"I like to think, at least, that deliberately breaking with the rigid conventions of the unconventional would have been in the spirit of Joseph Beuys."
In 1979, a decade after the Bowie song, space oddities actually did exist, especially in Berlin – because Michel Würthle and Reinald Nohal found one and brought it back to life. The space in question was a bistro in Kant Straße, which they took over from a French owner. A good 30 years earlier, they had very nearly managed to realise their dream of creating a worldly, metropolitan meeting point – but only ‘very nearly’ because the Paris Bar, as it was called, never quite managed to shake off its invisibility and slight air of provinciality.
To prevent any folklore from developing, Würthle and Nohal refurbished it completely, retaining its French style, but other than that doing mainly one thing: entirely what they wanted. The walls were hung with contemporary art which they had collected, exchanged and wheedled out of people. Meanwhile the interior, as well as the clientele, evolved organically into the unmistakable hodgepodge of quirkiness you see there today. The establishment of the café happened in three stages: initial indignation, interested curiosity and finally all-round exuberance. The Paris Bar became a showplace, a socio-cultural panopticon of artists, celebrities, wannabes and wanna-sees. Having started out as a case of malpractice, as a break with the standard, its effortless self-indulgence continues – despite its success.
The popularity of the Paris Bar was – and still is – at a critical point…Social spaces for manifold freethinkers which rise to such prominence can develop in one of two ways. Either they achieve cult status, becoming a self-estranged template of what they once were and simply delivering what guests want to see (the guests mainly being tourists who come to the place purely so they can say they’ve been there and tell everyone back home what it’s like); or they become timeless classics, consolidated to their quintessence, radiating authenticity through the ages, adaptable, porous, yet always with a steadfast core. It’s the second of these options that the Paris Bar seems to have achieved – because how else could it have become synonymous with an entire microcosm?
The status of famous places is something we tend to accept without question. Usually it’s because we weren’t there in the beginning but immediately knew, once we’ve appeared on the scene, that the place was destined to become a living legend. And legends are not something you doubt – at least, I didn’t the first time I went to the Paris Bar. I found it terribly precious yet fascinatingly cosmopolitan in equal measure, but I would never have dreamt of saying either out loud. Far more, I felt at the mercy of invisible constraints that were completely at odds with its reputation of being wild and unconventional. An attitude is only ever attractive if you take it with a pinch of salt; on any other level, it’s more like a security guard – something you have to get past the first time you visit, as is the case with the Paris Bar. I mean, what kind of laugh are you supposed to adopt when you’re surrounded by people you’ve seen in the movies? At the Paris Bar art and life melt into one – but the exact time, temperature and outfit needed for that to happen is the kind of detail only an insider can know.
I like to think, at least, that deliberately breaking with the rigid conventions of the unconventional would have been in the spirit of Joseph Beuys. Spaces constantly need to be reinvented; they are ever-changing, along with the individuals that populate them and the way those individuals bring them to life. The most obvious thing to do might be to call for a new generation, but that would simplify the metamorphosis and make it a mundane and natural process.
With institutions like the Paris Bar, the real crack in the façade is the fact that everything’s so convenient. This place welcomes visitors like an eccentric old lady. But what it really needs is a loving yet radical vision that picks up on its story and develops it into a multidimensional – cultural, social and political – concept. There’s no precise answer as to how that might happen, and nor can there be, perhaps. But when it does happen it will be noticed. Demanding a revolution, or at least a refurb, seems a relatively unsurprising way to end. But as a year of stagnation comes to a close – and the utopian Joseph Beuys, stubborn by profession, would have turned 100 – what else is there to devote yourself to, if not the creation of something new?
by Ilona Harmann
From SLEEK #69 The Courage Issue, get your copy here