The exhibition HOTEL ANNELIE turns towards a rare image of modern Germany the meaning of which far exceeds its geographical boundaries. Tito Lee happened to be living next to a hostel, Hotel Annelie in Munich which offered modest accommodation for homeless people, small time crooks, junkies and social outsiders. Over the period of several years he was working incessantly in this neighbourhood and, incorporating the inhabitants of the hostel, completed the multi-media art project called HOTEL ANNELIE. The Project become a large artistic archive that includes a 111 minute future film, associated sculptures, video installations, large format light boxes, photographs and pop art series, and eliminates the borders between documentation and fiction. In 2012 the film ANNELIE was released separately, and shown and honored with prizes at festivals worldwide. The complete exhibition was shown in its totality for the first time in 2015.
Lee describes his work as a Post Occidental Iconography with a focus on the downfall of the Christian West. The exhibition has a futuristic perspective where the demise of the Western World has been a part of history for a long time. The residents of HOTEL ANNELIE have become the icons of poverty reminding us of the beginning of this global upheaval.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. – Luke 6:20
The ‚godfather of neoconservatism‘, Author Irving Kristol reasons ‚for those who are experiencing a Christian impulse, an impulse toward Imitatio Christi which could lean toward socialism (…) is the attitude of Christianity toward the poor‘. The strong relationship between early Christianity and poverty makes churches the right place for this exhibition.
With installations, video art and performances Tito Lee took the image of his “Annelieaner” to the church Bruder Klaus in Biel. Panel discussions, workshops and prayers for dialogue supported the combination of the modern fate with motifs of traditional, religious art. The series of large-scale light boxes to Psalm 23 “The Lord is my shepherd – I shall not want” shook not only the nerve of the Christian faith, but led to conversations between people experiencing poverty and the bishop of Basel.
HOTEL ANNELIE explores how perception, power, and representation shape our understanding of social reality. By introducing elements of glamour into the visible poverty of Annelie’s inhabitants — through masks inspired by Japanese Kabuki theatre and later echoed in Western pop culture — the exhibition confronts the tension between surface and truth. Glamour appears here as an illusion: an attractive façade that disguises, reframes, or even contradicts lived experience.
The exhibition focuses on the relationship between architecture and its inhabitants in what the artist Tito Lee describes as a state of “post-Annelie life.” Originally built as a hotel, the building’s changing functions over time have profoundly influenced — and ultimately dominated — the lives of those who inhabit it. In response, the artist reclaims public space by mounting monumental portraits onto façades, allowing human presence to confront and interrupt the authority of architecture.
Set within a speculative future in which the decline of the Western world is understood as a historical condition rather than a prediction, the residents of HOTEL ANNELIE become symbols of a broader global shift. They stand as reminders of the moment when economic certainty gave way to instability — not at the margins, but at the former center of prosperity.
Conceived as a multimedia project in 2006, HOTEL ANNELIE was initially intended as a critical warning about emerging social tendencies. Its presentation in economically emerging regions, however, met with resistance from official German art institutions and diplomatic bodies. By addressing poverty within a country once defined by its postwar economic miracle, the project touches on a sensitive and rarely acknowledged subject: the changing balance of power between the old and the new world. Today, however, the artist’s intuition has unfortunately synchronized with reality. The exhibition’s central thesis resonates with renewed urgency — suggesting that Annelie is no longer a place, but a condition.
The feature film ANNELIE is an essential part of the transmedial exhibition HOTEL ANNELIE. After its release the movie was received by an enthusiastic audience across the globe. ANNELIE premiered, as first Swiss film ever, at the Busan International Film Festival, the most significant film event in Asia. Subsequent screenings and awards on renowned Festivals like in Locarno, Hof and Vancouver were followed by overwhelmed critics from experts. ANNELIE was highlighted as a “radical, hart-hitting film”, as “unpredictable bulldozer” and as an “outstanding experience”. With its “radical impertinence and with rock n’roll energy” the movie gained a high international recognition and reached, according to outstanding critics, cult status in independent filmmaking.
ANNELIE is an old boarding house in Munich that has long since fallen into disrepair. When paying customers stopped coming, it was leased by the City as temporary accommodation for homeless people and welfare cases. But “temporary” has turned into more than a decade for some residents, and the long wait has inevitably brought some strange characters together. All seen as beyond hope, jobless for years, “Annelie” is their home.
Max is one of them. He used to be an actor, a child star in fact, but now he’s a junky and applies his talent solely to professional sponging. Another resident runs a struggling kiosk, and his other half keeps them both in the black by selling her body. Max finds hope for a new beginning when he starts up an affair with the beautiful owner of a swingers’ club, but an incident with a dead body turns everything upside down. In 2012, the City decides to close “Annelie” down and demolish the whole building, swingers’ club and all. The news sends the residents into a panic.
While Max’s drug addiction drags him ever lower, the other members of the unlikely Annelie family – drunks, junkies, small-time crooks, poachers – must pull together one last time. With the determination of people who have nothing left to lose, they kidnap a famous rock band. The story builds to a bizarre climax in which bitter reality reveals itself to be a fleeting dream.
