund, and Ulrike Solbrig—made the wise decision to offer a surplus of images and information at each location in order to thwart the bodily intimacy promised by the sex-trade encounter. There is simply too much for the eye of any beholder, whether regular client, voyeur, critical feminist, or aficionado of dark, crowded rooms. Even habitués of the white cube are likely to be frustrated by the often-chaotic installation. Yet frustrating visual pleasure—preventing an exhibition about prostitution from slipping into porn—is part of the show’s critical message and a measure of its success.

Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien tackles the theme “Migrant Labor, Human Trafficking, Sex Tourism” with labyrinthine documentation of sex workers’ itineraries, which confound global and local, exotic and intimate. Viviana Bravo Botta’s photo sensible/beautiful place, 2004–2006—made in collaboration with a group of Latin American prostitutes living and working in Frankfurt am Main—charts an unusual city tour, including “the sexy shoe store,” the Colombian consulate, a Chinese fast-food outlet, and the municipal health board. The prostitutes’ desires recorded in Botta’s piece—such as “Regreser a mi país” (Return to my country)—poignantly demonstrate that the ultimate destination is not even on the map. A highlight of “Self-Awareness and Respect” at Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (NGBK) is Bianca Bodau and Alberto Simon’s video Our Lady on the Rocks, 2000, which travels to the former mining boomtown of Butte, Montana, where the oldest brothel in the United States has been turned into the headquarters of the International Sex Workers Foundation for the Arts, Culture, and Education, to the delight and chagrin of locals. Cristiano Berti’s Memoria (Memorial), 2001–2002—a group of color photographs taken by Piero Ottaviano of places around Turin where prostitutes have been murdered—is marked by a banal tranquility that augments the violence forgotten at each site. Unfortunately, the series is divided between NGBK and Haus am Kleistpark, which deals with “Clichés and Realities.” But then again, moving around seems to be part of understanding the sex trade in a global age.

This exhibition is also on view at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien and at the Haus am Kleistpark.

Q! Hotel

COOLHUNTER.NET: The new "wild ones"of the architectural scene, GRAFT (best known for their work on Brad Pitt's Hollywood Hills studio) have designed a new super lifestyle hotel in Berlin. Named Q! Hotel, this 5-star hotel earns a spot on Conde Nast Traveller's roundup of best cool hotels for its inventive and striking design.

Thomas Willemeit, Lars Krückeberg and Wolfram Putz, the trio behind Graft have designed a unique room experience in Q!. For the first time in a hotel, walls are no longer just the boundaries of a room but actual pieces of furniture. Therefore, guests change their interaction with furniture and architecture and become the actors on the lifestyle stage, explains Thomas Willemeit. By formally connecting the rooms a feeling of "being cocooned" arises. It is as if the room has been formed by movement, he adds. The rooms at Q! convey energy, tranquillity and inspiration and remind you of futuristic cocoons.

Lodown Magazine

Grand Hyatt Berlin

It would be easy to mistake this place for a Tokyo hotel, with its Zen-inflected interiors and Japanese-style overflowing tubs, not to mention Helmut Jahn’s sleek and towering Sony Center next door—but this is not Shibuya, but rather Potsdamer Platz, the Wall-era no-man’s-land turned commercial hub, the bustling, futuristic heart of today’s Berlin.

Guest rooms, by the Swiss designer Hannes Wettstein, are minimalist and ever so gently avant-garde, with Japanese elements like cherrywood furniture alongside Bauhaus flourishes, whether subtle, like the black and white marble bathrooms, or more overt—each room features seven black-and-white photo prints from the Berlin Bauhaus Archives. Spaces are sprawling, and Feng Shui principles guide the layouts, which are anything but the L-shaped hotel room standard.

The Grand Hyatt’s interiors might inspire the fashion editors—many a photo spread has been shot with these spaces as a backdrop—but it’s the whole package that brings the tech and media types back over and over again. Service is impeccable, easily the equal as that available at any of the old-fashioned grand hotels, with the addition of a computer help desk, to assist with any technology issues.

Facilities are appropriately grand as well, bordering on comprehensive, with a gorgeous rooftop spa and indoor pool, business and conference facilities that put your office to shame, and three restaurants, including Vox, with its sushi bar and open kitchen. Named after the Vox-Haus restaurant, which occupied this very space in the 1920s, it’s another amazing Hannes Wettstein space, and a local hot spot. The Grand Hyatt is already in the running for Berlin’s top hotel, and with environments like this, it’s unquestionably the most stylish.