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​Berghain bouncer Sven Marquardt to showcase photo exhibition in New York

The photographer-turned-bouncer will exhibit his work at NY Art Week this month

Famed Berghain bouncer Sven Marquardt is set to showcase his photography work at an exhibition in New York later this month.

The photographer-turned-bouncer will exhibit a collection of his artwork captured in East Berlin during the 1980s under the title DISTURBING BEAUTY, showcased at ArtsDistrict Brooklyn.

The exhibition is due to go ahead as part of New York Art Week between May 18 - 21, presented by Berlin-based gallery Galerie Deschler.

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DISTURBING BEAUTY will also be set up in collaboration with New York nightlife impresarios Teksupport to bring house and techno artists including Joris Voorn to the exhibition’s opening event on May 18.

“For more than thirty years, club culture has determined both my life — as a curator of countless nights — and, of course, my life as a photographer,” Marquardt says on the exhibition. “Berlin has always been the setting as well as the inspiration for my pictures and projects.”

“In a city in transition after the wild eighties and the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had for the first time put my camera aside. It was at the end of the 1990s that my camera again became a stylistic device for expressing our attitude towards life.”

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Marquardt’s projects have travelled across the world since 2010, frequently collaborating with musicians. In 2018, the photographer exhibited his work at a nightclub in Tbilisi.

DISTURBING BEAUTY’s opening event will see Marquardt pair up with both visual artists and musicians once again to create a “special evening” with over 100 visuals as video art pieces in a 360-degree immersive space.

“Starting in 2018, residencies followed in Belgrade, Sydney and then, in 2022, in New York City,” the bouncer explained. “For me, New York is rough and photogenic = “sexy” 24/7. Club culture is always to some extent “RIOT,” unadjusted and, above all, free.”

Find out more about DISTURBING BEAUTY here.

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter