>normal love

>precarious sex. precarious work
>
>The point of departure for the exhibition are the photographs and texts of the »maid of all >work«, Hannah Cullwick, who lived in Victorian London. They are archived at Trinity College, >Cambridge, and will be shown for the first time outside England.
>
>Hannah Cullwick not only cleaned from early in the morning until late at night in various >households, she also produced a series of remarkable staged photographs, numerous diaries, >and letters. She was very proud of her »masculinity«, of her strength, her muscles, and her big,> dirty hands.
>Her portraits and self-portraits, which show her not only as a domestic servant, but also in >»class drag« or »ethnic drag«, were part of a sado-masochistic relationship that Hannah >Cullwick was involved in with Arthur Munby, a bourgeois man. Interestingly, it was elements >of her hard work in the household that provided the material for their SM scenes.
>
>Building on this connection between sex and labor, »normal love« looks at the role of sexuality >in how power functions within the field of work. The exhibition asks whether the crossing of >social hierarchies of class, gender, and race that Hannah Cullwick staged and that she so >obviously desired have today become generalized into a paradoxical requirement. How are we >interpellated or addressed in the field of work? What role does sexuality play in the >»voluntary« taking on of long workdays or hierarchically organized »places«? What happens if >these places are mobilized and crossed? How can they be reworked or »queered«? The
>contributions by the participating artists do not refer back to power, but rather show an >»engagement with power« (Muñoz).
>
>In conjunction with the exhibition, a catalog will appear on b_books with texts by José Esteban >Muñoz and Renate Lorenz (February 2007).
>
>funding provided by hauptstadtkulturfonds
>supported by künstlerhaus bethanien