Mike Steiner "Hotel Room Event"

‘Ben Vautier’s Hotel Room Event - a 36-hour live performance - took place on 2 and 3 May 1979. Vautier’s proposal consisted of 'renting a room in a hotel for four days (the Steiner Hotel) and inviting artists to stay in a hotel room and make a 10-minute videotape there'. Suggestions for the artists: 'they can jump out the window, piss in the wastepaper basked, make love, etc., etc.'. Ben Vautier explained his project proposal on the basis of his love for hotel rooms: 'Whenever I want to commit suicide I go to a hotel room; whenever I have to write something I go to a hotel room; whenever I see a girl who I don’t know, I imagine her in a hotel room as she undresses; things happen in hotel rooms'. The project took place a year later in Mike Steiner’s hotel in Berlin. Fourteen artists had two days of free access to a hotel room that had been equipped with video equipment. In the hotel’s downstairs gallery, the public (who were already present) could follow the action by means of monitors. The artists participating in the project were: Joan La Barbara, Laszlo Lakner, Hermann Pitz, Margarete Raspe, Endre Tot, Jacob Mattner, Dorothy Jannone, Ben Vautier, Jorg Renz, Raimund Kummer, Ludwig Gosewitz, Wolf Kahlen, George Moorse and Hanna Frenzel. Mike Steiner will be at De Appel from 23 to 29 April 1980, showing videotapes in the form of a Hotel Room installation.’ (Invitation De Appel, April 1980.)