Call girls’ business cards

Between 1994 and 1996, Dutch artist Erik Kessels is living in London. It is during this time that the singular collection - unveiled in part within these pages - begins to take shape. A collection born mainly inside London’s telephone booths. In these spaces of transit, abandoned on the shelves or taped to the glass, simple, colorful leaflets would frequently appear, printed in their hundreds. These were Tart Cards, the business cards of the Queens (the city's sex workers): pocket-sized posters pushing open the doors to a world of desire and clandestinity, where a fictional name was always accompanied by a phone number. This volume traces a slice of English social history through the lens of a true underground marketing phenomenon. An ecosystem deeply transformed by the advent of the Internet: where a public booth once stood, a private screen now glows. A transition that shifted the offer from the streets to the digital sphere, moving from accidental contact to mass consumption.