MARGRET

An extraordinary collection of found materials relating to a private affair conducted between a German businessman and his secretary in the late 1960s and early 1970s.”Margret” chronicles a secret love story, which took place from May 1969 to December 1970 between the Cologne businessman Günter K., 39, and his secretary Margret S., 24. The exhibition – and a subsequent publication – consists of the photographs, documents and objects that were found three decades later in a briefcase abandoned in a German apartment. The archive consists of hundreds of color and black-and-white photographs showing the same woman (Margret S.) in various places and poses: sitting at a typewriter at the office, traveling, or in hotel rooms, undressing, changing, or getting dressed. In the archive, inscribed with dates, are samples of Margret’s hair (from both her head and pubic region), her fingernails, and empty contraception packages, as well as a blood-stained napkin. Receipts from hotels and restaurants, as well as travel documents and tickets from theaters, reveal insights into the places the couple visited as well as acknowledging their preferences and interests. Personal notes and diary entries, mostly written with a typewriter, resemble official records. The focus of virtually all these writings is the sexual act, its frequency, its endurance, etc. – all factually underlined yet at the same time described in a coarse and often obscene language. In its conceptual denseness – resulting partly from the obsessiveness of the documentation – the collection seems to reverberate with the practices of artists such as Sophie Calle, where the viewer often finds themselves in a conflicted space, exposed to their own voyeurism.

Condition: Very good