Lube, Lust and the Petrosexual Body

Performative Reading

40 min.

A performative reading realised for the exhibition UNERHÖRT. sex as artistic practice at Kunstverein Leipzig (GER), 03.12.2025 - 01.02.2026

The term petrosexual is often used in the context of hyper-masculinized aesthetics surrounding combustion engines, sports cars, and horsepower. In her artistic practice, Mara Kirchberg appropriates the term and flips it around — shifting it from one charged with force and violence toward what she herself describes as a “brutal tenderness.” She scrutinizes the aesthetics of machines, hardness, and strength, distilling modes of maintenance and care into moments of intimacy and gentleness.

Her hazmat suit oscillates between being a protective layer for maintaining and activating her machines, and fetish attire drawn from rubber, work-gear, and PVC kink cultures. Wrapped in layers of PVC, fantasies of entering into an erotic relationship with automotive fluids become tangible. Inside the suit, sweat flows as the body’s own operating fluid, fetishizing itself into proximity with the fossil object of desire. The suit becomes an instrument of operation, enabling its wearer to indulge in the perversions entangling the human body with petromodern infrastructures. In an somatic performative reading where she invites the audience to lie down and close their eyes, the artist gives voice to the desire that circulates between her own organism and the mechanical one.

Excerpt from the script:

A whole world opens in the space where fuel is no longer burned:
the cramped interior of a gearbox,
the narrow twists of a hydraulic cylinder,
the hollow chambers of an oil filter housing,
and the bends of pipes and conduits, where lubricant gathers in quiet pools.

Eyes dive deep into the dark oil, tracing the slick trails that spiral along cold, polished metal.
Nostrils eagerly inhale the sharp, oily scent of lubricant and wear.
Double-gloved fingers slip into channels, gliding along surfaces coated with viscous fluid, exploring folds, hollows, and cavities.

Imagine a pipe whose sealing rubber has turned brittle, now slowly dripping at the connection.
You hear each drop caress the back of your PVC suit as your hands indulge, arms follow, fully aware of exceeding so-called exposure limits.

Fluids lift, swell over the edge, and overflow. 

Special thanks to: Martin Müller, Branka Čolić, Gisèle Gonon 

Photography: Klara Kaori Trede

With the support of: Kunstverein Leipzig