-2014-

Photography

A basic aspect of a hotel is that it provides an established setting into which guests temporarily assimilate themselves to create a home for a limited period of time. Christian Jankowski draws on this situation and transforms a classic hotel room into a space of possibility. Within the opulently furnished halls and hallways of the Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden, the door to Room 127 leads to an open, empty space within an operation that is otherwise fully structured, down to every last detail. In this bare room with glaringly white walls that recall the »white cube« of an exhibition space, guests are presented with the option of furnishing the room to meet their demands. From the standard to the opulent, the furnishings of the room can be compiled from a catalogue according to a building-block concept. However, the idea is not merely to put together the most beautiful or cozy room decor. It offers a place of refuge that requires guests in this situation to make an important decision on their own accord—whereby the more weighty the decision becomes, the more the artistic »value« of the overnight experience increases. With his work created for the Brenners Park-Hotel & Spa in Baden-Baden Jankowski questions the meaning of material luxury—and each guest is presented with the ques-tion as to his or her own need for representative display. Also, the guests’ decisions do not remain hidden behind the closed door of Room 127 but are documented in pho-tographs on a daily basis and shown publicly. Ultimately, as the creator of his or her individual little rooms for decision, each guest produces what amounts to a self-portrait—by using the scope of possibilities presented by the artist.

15 arrangements consisting of:
24 c-prints, passepartouts with silkscreen, framed (54 x 43,5 cm), edition of 5, II