The stage is bathed in pink. On a pale pink carpet stands a large hotel bed draped in ruffled satin, where a blonde woman in a pink velour tracksuit sits. Blood stains the floor, and a man’s body lies under the bed. Call me Paris by Yana Eva Thönnes begins at the Schaubühne Berlin. Everyone knows Paris Hilton. Even 15-year-old Julia (Alina Stiegler), whose story unfolds alongside that of the It girl. In 2004 Los Angeles, Hilton’s ex-boyfriend released a sex tape without her consent. “1 Night in Paris” became one of the most viewed porn videos of the 2000s. Hilton fought for years to reclaim her image rights. Meanwhile, in Bergisch Gladbach, newly arrived and blonde, Julia is immediately nicknamed “Paris” by her classmates. Every millennial woman who spent her teenage years in provincial Germany during the 2000s will recognize something of herself in Julia’s memories. Whether it’s the rhinestone on her friend Kathi’s canine tooth, the low-rise Miss Sixty jeans, the white Deichmann boots (like J.Lo’s), or the family PC in her father’s study that enabled her first exploration of the internet.

But she recognizes herself most clearly in the shameless objectification that women of that era were subjected to. Three leading actresses tell the story. Paris Hilton (Ruth Rosenfeld) offers advice on self-presentation, perfection, and what it takes to be an “It girl”. Julia’s mother (played by Jule Böwe, with glittering butterfly earrings, small braids, a craving for attention, and a dysfunctional marriage) has plenty to say about her daughter’s body, but little about the photos that the much older small-town hairdresser takes of the underage girl. Julia speaks about him, and about his film “1 Night in Paris”, in which she suddenly finds herself playing the leading role against her will. Actor Holger Bülow plays all the men in the production: the taciturn, alcoholic father and the abusive hairdresser. Twenty years later, Julia meets the latter again in a hotel room to talk about the tape. The encounter ends brutally, bloodily, and with devastating honesty. And while Y2K — with its skinny brows and lip-gloss aesthetic — has recently been glorified and revived, Call me Paris exposes something else: disturbingly intimate yet strangely detached, the pink light falls mercilessly on its own shadows.

Text: Inga Krumme / Photos: Philip Frowein

Call me Paris at Schaubühne, Kurfürstendamm 153, 10709 Berlin–Charlottenburg; map

@schaubuehne_berlin

Sometimes, art emerges in the spaces where people come together. In this case, it happens in Anna Lukashevsky’s classroom in Schöneberg. Since moving to Berlin a year ago, the artist has been organizing painting classes for immigrants and Germans with foreign roots, to build community, she says. And to earn a living as she works to reestablish herself as an artist in her new city. Together, her students paint portraits of different models, most of whom are also immigrants, with stories that often mirror those of the painters themselves. The class is a lively mix. Participants speak Italian, Russian, Hebrew, and Georgian all at once. The results of these classes, “political-psychological portraits”, as Anna Lukashevsky herself calls them, will be shown for the second time this week (08.11.2025) under the title “Immigrants Paint Immigrants”, in the rooms of a psychoanalysis practice on Tempelhofer Ufer. Visitors can expect art in an unusual yet perfectly fitting setting, and portraits that reveal as much about the painters as they do about their models.

Text: Inga Krumme / Photos: Anna Lukashevsky

Praxis Gallery, Tempelhofer Ufer 1A, 10961 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map
Immigrants Paint Immigrants pop-up exhibition 08.11.2025

@praxis.gallery