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The Arts Intel Report

Night Fever: Designing Club Culture

May 1, 2021 – Jan 9, 2022
1 Riverside Esplanade, Dundee DD1 4EZ, United Kingdom

The best nightclub design is as progressive as it is subversive. For Manchester’s famed Haçienda, Ben Kelly envisioned a stage, bar, cloakroom, and cafeteria. At New York’s Studio 54, a series of black doors led to the most elite partygoers. And at Berlin’s Berghain, pitch blackness keeps clubbers in from Friday night until Monday morning. This exhibition analyzes the architecture, art, fashion, graphics, and performance elements that go to the making of a world-class club, with examples drawn from New York, Paris, Florence, Beirut, and Berlin. Given Scotland’s huge house-music scene and unbelievable venues, there will be a special focus on the Scots’ own. —E.C.

Guests at Studio 54, New York, 1979 © Bill Bernstein, David Hill Gallery, London.

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