Lube, Lust and the Petrosexual Body

Performative Reading

40 min.

fight or flight: SEX, Studio 1, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin (GER), 10.07.2026 - 19.07.2026

UNERHÖRT. sex as artistic practice, 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.

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

Photography: Klara Kaori Trede, Julie Legouez

With the support of: Kunstverein Leipzig, Gruppe Gorgone