Four Seasons Hotel Pudong, Shanghai’s Presidential Suite
Photo Courtesy of Ken Seet-Four Seasons
One year ago, German photographer Kiki Kausch visited Shanghai, staying at Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star Four Seasons Hotel Pudong, Shanghai. “Like every foreigner, I was lost, of course,” she says. To try to get her bearings, she rode a sightseeing bus. “But I could hop on and hop off a hundred times and still would not know where this city begins and where it ends. Trying to remember certain spots does not make sense, either, because the next time you pass it, it has already changed.”
Three Minutes With Ben Stiller, Photo Courtesy of Kiki Kausch_1200
It was this experience that made her think of her home city of Berlin, which she says, like Shanghai, “is ever-changing and its development never stops.” Kausch considers “Shanghai and Berlin to be the two most exciting metropolises of our time. Just like Shanghai, Berlin attracts people from all over the world and it is this cosmopolitanism that I want to show.”
On October 31, the Berliner returned to Shanghai for the opening of her new Chinese exhibit, “Berlin Meets Shanghai.” The artist says she has stayed in Four Seasons properties the world over, so having her show at Four Seasons Pudong “is a dream come true, because this hotel is absolute superlative in terms of design and aspiration, just the right place to present my large triptychs.”
Kausch’s three-part works vary; some are portraits of Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Karl Lagerfeld and other global celebrities — shot for a series called “Three Minutes With…” — others feature a deer, female pilots or an anonymous model’s backside. All will be on exhibit at Four Seasons Hotel Pudong, Shanghai through March 2015, hung throughout the hotel’s public spaces.
