Carénage

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Painting back to historical contexts of desire using furniture & pulp fiction.

Painting back to historical contexts of desire using furniture & pulp fiction.

🌷🔑Schoolgirl Romance🌷🔑

Photo: Anne Meerpohl, 2025

Romance novels marked for exploitative tropes and locked in a painted cabinet. After the secured Staff Reading cabinet in my high school library.

Photo: Anne Meerpohl
The most mediocre libertarian has dreamed of oriental princesses... 2025. Detail. Photo: Anne Meerpohl
Photo: Anne Meerpohl, 2025
Photo: Anne Meerpohl
Photo: Anne Meerpohl
Photo: Anne Meerpohl, 2025

The most mediocre libertarian has dreamed of oriental princesses; every notary carries about inside him the debris of a poet, 2025
59 x 55 x 16 cm
Metal, wood, glass, romance novels, Wenzhou paper, acrylic paint

LORE

At some point in my schooling, possibly in a rare lull when my class at a high-achieving all-girls secondary school was not preparing for an exam, I staged a heist of a locked library cabinet containing recent bestsellers and explicit romance novels.

Using a large paperclip to pick the cabinet‘s flimsy lock, I extracted a maximum of 7 novels, fanning out the remaining books so as not to leave noticeable gaps. A system developed whereby I speed-read the books, marked any explicit sex scenes with a dog-ear (in the rare case that there was no corresponding pronounced spinal crease) and distributed these marked novels to a select few friends. Having the erotic pages indicated helped to ensure a rapid return of the books and thus a swift turnover; necessary as I was impatient to read the entire cabinet, and had to return anything stolen in order to make progress. One classmate – an outsider who was frequently bullied by the rest of the class, including myself – got to know of the operation that I was running. This was its undoing.

The Librarian. Photo: Malte Spindler, courtesy Lady Liberty Library, 2025
The Librarian. Photo: Malte Spindler, courtesy Lady Liberty Library, 2025
The Librarian. Photo: Malte Spindler, courtesy Lady Liberty Library, 2025
The Librarian. Photo: Malte Spindler, courtesy Lady Liberty Library, 2025
The Librarian. Photo: Malte Spindler, courtesy Lady Liberty Library, 2025
The Librarian. Photo: Malte Spindler, courtesy Lady Liberty Library, 2025