Guilty Pleasure
Josef Boys 2k20
Guilty Pleasure is a media performance that unfolds across reality television, broadcast media, and its reconfiguration as an immersive installation in the exhibition space.
The work centers on Lesniewski’s participation in the 2019 season of the dating show Bauer sucht Frau, its broadcast on Austrian TV channel ATV (2019/20), and its subsequent transformation into an exhibition format. The installation incorporates video excerpts, scripts, and set elements that reflect the aesthetics and mechanics of mediated intimacy.
By inserting herself into the highly codified structure of reality television, Lesniewski interrogates prevailing notions of performance, authenticity, and agency. Guilty Pleasure examines how visibility and self-exposure function across the interwoven terrains of mass media and contemporary art—raising the question of where, and how, art can still produce critical relevance within a culture of spectacle.
Screenshots from participation in the public reality TV format Bauer sucht Frau. Public broadcasting in 8 episodes every Wednesday at Prime time during summer / autumn 2019 on Austria TV.
Link to watch "Bauer sucht Frau" on ATV Season 16 Episode 5 - 12
©ATV Privat TV GmbH & Co KG, / ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4 GmbH
Multimedia installation
Installation view at Paralell Vienna 2020
Reconstructed living room of the farmer Claus, Videoloop on flatscreen, 02.56 Min, 16:9 HD
This installation presents a reconstructed replica of the living room belonging to Claus, a pumpkin seed oil farmer featured in the reality TV show Bauer sucht Frau. Visitors are invited to sit on the couch and immerse themselves in an environment that feels unusually familiar—especially within the context of an exhibition space. The space is furnished with colonial-style seating, African wall decorations, wrought-iron wall sconces, and an orchid by the window, elements directly taken from Claus’s living room. A flatscreen TV is mounted on the wall, playing a 2:56-minute video loop: a music-video-like montage of original broadcast footage from ATV's Bauer sucht Frau. Through deliberate re-editing, Lesniewski manipulates the narrative structure and reframes the material into a fictionalized storyline—blurring the lines between documentary, performance, and pop-cultural mythmaking.
