PDNB Gallery Press Release

February 16 - March, 24, 2007 Exhibition at PDNB Gallery - Artist reception: Friday, February 16, 2007 from 6 - 8 PM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Dallas, TX: Photographs from Misty Keasler’s Love Hotels series explore the strange, kinky rooms of various sex hotels in Japan. Throughout her career Misty’s documentary work has allowed us to peer into the living spaces of orphanages, shanties found in garbage dumps, gypsy dwellings and her own family’s home in East Texas. This photographic essay gives us a view of a much more foreign type of space, where couples stay for hours rather than days. The rooms have themes such as a schoolroom, a subway room, or a Hello Kitty room.

The photographs sometimes subtly disclose S&M devices such as leather shackles, chains, or examination chairs. Some of the rooms are decorated with funny, odd elements including snowmen, igloos, Santa Claus and carousel rides. There is even a Gulliver’s Travels theme room with oversized furniture. All rooms have a handy Karaoke machine for additional entertainment. And some hotels furnish vending machines with sex toys.

This exhibition will certainly offer a strange view of sexual fantasy as perceived by the Japanese. Can the West fully accept Japanese Anime, Karaoke and Hello Kitty sex rooms?

Misty Keasler was awarded the prestigious Lange-Taylor Prize from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. She was also awarded the Dallas Museum of Art’s DeGolyer Grant. Her photographs are in several notable museum collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, The Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Her first monograph, Love Hotels, has recently been released, published by Chronicle Books. She will have her first museum solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, opening in January 2007. This exhibition will be the artist’s third solo show at Photographs Do Not Bend Gallery.