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Email PageLove Hotels
January 27, 2007- March 3, 2007
Reception: January 27, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Misty Keasler
Jenkins Johnson Gallery
521 W 26th St Misty Keasler Bondage Kitty (Hello Kitty S&M Room) (2004) |
Japan instated a “New Public Morals Act” in 1999 to check the bad reputation they were quickly building in the media and abroad for their prolific sex industry and child pornography. One reform was making love hotels zoned as sex related operations, rather than allowing them to continue to function as facilities meant for basic overnight lodging. The alternative status propelled them into transforming to fulfill regulated obligations as well as fresh challenges of doing business required an overhaul in atmospheres to maintain clientele and garner new visitors. Standard seedy decor and accoutrements morphed to stylized, yet no less garish, aesthetics with room themes more so amusement playgrounds than motel rooms. Love hotels also went high tech with the introduction of karaoke machines, dvd libraries, kitchens, and automated check-out systems. Misty Keasler investigated the hotels during an 8 month stay in Japan and her portraits illuminate a culture’s definitions of sexuality and its place in daily life.
The public and private in Japan are closely guarded spheres definitively separated by their conceptions of propriety. Heightened awareness of these set notions pervades daily life and relationships; thus, the evolution of the love hotel. Sex is an act practiced by the Japanese outside of their homes on a regular basis because it is not meant to dwell in their everyday lives. Perhaps revealing to this precept is the reliance on fantasy and distraction the Japanese, especially males, regard as essential to reach stimulation. They need an alternate world, a story, a costume, a dash of Hello Kitty bondage or perhaps igloo S&M, rather than necessities of romance or soft emotion. It can be argued that the “love” in love hotel is for the fantasy, not the lover nor the sex. While playful there is a coldness and immaturity in their evangelical fantasia that exudes from these rooms not simply because they are shot as still lives or architectural portraits that lack human presence; it is because they are isolated pleasure zones that people walk in and out of, literally turning themselves on and off. Keasler palpably captures the backgrounds to their encounters filled from wall to wall and floor to ceiling with chintzy patterns and ostentatious colors. Her works are a testament to this provocative universe of hideous decoration and communicate plainly the institutional indifference of the love hotel industry.
Nonetheless, Keasler’s works are titillating on the grounds of sheer sex. Westerners approach the subject in such different ways that these rooms evoke a particular awe and in some cases eeriness. Americans by contrast have the blah motel room for hourly hire to indulge in the dirty love affair or a secret rendezvous, but the majority of our sex is done at home without the degree of amusements the Japanese have. There are toys to be had, yet not as accepted or universal as for the Japanese couple. It is a whole different realm of suppression and longings that is leashed to how we define sex. There is something to learn from each other on these terms to find a freedom, a balance between the entertainment and the intimacy of sex.
Misty Keasler was the 2003 recipient of the Lange-Taylor award, which is given by the Center for Documentary Arts at Duke University to a documentary photographer and a writer to collaborate on a project of depth regarding the human experience. With the award, Keasler traveled to the Guatemala City Dump to record the struggles of displaced Mayans. She also received the Dallas Museum of Art DeGolyer Grant, was recognized as one of the top 30 young photographers in the world by Photo District News, and has been published in Harpers, Tokion, Nest, Newsweek, Fortune, DoubleTake, and Texas Monthly. Keasler’s work is held in the collections at Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, IL; Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas; and, Dallas Museum of Art, TX.
Books and DVDs related to artists in this show
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