28.11.2014 Views

EXBERLINER Issue 127, May 2014

Berlin's monthly culture and reportage magazine. Germany's largest English-language publication. Founded in 2002.

Berlin's monthly culture and reportage magazine. Germany's largest English-language publication. Founded in 2002.

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

<strong>Issue</strong> <strong>127</strong> • €2.90 • <strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong><br />

Denis Villeneuve: “I was very lucky. Jake Gyllenhaal could have<br />

been an asshole.” (p.32)<br />

Friedrich Liechtenstein: “I’m like an ornamental hermit.” (p.40)<br />

Sascha Weidner: “You were not in that bed. <strong>May</strong>be I was, you<br />

don’t even know.” (p.44)<br />

the<br />

Tempelhof<br />

vote:<br />

To build or<br />

not to build?<br />

Bowie’s back!<br />

Thirty-five years after his famous Berlin period, the<br />

Thin White Duke is back in town with a huge exhibition.<br />

We revisit the legendary 1970s, talk to his friends,<br />

lovers and fans... and ask: “Where are we now?”<br />

www.exberliner.com<br />

What’s on? • Art • Fashion • Film • Food • Music • Nightlife • Stage<br />

100% made in Berlin.<br />

Printed on recycled<br />

paper.


<strong>Issue</strong> <strong>127</strong>, may <strong>2014</strong><br />

Regulars<br />

02 Werner’s political notebook Why vote<br />

in the Euro elections?<br />

04 Best of Berlin Baola, Bikini Berlin,<br />

Expat Meat sex club, Hatch Sticker<br />

Museum<br />

06 Fashion What’s hot and what’s not<br />

07 Photo of the month Miron Zownir from<br />

Maidan Square<br />

08 Save Berlin special: Tempelhof On<br />

<strong>May</strong> 25, it’s time to vote for the field’s future<br />

26 Berlin bites Lebensmittel in Mitte, Chili<br />

& Paprika and five new döner innovations<br />

Special: Bowie in Berlin<br />

10 Quiz Test your Bowie-in-Berlin<br />

knowledge!<br />

12 Verbatim Romy Haag: singer, club<br />

owner and Bowie’s Berlin muse<br />

page 22<br />

15 Bowie on display The much-hyped<br />

exhibition comes to Berlin on <strong>May</strong> 20 –<br />

here’s what to expect<br />

16 Where were we then? David Bowie<br />

and the rise of West Berlin’s Subkultur<br />

michal andrysiak<br />

18 Always crashing in the same bar<br />

A meditation from our music editor<br />

19 The sound behind the vision Hansa<br />

engineer Eduard Meyer reminisces about<br />

recording Bowie and Iggy<br />

20 Bowie by the book We talk to the<br />

authors of four recent books about the<br />

Berlin years<br />

22 The fans who fell to earth A doppelgänger,<br />

a collector, a tour guide and<br />

a former teen obsessive: meet Berlin’s<br />

Bowie nuts<br />

25 Rant: David Bowie is the stewed<br />

cabbage of rock! Jacob Sweetman cuts<br />

through the hype<br />

What’s on<br />

28 Events calendar<br />

30 Film<br />

36 Stage<br />

39 Music and nightlife<br />

44 Art<br />

47 District guides<br />

54 Classifieds<br />

56 Amok Mama<br />

57 Letters to the editor<br />

05 /14<br />

KINGS<br />

By Nora Abdel-Maksoud<br />

english surtitles<br />

8. - 12. 5. <strong>2014</strong>, 20 UHR<br />

BE.BOP. <strong>2014</strong> - BLACK EUROPE<br />

BODY POLITICS<br />

Exhibition + Talks + Performances<br />

in english<br />

2. - 31. 5. <strong>2014</strong><br />

SIGHT<br />

By Grupo Oito<br />

dance piece<br />

15. - 18. 5. <strong>2014</strong>, 20 UHR<br />

TELEMACHOS - SHOULD I STAY<br />

OR SHOULD I GO?<br />

By Anestis Azas, Prodromos Tsinikoris &<br />

Ensemble<br />

english surtitles<br />

22. - 25. 5. <strong>2014</strong>, 20 UHR<br />

www.ballhausnaunynstrasse.de<br />

1


www.exberliner.com<br />

U1 cover <strong>127</strong>.indd 2<br />

<strong>Issue</strong> <strong>127</strong> • €2.90 • <strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong><br />

Denis VilleneuVe: “i was very lucky. Jake Gyllenhaal could have been<br />

an asshole.” (p.30)<br />

FrieDrich liechtenstein: “i’m like an ornamental hermit.” (p.40)<br />

sascha WeiDner: “You were not in that bed. <strong>May</strong>be i was, you don’t<br />

even know.” (p.44)<br />

4/22/14 7:08 PM<br />

Bowie’s Back!<br />

thirty-five years after his famous Berlin period, the<br />

thin White Duke is back in town with a huge exhibition.<br />

We revisit the legendary 1970s, talk to his friends,<br />

lovers and fans... and ask: “Where are we now?”<br />

the<br />

teMpelhof<br />

vote:<br />

to build or<br />

not to build?<br />

100% made in Berlin.<br />

Printed on recycled<br />

paper.<br />

What’s on? • Art • Fashion • Film • Food • Music • Nightlife • Stage<br />

ISSUE <strong>127</strong><br />

Cover illustration<br />

by Agata Sasiuk<br />

publishers:<br />

Maurice<br />

Frank, Nadja<br />

Vancauwenberghe,<br />

Ioana Veleanu<br />

editor-in-chief nadja vancauwenberghe<br />

business manager maurice frank<br />

art director ERICA LöFMAN<br />

copy/deputy editor Rachel glassberg<br />

web editor WALTER CRASSHOLE<br />

office manager sara wilde<br />

features editor ruth schneider<br />

senior/music d. strauss<br />

film Eve lucas<br />

stage nathalie frank<br />

art FRIDEY MICKEL<br />

food FranÇoise PoilÂne<br />

fashion jessica saltz<br />

sales & marketing executive Ines montani<br />

ad sales Marissa medAl, ilektra simou<br />

marketing elena nicolussi<br />

design assistants aGATA SASiUK,<br />

Lena Valenzuela<br />

photographers michal andrysiak,<br />

veronica jonsson<br />

editorial assistants rosalie delaney,<br />

diana hubbell, michael hald, ALinA MAE,<br />

Aoife Mckeown, dominic mealy<br />

research assistant ANTON BÖLIAN<br />

film assistants camilla egan, rory o’connor<br />

art assistant camille moreno<br />

subscriptions<br />

Annual prices: Germany €29 (includes a<br />

restaurant voucher!), Europe €43, elsewhere<br />

€53. Tel 030 4737 2960, subs@exberliner.com,<br />

Subscribe online: www.exberliner.com<br />

ads / anzeigen<br />

To discuss advertising please contact us:<br />

Tel 030 4737 2966, ads@exberliner.com<br />

Iomauna Media GmbH<br />

Max-Beer-Straße 48, 10119 Berlin-Mitte<br />

Tel 030 4737 2960, Fax 030 4737 2963<br />

www.exberliner.com, Issn 1610-9015<br />

Printed in Berlin<br />

100% recycled paper<br />

■ Werner's political notebook By KONRAD WERNER<br />

Why vote in the<br />

Euro election?<br />

No one understands what the European Union is<br />

for. People didn’t understand what it was for in the<br />

first place, but now, post-euro-crisis, we really don’t<br />

know what it’s for. Banning old light bulbs? Making<br />

all the phone chargers the same? How does that<br />

make up for all the unemployed people in Spain and<br />

the catastrophe in Greece?<br />

Quite a lot of our problems now get fixed at a<br />

European level: consumer rights, digital rights,<br />

intellectual property. This makes sense. Last month,<br />

the German government’s data storage plans were<br />

turned over by the European Court of Justice. After<br />

that decision was made, we had a precedent for the<br />

EU. Seeing as most of our<br />

data is kept digitally by<br />

Wanting no<br />

government<br />

is dangerous,<br />

insane and<br />

ultimately futile.<br />

multinational corporations,<br />

we clearly need a court<br />

with the continent-wide<br />

jurisdiction to decide what<br />

data is being kept, and who<br />

by, and who for.<br />

Clever people have<br />

explained that the euro<br />

had “design flaws” to begin<br />

with, and that the EU is not particularly democratic<br />

– the European Commission has vast powers, and<br />

its only directly elected component, the European<br />

Parliament, can still only veto laws, not make them.<br />

As undemocratic as this is, it may not be a bad<br />

thing at the moment. If the analysts’ predictions<br />

are right, around 200 of the 766 MEPs elected at<br />

the end of this month (the largest bloc, according<br />

to some polls) will actually be in favour of the<br />

abolition of the parliament. A lot of politics has<br />

now turned from being a debate between left and<br />

right to being a debate between the “people” and<br />

the “elite”. This is what the Tea Party is all about<br />

in America, but even the Tea Party doesn’t actually<br />

want Congress to be abolished. Wanting less<br />

government is one thing, wanting no government<br />

is dangerous, insane and ultimately futile.<br />

Some of the eurosceptic parties are proper Nazi<br />

far-right (National<br />

Front in France, Lega<br />

Nord in Italy); some are<br />

just a bit far-right, but<br />

they think the EU is a<br />

threat to national democratic<br />

powers (UKIP<br />

in Britain, the Alternative<br />

für Deutschland<br />

in Germany) some are centre-right but being<br />

dragged further right by the above (the British<br />

Conservative Party); and some are hard-left (Syriza<br />

in Greece and Die Linke in Germany).<br />

These parties, who are expected to make a major<br />

surge in <strong>May</strong>, will definitely make the debate between<br />

the pro- and anti-euro sides in the European<br />

Parliament even more polarised than it is now.<br />

More than that, they’re going to<br />

try to undermine the work of the<br />

parliament itself – maybe even<br />

engineer a Tea Party-style “shutdown”<br />

when it comes to budget<br />

time. That will inevitably slow<br />

down the recovery from the euro<br />

crisis and keep Europe’s fractures<br />

– between north and south, creditor<br />

nations and debtor nations<br />

– deeper than ever. And it’s a sure<br />

bet that the eurosceptic parties will blame the EU<br />

institutions for the resulting mess.<br />

The EU does need reform. There is massive<br />

inefficiency in its bureaucracy (the European Parliament<br />

has to drive truckloads of files around every<br />

two months because it is split between Strasbourg<br />

and Brussels), we need to find a better solution for<br />

dealing with economic migrants than shooting them<br />

in the sea, and we need to find a better way out of<br />

the euro crisis than just destroying people’s pension<br />

plans and cutting benefits. But the EU is what we’ve<br />

got, it’s part of our lives, and we need Europe-wide<br />

solutions to deal with our problems and compete<br />

economically with the US and China. To achieve<br />

that we desperately need to end this pointless,<br />

intractable, mean-spirited, navel-gazing debate – it<br />

shouldn’t be about whether the EU should exist, but<br />

what it can do and how it should do it. ■<br />

Subscribe to Berlin in English!<br />

Get exberliner delivered to your doorstep and receive a €15 restaurant voucher.<br />

SUBSCRIBE NOW! One year (11 issues) for €29*<br />

Sign up at www.exberliner.com<br />

2 • February 2013<br />

*For delivery in Germany<br />

scan to<br />

subscribe!


Japan<br />

<br />

<br />

Syndrome<br />

<br />

<br />

Art and Politics after Fukushima<br />

With Toshiki Okada, Akira Takayama, Takuya Murakawa,<br />

Tadasu Takamine, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani,<br />

Hikaru Fujii, Tori Kudo, Sangatsu and others<br />

20.–29.5.➝ www.hebbel-am-ufer.de


est of Berlin<br />

By the <strong>EXBERLINER</strong> editorial team.<br />

Best sticky situation<br />

In a city as saturated with eye-catching graffiti<br />

and stencils as Berlin, the smallest, least<br />

permanent form of street art – the sticker – is<br />

underrated, yet everywhere. Oliver Baudach’s<br />

been devoted to the decal since age 13. “I<br />

bought a wallet that had a really cool skull<br />

logo on it, and inside the wallet there was an<br />

exact replica of that skull as a sticker. I didn’t<br />

want to put it anywhere – I just wanted to<br />

keep it safe.” It’s now on show at HATCH<br />

STICKER MUSEUM, started by Baudach in 2008.<br />

In March, the collection moved to a new<br />

location in Friedrichshain, where, the 42-yearold<br />

skateboard business veteran boasts, “you<br />

can see 4500 artworks” crammed into 80<br />

square metres. The wall-to-wall stickers,<br />

divided into “street” and “commercial”<br />

categories, have been collected from or<br />

donated by artists and companies all over the<br />

world and include everything from Shephard<br />

Fairey’s Obey series to niche skateboarding<br />

logos. On top of that, Baudach is planning<br />

guest exhibitions; for example, one with only<br />

political stickers. He even includes a limited<br />

edition sticker in the €2.50 entrance fee<br />

(€1.50 kids), in the hope that visitors will get<br />

as stuck on the art form as he is. VJ Hatch<br />

Sticker Museum, Schreinerstr. 10, Friedrichshain,<br />

U-Bhf Samariterstr., Wed-Sat 12-18<br />

Veronica Jonsson<br />

Best mouthful of German(s)<br />

A little bit nervous when it<br />

comes to the legend of the<br />

giant German Schwanz? Having<br />

trouble saying “Ich finde dich<br />

geil” while gobbling down<br />

schnitzel? Fear not: there’s a<br />

new sex party for horny homos<br />

who want (or need) to speak<br />

English. Not subscribing to the<br />

adage that love is a universal<br />

language, EXPat MEAT at<br />

Prenzlauer Berg gay sex club<br />

Stahlrohr 2.0 aims to fill a hole<br />

for the Teutonically timid.<br />

The night is the brainchild of<br />

barkeep Dan Thompson, an<br />

American expat who’s been<br />

here less than two years but, interestingly<br />

enough, speaks very<br />

good German. “It’s relaxing to<br />

have a night where I can speak<br />

my mother tongue,” he admits.<br />

Despite his intentions, however,<br />

the vast majority of regulars,<br />

staff and locals looking to<br />

scratch an itch at the inaugural<br />

event were German, including<br />

one English-challenged fellow<br />

who mockingly asked for a<br />

shot of “hunter-master” and<br />

then thought he was incredibly<br />

funny. Though it’s possible<br />

more expats will start attending<br />

once the event picks up steam,<br />

for now you’re more likely to<br />

end up in a post-ficken discussion<br />

on Goethe with a German<br />

instructor than commiserating<br />

over adjective endings with an<br />

amorous Australian. But hey,<br />

for just €2.50 entrance, it’s<br />

cheaper than a course at the<br />

Volkshochschule. And a chat<br />

with the friendly Thompson will<br />

allow you to speak English long<br />

enough to feel comfortable<br />

before it doesn’t really matter<br />

anyway. WC Expat Meat, first<br />

Monday of every month, Stahlrohr<br />

2.0, Paul-Robeson-Str. 50, Prenzlauer<br />

Berg, U-Bhf Schönhauser Allee<br />

Michal Andrysiak<br />

4 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Michal Andrysiak<br />

Best Western mall-ternative<br />

When Bayerische Hausbau began construction in 2010 on the Bikinihaus,<br />

a former 1950s textile centre, it was heralded as the revival<br />

of City West. The firm promised to thoughtfully revamp the long,<br />

striking structure, nicknamed “bikini” for its two-tiered shape, into a<br />

shiny new “concept mall”, which would accompany a design hotel as<br />

well as the updated Zoo Palast and Bahnhof Zoo. On April 3, crowds<br />

poured into BIKINI BERLIN to see if it lived up to the hype. The verdict?<br />

This is one stylish space, more reminiscent of London than Berlin.<br />

Exposed lighting fixtures, bare wood and industrial touches give the<br />

interior a modern vibe, topped off by an undulating rooftop terrace.<br />

As promised, Bikini offers an eclectic collection of stores, as well as<br />

19 permanent wooden cage-like structures for pop-ups, a handful of<br />

cafés and several gallery-esque spaces. You’ll find unique if pricey local<br />

gems (see page 6) alongside a smattering of generic chains like Vans<br />

and Jim Block, an offshoot of steak franchise Block House whose “no<br />

competitors” clause is rumoured to be responsible for the ousting of<br />

food truck Burger de Ville – so long to Black Angus patties served out<br />

of a charming Airstream; hello to €8 for glorified McDonald’s fare. Still,<br />

you have to give them credit: a Berlin mall without an H&M?! And if<br />

you can survive the weekend queues, there’s no better post-shopping<br />

indulgence than the rooftop Monkey Bar at the 25Hours Hotel Bikini<br />

Berlin, where you can drink tikis with a truly spectacular view of the<br />

zoo’s primates... or simply relax in the fur-lined hammock hanging in<br />

the third-floor lobby. DH Bikini Berlin, Budapester Str. 38-50, Tiergarten,<br />

S+U-Bhf Zoologischer Garten, Mon-Sat 10-20<br />

Veronica Jonsson<br />

Best superfood on ice<br />

Move along, chia seeds; goodbye,<br />

goji. Germany’s answer to the<br />

‘superfood’ craze claims to have more<br />

vitamin C than oranges, more calcium<br />

than milk and more iron than<br />

red meat. The magical<br />

substance? Baobab! The<br />

bulbous African tree has<br />

been near and dear to<br />

Exberliner since we adopted<br />

one at the Botanical Gardens<br />

back in 2012. Now, Bavarian<br />

company BAOLA is marketing<br />

its fruit to health-minded<br />

foodies across Germany, both<br />

as pure powder (€18/250g, to be added to your morning<br />

smoothie) and in drinks, sweets and jams. But only<br />

Berliners have the opportunity to try the tree in ice cream<br />

form. In addition to selling Baola’s entire product line,<br />

Kreuzberg’s Das Hotel combines the powder with raw<br />

cane sugar, fruits and herbs to create sorbet-style Eis (no<br />

eggs, no milk, no cream; vegans, rejoice!) in flavours such<br />

as strawberry-sage, pear-lavender, “mango with a secret”<br />

or, our favourite, the tangy lemon-mint. Aside from some<br />

faint earthy notes, the taste of baobab itself is undetectable,<br />

so you’ve just got to trust that it’s in there, working<br />

its magic. But even if you’re a non-believer, the ice<br />

cream’s quality justifies the rather high price of €1.50 per<br />

scoop. SW Baola, available at Das Hotel Bistro, Mariannenstr.<br />

26a, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor, 9-1<br />

Foto: Ai Weiwei, 2012, © Gao Yuan<br />

10am–7pm Wed to Mon, Tue closed,<br />

from 20 <strong>May</strong>: Daily 10am–8pm<br />

5


fashion By Jessica salz salTz saltz<br />

■ fashionistas<br />

A Wilde ride<br />

AM+<br />

Local designer Karlotta Wilde on<br />

her skyrocket to success.<br />

Andreas Murkudis<br />

Odeeh<br />

Gestalten Pavilion<br />

The bikini’s back in style!<br />

Bikini Berlin’s renaissance has finally brought<br />

some credibility back to the tourist trap that<br />

is Ku’damm’s shopping mile. This has a lot<br />

to do with Andreas Murkudis, brother of<br />

designer Kostas and paragon of all things style,<br />

whose decision to set up shop in this new<br />

design Mecca subsequently attracted the city’s<br />

fashion disciples to do the same. Although the<br />

term “concept store” has been so overused in<br />

Berlin that it is bereft of meaning, this new<br />

“concept mall” is in fact a wonderful space<br />

that has been carefully curated by people who<br />

really know what they are doing. Plus, there<br />

are real live monkeys to look at!<br />

Top tips for getting your style kicks:<br />

Gestalten Pavilion: Gestalten has blossomed<br />

out of its Sophienstraße Hinterhof<br />

with top billing in the Bikini Berlin gallery.<br />

Objets d’art, coffee table books, divine furniture<br />

and little trinkety things that you don’t<br />

know why you have to have but you do.<br />

Andreas Murkudis: Fans can indulge in no<br />

less than two stores by the style maker: Andreas<br />

Murkudis and AM+. The latter is a spacious<br />

wonderland of style, with hand-picked<br />

items from Acne, Maison Martin Margiela<br />

and Stella McCartney, as well as great beauty<br />

products and furniture.<br />

Odeeh: The underrated duo’s new Bikini store<br />

will finally cement their reputation as one of<br />

the best in town. Their vibrant prints and silky<br />

dresses make you want to throw away all your<br />

other clothes and start again.<br />

Mykita: Homegrown glasses label for the cool<br />

kids. Hard to miss (handy for those who really<br />

need glasses) on the ground floor.<br />

Bikini Berlin Showroom: A brilliant place<br />

to try on clothes by all the interesting young<br />

designers you’ve read about on this very page,<br />

such as Cammelo Maculato, Brachmann and<br />

Esther Perbandt.<br />

Watch out for:<br />

2theloos: It’s not a corridor to another high<br />

fashion store. It’s the toilets.<br />

Berlin Store: The presence of a tacky tourist<br />

shop here will seriously ruin your buzz.<br />

Bare bottoms: There are no bikinis in<br />

Bikini, but the place could sure do with some<br />

as the first thing to greet your eyeballs as you<br />

enter the main hall is a group of red-arsed baboons<br />

glaring at you through the zoo window.<br />

You have been warned!<br />

photos by michal andrysiak<br />

Karlotta Wilde’s Berlin story started in an<br />

all-too-familiar way: “I moved here without<br />

a job or any idea what to do.” Unlike many<br />

others, her destiny began to take shape “after<br />

only a few months” when she returned<br />

to her fashion design training and started<br />

“making dresses and basic pieces, for myself<br />

and friends. I found a tailor here in Berlin<br />

who helped me sew things.” From humble<br />

beginnings in 2010, success came quickly:<br />

“Someone from Instyle saw a leather jacket<br />

I had made, featured it in the magazine a<br />

month later, and then people started calling.”<br />

The then-26-year-old rapidly created<br />

her eponymous label to meet the demand<br />

for her clothes. She was awarded the<br />

Premium Young Designer Award in 2011,<br />

which not only gave her a leg up in terms of<br />

promotion, but also funded the production<br />

of her second season.<br />

Wilde’s Spring/Summer <strong>2014</strong> collection<br />

is a typically restrained palette of black,<br />

white, dove grey and a juicy pale green,<br />

but her talent for reinterpretation lies in<br />

the details, such as a bomber jacket with<br />

an asymmetrical front, a sheer panel down<br />

the front of a white blouse and a panelled<br />

Little Black Dress – an item which Wilde<br />

includes in every collection. The Hamburg-born<br />

designer studied fashion design<br />

in Munich and cut her teeth working as an<br />

intern for Ann-Sophie Back in London and<br />

then fashion house Sonia Rykiel in Paris.<br />

She believes Berlin to be a great place for<br />

young designers to start out: “You have<br />

affordable places, great photographers,<br />

great makeup artists, all the infrastructure<br />

you need as a designer. I am pretty sure<br />

I’m staying here.” And Berlin is lucky to<br />

have her.<br />

Available at Wald and Shizaru Berlin;<br />

www.karlottawilde.com<br />

6 • <strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong>


Photo of the month<br />

n Kiev’s Maidan<br />

Nezalezhnosti, or<br />

Independence Square,<br />

as captured by Berlin<br />

photographer Miron<br />

Zownir in March<br />

<strong>2014</strong>, four months<br />

after the start of the<br />

massive protests in the<br />

Ukrainian capital.<br />

7


save berlin<br />

TEMPELHOF:<br />

Don’t fence me in!<br />

<strong>May</strong> 25 is Tempelhof’s D-day.<br />

Alongside the EU parliamentary<br />

elections, Berliners will vote<br />

on the 100% Tempelhofer Feld<br />

referendum. If it passes, the exairport<br />

stays a wild, untamed<br />

park. If not, it gets a wholesale<br />

makeover as a shrunken green<br />

space ringed by a mini-city<br />

of homes, offices and a new<br />

central library.<br />

Developing Tempelhof is a key part of the<br />

city government’s strategy to revitalise<br />

Berlin’s economy, but the supporters of<br />

the 100% Tempelhofer Feld initiative<br />

say the plans will erase history, damage the<br />

environment and ruin a unique urban playground.<br />

Flughafen Tempelhof is the only surviving<br />

relic of Hitler’s scheme to turn Berlin into World<br />

Capital Germania, but its role in the 1948-49<br />

Berlin airlift turned it from a symbol of Nazi<br />

megalomania into an icon of anti-Soviet defiance.<br />

Its grounds also include the remains of the Nazis’<br />

earliest concentration camps and a Cold War US<br />

army base.<br />

Berlin’s<br />

government<br />

shut down<br />

Tempelhof in<br />

October 2008<br />

in preparation<br />

for the<br />

planned 2010<br />

opening of the<br />

(still-unfinished)<br />

BER airport. On <strong>May</strong><br />

8, 2010, it was reborn<br />

as a public park, but<br />

no sooner had the<br />

Dan Borden<br />

on the future<br />

of Berlin’s<br />

largest Feld<br />

city christened the park Tempelhofer Freiheit –<br />

“freedom” – than they declared that too much<br />

freedom was a bad thing. They revealed plans to<br />

develop much of the open space, with a modern<br />

“city of tomorrow” on the east side including<br />

over 4000 affordable apartments, and an “innovation<br />

zone” – office buildings, schools and the<br />

library – on the south and west.<br />

Environmentalists led by the watchdog group<br />

BUND called foul. They claim that losing this<br />

urban “green lung” will raise Berlin’s air temperatures.<br />

And 80 percent of the grounds are now<br />

designated a protected wildlife refuge – where<br />

will those birds, bees and foxes go?<br />

After four years, Tempelhof is also home to<br />

another form of wildlife: thousands of Berliners<br />

who think its open, untamed spaces are the<br />

perfect place to run, walk, bike and fly kites.<br />

So why does the city want to mess with perfection?<br />

Because Berlin is running out of apartments.<br />

It will welcome 250,000 new residents in<br />

the next 15 years. At the same time, empty space<br />

is disappearing. To the city’s planners, the exairport<br />

is a blank canvas, an underutilised asset.<br />

Berlin does have a housing crisis, but, as Green<br />

Party politician Antje Kapek pointed out, those<br />

4000 flats are a drop in the bucket. And they’re<br />

a Band-Aid on a gaping, self-inflicted wound.<br />

For over a decade, Berlin’s SPD-run government<br />

hasn’t built a single affordable apartment.<br />

Instead, they let developers fill empty lots with<br />

the official stance:<br />

“Why leave such a large unused space in the middle of the city?”<br />

Manfred Kühne, head city<br />

planner in Berlin’s Department<br />

of Urban Planning, on why the<br />

government wants to build on<br />

Tempelhof.<br />

For many Berliners, Tempelhof is perfect<br />

as it is. Why change it? Yes, but many thought<br />

it was perfect as an airfield. They miss the planes.<br />

There are many perspectives. The total area of<br />

Tempelhof is over 300 hectares – why should we<br />

leave such a large unused space in the middle of<br />

the city? For the first time in 10 years, the city<br />

government has a budget for new affordable<br />

housing, but we don’t have the land to build it on.<br />

But most of the proposed buildings in<br />

Tempelhof aren’t housing. Affordable housing<br />

and rising rents are issues in Berlin today<br />

because we still have so many unemployed<br />

people and not enough jobs. The city of Berlin<br />

bought Tempelhof airport from the German<br />

Federal Government planning to make it an<br />

economic development zone. We need a mix<br />

of new housing and places for new businesses.<br />

If we can’t build on Tempelhof, we will have to<br />

build further out, and people will have to travel<br />

further to their jobs.<br />

Isn’t 80 percent of the area now a nature<br />

preserve? Yes, our plan is designed to<br />

interfere as little as possible with the protected<br />

habitats. The area between the runways, for example,<br />

is off limits during breeding season. And<br />

we have an agreement to create new wildlife<br />

preserves for any displaced animals and birds<br />

on agricultural land outside the city.<br />

If the 100% Tempelhofer Feld initiative<br />

passes, will there never be any development<br />

on Tempelhof ? In theory the law could<br />

be changed, but for a long time it will be very<br />

difficult for any politicians to go against a vote<br />

by a majority of Berliners. It is irritating for us<br />

when the supporters of the initiative say it will<br />

still allow some development in the park area.<br />

The current wording of the initiative states<br />

that even small projects would be impossible.<br />

8 • may <strong>2014</strong>


The case against the new library<br />

luxury flats, much of them bought by non-<br />

Berliners as second homes or investments.<br />

Building on Tempelhof is an easy out, a<br />

political gesture of atonement timed for the<br />

2016 election.<br />

If you’re curious what the Tempelhof housing<br />

would look like, check out the wall of<br />

generic apartment blocks rising on the west<br />

side of Gleisdreieck Park. Those are high-end<br />

luxury flats. Tempelhof’s housing will be<br />

city-built affordable units, the lowest of the<br />

low-end. Expect stucco-on-Styrofoam boxes<br />

that, after a few years of non-maintenance,<br />

will age into a major eyesore.<br />

Today, Tempelhof Freiheit is a gloriously<br />

vast space in a city quickly losing its spaciousness.<br />

Its soft borders buffer it from the<br />

city, creating the illusion of infinity. Bringing<br />

the city into that space with a ring of<br />

buildings will destroy that spaciousness and<br />

turn its untamed wilderness into a stranger’s<br />

backyard.<br />

A large part of the remaining green space<br />

is scheduled for a major facelift via Scottish<br />

landscape architects GROSS.MAX. Their<br />

scheme adds decorative plantings, rolling<br />

hills, a reflecting pond and a faux mountain<br />

peak. Tempelhof’s inner wild beast will<br />

not only be caged but tamed, neutered and<br />

sheared like a French poodle.<br />

The last time Berliners voted on Tempelhof<br />

in April 2008, 60 percent wanted to keep<br />

the then-functioning airport open. The city<br />

annulled the results because voter turnout<br />

was too low. This year, the vote coincides<br />

with the EU Parliament elections, so turnout<br />

shouldn’t be a problem. If the initiative passes,<br />

it will be read as a vote of protest against<br />

<strong>May</strong>or Klaus Wowereit and an over-reaching<br />

city government, but the real lesson may be<br />

this: don’t give Berliners a taste of freedom<br />

and then try to take it away. n<br />

veronica jonsson<br />

If the 100% Tempelhofer Feld<br />

initiative is approved, it will likely<br />

kill <strong>May</strong>or Klaus Wowereit’s pet<br />

project, a new central library on<br />

the former airfield.<br />

Berlin already has architect Hans Scharoun’s<br />

1970s Stabi building near Potsdamer Platz,<br />

part of the State Library. Then there are the<br />

Stadtbibliotheken – local libraries for checking<br />

out books, CDs and DVDs – in addition to<br />

innumerable university reading rooms.<br />

The proposed building would house the<br />

Landesbibliothek, the official archive of everything<br />

published in Berlin, from books and<br />

magazines to digital media. It’s been waiting<br />

100 years for a permanent home since World<br />

War I halted construction on a planned Mitte<br />

headquarters. Does the Landesbibliothek<br />

deserve a new building? Definitely.<br />

The new Zentral- und Landesbibliothek<br />

(Central and Regional Library), or ZLB, will<br />

also replace the Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek<br />

near Hallesches Tor. This 1954 landmark, a gift<br />

from the American government, was built to<br />

serve 500 visitors a day. Today it handles around<br />

3500. Does it need a new home? <strong>May</strong>be.<br />

<strong>May</strong>or Wowereit has long dreamed of leaving<br />

behind an important public building. After<br />

his scheme for a Berlin Kunsthalle, a museum<br />

for contemporary art, fell through, he turned<br />

his sights on the library. When the airport<br />

closed, he found a location: the southwest<br />

corner near the Tempelhof S-Bahn station.<br />

Last fall an architectural competition for<br />

the ZLB drew 40 designs. The brief called for<br />

a building that’s more than just Germany’s<br />

largest public library. It demanded an icon on<br />

a par with Bilbao’s Guggenheim and Paris’<br />

Pompidou Center.<br />

In the end, the jury of librarians and architects<br />

was split. The librarians picked a sensible<br />

design by two designers in their early thirties,<br />

Zurich-based Miebach Oberholzer Architekten<br />

(photo). The nine-story block is wrapped<br />

in a plain glass curtain wall. Inside, a grid of<br />

10 concrete cylinders support the roof while<br />

housing elevators, stairs and toilets.<br />

The jury’s architects preferred a more dramatic<br />

scheme by designers Kohlmayer Oberst.<br />

The long, low concrete rectangle is supported<br />

in the middle while both ends cantilever out<br />

like a seesaw. Berlin’s Building Director Regula<br />

Lüscher compared it to a ship. The librarians<br />

thought it was more like a tomb: except for<br />

the lobby, its concrete facade has no windows.<br />

Do Berliners really need a new central<br />

library? Definitely not one of these two.<br />

Neither design has the flair of the Pompidou<br />

or Guggenheim. Instead, they share an icy<br />

minimalism those buildings were designed to<br />

counteract. Other reasons:<br />

It’s not new. The whole idea of a monumental<br />

edifice for accessing books is anachronistic.<br />

Everything in print, including archives,<br />

will soon be available online. The Amerika-<br />

Gedenkbibliothek’s popularity is largely due<br />

to its collections of CDs and DVDs, two<br />

formats on the brink of obsolescence. Why<br />

not skip the expensive building and embrace<br />

the digital age via a virtual library where<br />

cardholders anywhere in the city can stream<br />

material online?<br />

It’s not central. The ZLB’s advocates point<br />

to libraries in Amsterdam and Seattle as<br />

models. Yes, both are new and popular, but<br />

both were built where people already were, in<br />

the heart of busy downtowns. Will the<br />

expected 10,000 visitors a day trek to this<br />

windswept corner of Berlin to look at books?<br />

It’s not a library. The new ZLB isn’t about<br />

books, we’re told, it’s about bonding. Like<br />

those other new libraries, it will serve as a de<br />

facto community centre. Berliners of all ages<br />

and colours will sip coffee, check out art,<br />

watch plays and take classes in its lofty halls...<br />

because, of course, there’s nowhere else in our<br />

fair city to do those things. If we truly need<br />

this library, why all the bells and whistles?<br />

It’s too expensive. Officials have already<br />

marked up the ZLB’s price tag from €270<br />

million to €350 million. If it’s completed as<br />

planned in 2021, don’t be surprised if we end<br />

up paying twice the original estimate.<br />

It’s not for us. Affordable housing,<br />

cheaper transit and better schools top<br />

Berliners’ wish lists, not a Taj Mahal for<br />

librarians or an architectural icon. Wowereit<br />

wants his name on a monument, but his legacy<br />

will always be the billions he burned on the<br />

still-unfinished airport.<br />

9


Article bowie special tag<br />

back<br />

IN BERLIN<br />

In late 1976, looking to escape the whirlwind of drugs and paparazzi in LA,<br />

David Bowie moved to West Berlin, immersing himself in the city’s culture<br />

and creating three indelible albums. The three years the “Thin White Duke”<br />

spent here marked a turning point – not just for him, but for the city itself.<br />

Bowie’s presence galvanised the music and underground scene here while<br />

establishing Berlin as a creative crucible for international artists.<br />

Thirty-five years later – following his Berlin-nostalgic 2013 single “Where are<br />

we now?” – Bowie’s back in town, in the form of a massively hyped exhibition at<br />

the Martin-Gropius-Bau. The show guarantees his eternal spot in the pantheon of<br />

legendary Berliners alongside Brecht, Isherwood and Marlene... and the Bowie legend<br />

continues to inspire ever-new generations of young expats to this day.<br />

In the next 15 pages we meet Bowie’s Berlin friends, fans, colleagues and lovers,<br />

and attempt to separate the man from the myth.<br />

10 • may <strong>2014</strong>


QUIZ<br />

Test your brain on Bowie<br />

How much do you really know about the Berlin years?<br />

concept: Alina Mae and Rene Blixer illustration: lena valenzuela Photo: courtesy of martin-gropius-bau<br />

1. How old was David Bowie when he<br />

moved to Berlin?<br />

a) 27<br />

b) 29<br />

c) 30<br />

d) It’s a myth – Bowie never actually lived<br />

in Berlin<br />

2. Which of the following has NOT been<br />

cited as a reason for Bowie’s alleged move<br />

to West Berlin?<br />

a) He wanted to kick his coke habit and he<br />

thought of Berlin as a temple of sobriety<br />

b) For research purposes: he originally<br />

intended to develop Ziggy Stardust into a<br />

German character, Siegfried Stardüst<br />

c) He had fallen in love with beautiful,<br />

transgender entertainer Romy<br />

Haag during his spring Isolar tour<br />

d) He was fascinated with krautrock,<br />

Bertolt Brecht and Ernst Kirchner<br />

3. Which three albums make up the<br />

so-called Berlin trilogy?<br />

a) Low, “Heroes”, Lodger<br />

b) Station to Station, “Heroes”, Scary<br />

Monsters (and Super Creeps)<br />

c) Aladdin Sane, Scary Monsters (and<br />

Super Creeps), Let’s Dance<br />

d) Diamond Dogs, Station to Station,<br />

Young Americans<br />

4. Which 20th-century artistic<br />

movement provided inspiration for<br />

the Berlin trilogy?<br />

a) The German expressionist group<br />

Die Brücke<br />

b) The Berlin Dada movement,<br />

particularly Max Ernst<br />

c) The Dutch De Stijl movement<br />

d) The performance artists of the<br />

Fluxus movement, particularly<br />

Joseph Beuys<br />

5. Why do some people object to<br />

the title ‘Bowie’s Berlin Trilogy’?<br />

a) Technically the ‘Berlin Trilogy’<br />

consists of four albums<br />

b) Because the production, song writing, and<br />

music was mostly done by Iggy Pop<br />

c) They are widely regarded as his worst<br />

albums and Berliners find it embarrassing<br />

d) Only one of the albums was entirely<br />

recorded in Berlin; the others were made in<br />

France and Switzerland<br />

6. Which of the following was part of<br />

Bowie’s Berlin eating habits?<br />

a) Caviar and chocolate from KaDeWe<br />

b) Scrambled eggs and brains at Exil<br />

c) Romy Haag’s homemade club sandwiches<br />

d) All of the above<br />

7. Which Iggy Pop albums did Bowie<br />

produce while he was in Berlin?<br />

a) Lust For Life and Raw Power<br />

b) The Idiot and Lust For Life<br />

c) Raw Power and Kill City<br />

d) Soldier and New Values<br />

8. What inspired Bowie to write the riff of<br />

Iggy Pop’s song “Lust For Life” while he<br />

was in Berlin?<br />

a) The Morse code jingle on the American<br />

Forces Network News broadcast<br />

b) The sound of construction work happening<br />

outside<br />

c) Listening to Beethoven’s Symphony No.7 in<br />

A Major while stoned<br />

d) The music in a 1977 Volkswagen ad<br />

9. From which Bowie song are the<br />

handwritten lyrics shown above?<br />

a) “Changing Hearts”<br />

b) “Boys Keep Swinging”<br />

c) “Blackout”<br />

d) “Yassassin”<br />

10. Which of these West Berlin<br />

clubs was NOT one of Bowie’s<br />

regular haunts?<br />

a) Transvestite bar Lützower Lampe in<br />

Charlottenburg<br />

b) Basement jazz club Quasimodo in<br />

Charlottenburg<br />

c) Hedonistic disco Dschungel in<br />

Schöneberg<br />

d) Punk hangout SO36 in Kreuzberg<br />

11. How would Bowie soothe his vocal<br />

chords before a recording session at<br />

Hansa studios?<br />

a) Swallow a teaspoon of baking powder<br />

b) Crack a raw egg into his mouth<br />

c) Guzzle olive oil from the bottle<br />

d) Eat a whole bulb of garlic<br />

12. Bowie would occasionally visit East<br />

Berlin – what did he do there?<br />

a) Smuggle drugs and fancy booze to his<br />

friends on the other side of the Wall<br />

b) Play secret gigs for GDR political higherups<br />

in return for huge sums of money<br />

c) Go into supermarkets and buy<br />

up all the Spreewälder Gurken to<br />

sate his pickle addiction<br />

d) Catch a Brecht play at the<br />

Berliner Ensemble before dining<br />

alongside members of the GDR<br />

elite at the nearby Ganymed<br />

restaurant<br />

13. When they lived together,<br />

what would Iggy do that annoyed<br />

Bowie?<br />

a) Throw impromptu house parties<br />

with his groupies<br />

b) Play The Rise And Fall Of<br />

Ziggy Stardust on repeat “for<br />

inspiration”<br />

c) Eat all of Bowie’s favourite food<br />

out of the fridge<br />

d) Roll around in broken glass in a<br />

drug-induced fit of hysteria…<br />

in Bowie’s bedroom<br />

14. The single “Heroes” was<br />

inspired by the sight of two lovers<br />

kissing beside the Berlin Wall.<br />

Who were they?<br />

a) Two gay West German punks<br />

b) Romy Haag and an unknown<br />

figure, who later turned out to be fashion<br />

designer Claudia Skoda<br />

c) An East German border controller and<br />

his girlfriend<br />

d) Bowie’s producer Tony Visconti<br />

and his mistress, backup singer<br />

Antonia Maaß<br />

15. Which Berlin landmark does Bowie<br />

NOT mention in his 2013 comeback single<br />

“Where Are We Now?”<br />

a) KaDeWe<br />

b) Potsdamer Platz<br />

c) The TV Tower<br />

d) Bösebrücke<br />

Answers: 1=B, 2=B, 3=A, 4=A, 5=D, 6=D, 7=B, 8=A, 9=C, 10=B, 11=B, 12=D, 13=C, 14=D, 15=C<br />

11


Article verbatimtag<br />

Queen of the underground<br />

By Alina Mae<br />

From a distance, the glamorous<br />

older lady sitting on the<br />

sun terrace of Grosz almost<br />

blends in with the rest of<br />

the lavish restaurant’s conservative<br />

upper-class clientele. Almost. Upon<br />

approaching her, we notice the<br />

flaming orange hair, the colourful<br />

and elaborate clothes, her fingers<br />

dripping in chunky, sparkling rings,<br />

including a spider-shaped knuckleduster<br />

on her middle finger. This<br />

is Romy Haag, the beautiful and<br />

flamboyant entertainer who was<br />

David Bowie’s paramour during his<br />

time in Berlin.<br />

In her 1970s heyday, Haag (born Edouard Frans<br />

Verbaarsschott in the Netherlands) was one of<br />

the biggest names in Berlin’s underground nightclub<br />

scene. Known for her wild performances,<br />

In 1970s West Berlin,<br />

singer, performer and club<br />

owner Romy Haag ruled<br />

the city’s burgeoning<br />

nightlife scene – and stole<br />

David Bowie’s heart.<br />

until 1983 she was also the owner of the legendary<br />

club Chez Romy Haag, drawing a who’s who of<br />

international superstars into her orbit.<br />

Now 63, she’s a regular of the spectacularly<br />

remodeled Ku’damm coffee house. “It’s my signature<br />

drink, the oldest champagne<br />

house in the world,” she drawls, taking<br />

a sip from a glass of Ruinart rosé.<br />

As she divulges stories of her Berlin<br />

past in her distinctive low, husky<br />

voice, she reveals a mischievous side,<br />

proving that this woman is more than<br />

just an eccentric dresser.<br />

Take us back to when you first<br />

arrived in Berlin in the 1970s... I<br />

came to Berlin at the end of 1973. Before<br />

that, I lived in New York. I came<br />

here because I was in love with a Berliner<br />

I’d met in Atlantic City. But for<br />

me it was no surprise that I ended up here; even<br />

when I lived in Paris as a teenager, everywhere I<br />

performed, people assumed I was German. They<br />

would introduce me as “the sensational Romy<br />

Haag, straight out of Berlin!”<br />

12 • <strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong>


veronica jonsson<br />

“In Bowie’s eyes,<br />

Chez Romy Haag<br />

was like looking<br />

into a mirror.<br />

The club<br />

reflected his<br />

music.”<br />

Why would they say that? Because<br />

of my low voice. I guess the<br />

stereotype was that Berlin women<br />

all had deep voices, but you know, I<br />

spoke a little bit of German too. I’d<br />

been to Berlin before, on holiday.<br />

And what did you think of Berlin<br />

when you first moved here?<br />

Well, I loved the sense of community<br />

here. West Berlin was such a<br />

small city compared to New York<br />

and Paris. People were more accepting;<br />

it was very, very peaceful here.<br />

And the nightlife? Oh, that was<br />

very disappointing. That’s what was<br />

so curious: there was nothing! No<br />

discotheques, nothing of interest<br />

to me. It was traditional, old-fashioned<br />

1950s and 1960s-style cabaret,<br />

or music for stoned hippies. So<br />

I opened my own club!<br />

You were only 23 when Chez<br />

Romy Haag opened. Yeah, but<br />

for me, you know, I’d come from New York! You<br />

don’t think about things like that – you say, “let’s<br />

open a club now” and you do it.<br />

Of all places, you chose Schöneberg’s<br />

Fugger straße. Why there? Well, the building<br />

was cheap. That area was nothing like it is<br />

now. People would laugh when I told them I<br />

was opening a club on Fuggerstraße. They said,<br />

“You’re crazy! No one will ever go!”<br />

What were the patrons like?<br />

Well, Berlin people! Right at the<br />

beginning I would hang around<br />

outside KaDeWe and invite people<br />

to the club personally. You could<br />

tell who liked going out because<br />

they would always wear black and<br />

have their own gimmick, like a<br />

crazy hairstyle or accessory or<br />

something.<br />

A lot of celebrities went to<br />

your club too... Yes, the club became<br />

more and more famous, and<br />

then rock stars would have afterparties<br />

at my place. So there was<br />

uh… Bette Midler, Tina Turner,<br />

Mick Jagger, Freddie Mercury, all<br />

those big stars.<br />

So why do you think Chez<br />

Romy Haag became so legendary?<br />

Because it was so strange! It<br />

was really unique. In the entrance<br />

there would be somebody dressed<br />

up like the pope who would bless<br />

the people coming into the club with a toilet<br />

brush and a champagne cooler. So the atmosphere<br />

was like that, very underground, trashy,<br />

kitschy. You read the articles that all say Chez<br />

Romy Haag was 1920s-style cabaret and all<br />

that, but no, it wasn’t! It was more performance<br />

art. Like an Andy Warhol aesthetic,<br />

let’s say it like that.<br />

So, for example…? Well, my very first act in<br />

the club was when I came out of a dustbin, all<br />

red, and sung Brecht’s “Show Me The Way To<br />

The Next Whiskey Bar” [Alabama Song]! So it<br />

was very trashy, which became very ‘in’ and so<br />

that was the reason it became so famous.<br />

Do you think that atmosphere was what<br />

attracted David Bowie to Chez Romy<br />

Haag? He belonged there. The first time he<br />

With David Bowie at Alcazar, Paris, 1976<br />

Romy Haag in 7 dates<br />

1951 Born on Jan 1 as Edouard Frans Verbaarsschott<br />

in Scheveningen, Netherlands.<br />

1964 Joins Circus Strassburger as a clown<br />

and children’s entertainer.<br />

1967 Moves to Paris. Lives as a woman, and<br />

works as a dancer at the club Alcazar, under<br />

the stage name Romy Haag.<br />

1970 Travels to the US as a stowaway on a<br />

merchant ship to become a performer in New<br />

York and Atlantic City.<br />

1974 On November 29, opens Chez Romy<br />

Haag on Fuggerstraße in Schöneberg.<br />

1976 Meets David Bowie at his concert at<br />

Deutschlandhalle in Westend on April 10.<br />

Their relationship lasts two years.<br />

2010 Releases her ninth album, Moving On,<br />

and starts touring with her current show<br />

Everybody Knows.<br />

studio 54 archives<br />

What was Chez Romy Haag like in the<br />

beginning? It was a discotheque for young<br />

people, not a cabaret, like the papers always say.<br />

The interior was inspired by Biba, the old shopping<br />

centre in London. It was really fashionable:<br />

Art Deco, black lacquer counters, mirrors…<br />

I wanted my club to look like that, so I painted<br />

the floors, the ceiling, the bar all black, and the<br />

walls were lined with mirrors. Then at the back,<br />

there was a very small stage with a red curtain.<br />

And the music? Well, we didn’t have bigname<br />

DJs at the time. I just invited my friends<br />

from London and New York to play their records<br />

at my club. They would play disco music<br />

and this was very fresh. We would just dance,<br />

and then there would be a show, and then we’d<br />

carry on dancing.<br />

Celebrating David Bowie’s 30th birthday<br />

with Iggy Pop, L’Ange Bleu, 1977<br />

ANDREW KENT PHOTOGRAPHY<br />

13


went, he was like [jaw drops]. It was so outrageous,<br />

it was so Ziggy Stardust. I think, in his<br />

eyes, it was like looking into a mirror. The club<br />

reflected his music.<br />

Did he stand out of the crowd? No, not at<br />

all! I hadn’t even heard of David Bowie before I<br />

met him.<br />

So how did you meet him? He did a concert in<br />

Berlin in 1976 and his<br />

management called to<br />

use my Mercedes 600,<br />

and they said to me,<br />

“Come over, you have<br />

to see him! It’s a great<br />

show.” We were in the<br />

VIP lounge and when<br />

he came off the stage<br />

we saw each other,<br />

and that’s it! It was<br />

like love at first sight.<br />

We shared a moment<br />

together.<br />

What was the most<br />

attractive thing<br />

about him? I liked his<br />

whole style, he was so charismatic. And his eyes...<br />

at first I thought it was just part of his costume.<br />

I said to him, “Take that contact lens out!”<br />

What happened after the concert? There<br />

was an after-party at my place and we got<br />

to spend some time together alone. He was<br />

fascinated because I had a recording studio at<br />

home. I had like 4000 LPs in boxes, and he was<br />

searching and searching through them. I asked<br />

him, “What are you looking for?” He said, “I’m<br />

looking for my records,” and I said, “I don’t have<br />

any of your records!”<br />

How would you describe him at the time?<br />

Well looking back now, I realise he had to get<br />

rid of Ziggy Stardust, he had to get rid of drugs<br />

and all that. He was like a little poor boy whom<br />

I took like a mama in my arms, that’s how I felt<br />

about him. We’re both Capricorns, so we were<br />

alike, and I could sense he needed help.<br />

Right, your birthdays are just a week apart.<br />

Did you ever celebrate together? Well, one<br />

time – I think it must’ve been 1977 – we threw<br />

a birthday party for ourselves in Paris. We went<br />

to a club on the Champs-Élysées called L’Ange<br />

Bleu which was owned by a friend of mine. It<br />

was only open for about six months because it<br />

was so expensive – the decoration, the Art Deco<br />

furniture, the cocktails. But it was unbelievable.<br />

Very, very beautiful.<br />

What was a typical day with David like?<br />

Well… we’d get stoned together a lot! We’d get<br />

high and brainstorm ideas and talk about the<br />

world, life, politics, music… We wouldn’t go out<br />

together that much because of the paparazzi.<br />

But you know, we wouldn’t see each other every<br />

single day. Even though we lived together at one<br />

point, he had his touring and I had to work too.<br />

“We’d get high and<br />

brainstorm ideas<br />

and talk about the<br />

world, life, politics,<br />

music… We wouldn’t<br />

go out together that<br />

much because of the<br />

paparazzi.”<br />

What else would you do together? Well, he<br />

was always in my dressing room! [Laughs] He<br />

would touch the costumes and watch how I did<br />

my makeup, and things like that.<br />

So you were the inspiration behind a lot of<br />

his looks? Oh, sure! What’s that video called?<br />

“Boys Keep Swinging”? It’s just like Chez Romy<br />

Haag. The setting is a complete, one-to-one copy<br />

of the stage in my club. He’s performing one of<br />

my favourite numbers.<br />

There’s this one part<br />

of the video where he<br />

smears his makeup and<br />

he rips off his wig... my<br />

signature move!<br />

What was it like<br />

to see your moves,<br />

your costumes, and<br />

your stage in his<br />

music videos? My<br />

reaction was always,<br />

“Oh, that ass! What<br />

is he doing?” But he<br />

probably influenced<br />

me too, it was give and<br />

take. We were very inspirational<br />

together. After meeting him I became<br />

a punk. I had short red hair and I started making<br />

art rock – hardcore performance. I would whip<br />

people with a wet towel!<br />

Do you still do that? No. Now I do rock<br />

chanson, although the American press insists on<br />

calling it cabaret-rock… My music now is very<br />

political. We’ve got no freedom anymore, there’s<br />

NSA everywhere, there’s homo phobia – is this a<br />

Demokratie? Never! The 1970s was a freer time,<br />

much, much more free! Before we had one wall,<br />

now we have five or six. Every community has<br />

their own thing and their own clubs. Before, it<br />

was just West Berlin. You were walled in, but you<br />

were accepted by everybody. Everybody was in it<br />

together and everyone got along.<br />

On your 2010 album Moving On you included<br />

a song “Helden” which contains a<br />

lot of references to Bowie’s “Heroes”... It<br />

is its own arrangement, but making it I thought,<br />

since he took so much of me, I’m going to take<br />

something of him.<br />

So what does “Heroes” mean to you? If you<br />

want to be a hero, you have to act now. If we<br />

don’t kiss each other now, the world will stay the<br />

same. [In French] I interpreted it completely<br />

differently; when you know a different language<br />

it takes on a different meaning.<br />

On Bowie’s 2013 album The Next Day, the<br />

song “Where Are We Now?” has a lot of<br />

very explicit references to Berlin... Oh yes,<br />

I was very surprised! He said he was “lost in time<br />

near KaDeWe” – that’s where Chez Romy Haag<br />

was. I think he must be bored of his life now,<br />

and he wants some excitement, like back then. I<br />

think he’s realised that part of his life is over. He<br />

got old. Well, we all get old.<br />

What memories does that song bring up<br />

for you? Not very many. I love the style of<br />

the songs, and I like that he’s going back to<br />

his roots, but I’ve got my own music to write<br />

and my own things to do, so I don’t think very<br />

deeply about these things.<br />

When was the last time you saw each<br />

other? We lost each other at the end of the<br />

1970s. When Angie found out we were together,<br />

she called a lawyer and they were harassing me.<br />

And there was all this bad publicity, and David<br />

had a fight with his record company… there was<br />

so much pressure on us, so I had to let him go.<br />

Did you ever get back in touch? No, never. n<br />

Chez Romy Haag –<br />

then and now<br />

Romy Haag’s eponymous club opened its<br />

doors to the disco-starved inhabitants of<br />

West Berlin in November 1974. Inspired<br />

by the vibrant discothèques of Paris and<br />

New York, Haag rented a cheap building in<br />

Schöneberg to cater to Berlin’s alternative<br />

youth and gay community. The locale quickly<br />

became renowned for its wild late-night parties,<br />

attracting everyone from drag queens<br />

to rock stars and paving the way for innumerable<br />

alternative clubs and bars in its wake, including<br />

the legendary Dschungel, SO36 and<br />

Anderes Ufer. In 1983, following the success<br />

of her first solo album, Haag decided to sell<br />

the club to focus on her music. The former<br />

Chez Romy Haag on the corner of Welserstraße<br />

and Fuggerstraße is now home to the<br />

alternative sex shop and gay club Connection.<br />

Hosting events such as “Naked Night”<br />

and “Dominate Party”, the new club strives<br />

to be as outrageous as its predecessor, but<br />

the glamorous days of celebrity after-parties<br />

are long over.<br />

brian ward photography<br />

14 • <strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong>


Article interview tag<br />

Bowie on display<br />

“Davi d<br />

Bowie Is”<br />

opens on<br />

<strong>May</strong> 20<br />

On <strong>May</strong> 20, the huge David Bowie exhibition opens at the Martin-Gropius-Bau. We spoke<br />

to the mastermind behind the show, curator Victoria Broackes. By Michael Hald<br />

After its huge success at the Victoria and Albert<br />

Museum in London with around 315,000 visitors,<br />

the raved-about exhibition makes its way to<br />

Berlin after a stop in São Paulo before moving on<br />

to Chicago, Paris and Groeningen in the Netherlands.<br />

Through August 10, visitors will be able<br />

to see Bowie’s grit and grandeur in an immersive<br />

display of sound and vision with more than 300<br />

objects and a newly expanded Berlin section with<br />

an additional 50.<br />

What’s the concept behind the exhibition?<br />

Bowie is a pioneer not only in music, but also in<br />

rock theatre, video, digital downloading – he’s<br />

always personally involved in everything that he<br />

creates and he’s so often cited as an influence<br />

by musicians and designers. So the concept for<br />

the exhibition was to really look at the process<br />

whereby he works and also to analyse in some<br />

depth what it is that makes him so influential.<br />

How did you translate that to the actual<br />

set-up? It was critical that it wasn’t going to be<br />

like any other museum exhibition we’d ever seen<br />

before – certainly more immersive. The objects<br />

mostly came from the David Bowie Archive,<br />

which is huge; it’s got 75,000 objects. We then<br />

put Bowie’s material into context, so there’s a lot<br />

of other material relating to wider culture or art<br />

and design or things that influenced Bowie. It<br />

was incredibly nerve-wracking before we opened,<br />

because I felt we’d done something quite daring<br />

and different, and people who came naturally<br />

had big expectations. For all the glitz and sparkle<br />

of the cutting-edge technology we used in the<br />

exhibition, it was the merging of that technology<br />

with original objects that people found really<br />

exciting: reading lyrics and hearing the music at<br />

the same time and being able to turn around and<br />

see an original costume.<br />

What sort of reactions did you get when it<br />

opened in London? We immediately got a very<br />

powerful and positive reaction from the public;<br />

we did have people bursting into tears. We had a<br />

comments book at the end of the exhibition, and<br />

we literally received tens of thousands of comments.<br />

It was interesting, because obviously the<br />

exhibition is about David Bowie and the broader<br />

culture around Bowie. But in the end it made<br />

people very reflective about their own lives; it<br />

got to them personally. I know many of his fans<br />

always felt that Bowie changed their lives. He’s<br />

not just a man, he’s a way of life. Funnily, I was<br />

initially… not sceptical about that, I just didn’t<br />

feel part of it. Now I sort of do feel part of it!<br />

Did any reactions in particular stand out?<br />

There’s a kind of performance section, which<br />

is just about the last thing that you see. People<br />

would go into that area and they would stay there<br />

for hours! They were dancing, and there was an<br />

incredible sense of camaraderie. That was probably<br />

the ‘wow’-moment where the emotion was<br />

very strong. We also had a lot of funny letters<br />

coming in. About the geometric Ziggy costume<br />

in the exhibition, Bowie used to say that he got<br />

the fabric from Liberty’s and then he would<br />

laughingly say, “Actually, it was probably the<br />

markets.” I mentioned that in an interview once.<br />

Then I got a letter from a woman saying,<br />

“Actually it was from Liberty’s,<br />

I got the fabric as well. Here’s a<br />

picture of me wearing the dress I<br />

made from it.” The public has a<br />

wealth of knowledge; we got a lot<br />

of information and a lot of offers<br />

of material – a lot of joining in.<br />

What do you think<br />

are the most special<br />

pieces in the exhibition?<br />

Certainly some<br />

of the Yamamoto<br />

costumes are amazing.<br />

And the lyrics!<br />

But for me the<br />

most exciting<br />

thing was the<br />

sketches that<br />

we found.<br />

photo : courtesy of martin-gropius-bau<br />

Bowie was going to make a film, and then he<br />

storyboarded this film. I’d read that he’d done<br />

that, but it turned out that the material was<br />

in the archive. It also includes material going<br />

back to when he was 16-17: sketches of him with<br />

various bands, costume designs and theatre sets<br />

for them. At that age he was already bringing<br />

together the idea of a strong visual identity. It’s<br />

quite astonishing to have that.<br />

Why put on the exhibition at that particular<br />

moment in time? I was introduced to David<br />

Bowie’s manager and discovered that he had this<br />

fantastic archive, so I was immediately excited<br />

about the possibility of doing an exhibition. It<br />

was just a once-in-a-career opportunity. As you<br />

know these things take years, so between that<br />

meeting and the opening was about two and a<br />

half years – and that was working at a hugely fast<br />

pace. We were as surprised as anyone when the<br />

new single came out [“Where Are We Now?”].<br />

His first new material in 10 years, just two<br />

months before your opening! I think Bowie<br />

was becoming more and more famous for<br />

being silent, and bringing out a new album<br />

and single actually could have gotten in<br />

the way of that. It was just one of those<br />

things where it all came together with<br />

very fabulous timing. Which of course<br />

is a Bowie trademark!<br />

DAVID BOWIE IS opens <strong>May</strong> 20<br />

through Aug 10, Martin-Gropius-Bau,<br />

Niederkirchnerstr. 7, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf<br />

Potsdamer Platz, Mon-Sun 10-20.<br />

What’s new in Berlin<br />

The original London exhibition had a section<br />

on Berlin (including Bowie’s 1976 S-Bahn<br />

map), which local curator Christine Heidemann<br />

expanded with an additional 50 objects,<br />

many of which reflect Bowie’s passion for German<br />

culture, notably German expressionism.<br />

He was a frequent visitor to the Brücke Museum<br />

in Dahlem, from which he drew visual<br />

inspiration: among the Berlin-exclusive gems<br />

are two works by Erich Heckel, “Roquairol”<br />

and “Männerbildnis”, which inspired the covers<br />

of Iggy Pop’s Bowie-produced The Idiot<br />

and Bowie’s own “Heroes”.<br />

15


zeitgeist<br />

veronica jonsson<br />

anja freyja<br />

Gudrun Gut, 1978<br />

Wolfgang Müller, <strong>2014</strong><br />

“There was this open, liberal atmosphere...<br />

People really didn’t care. A friend of mine<br />

once laid down on Oranienstraße, on the<br />

street, and cars just slowly drove around her.”<br />

– Wolfgang Müller<br />

Where were we then?<br />

Bowie arrived in walled-in West Berlin in November 1976. By the time he left in 1979, a punk<br />

rock renaissance had begun to take root. Did he have a hand in the transformation?<br />

By Aoife McKeown and Fridey Mickel.<br />

“You have to realise that there was<br />

nothing in West Berlin,” says Wolfgang<br />

Müller emphatically. “Nothing.<br />

Nobody cared about Berlin.”<br />

When Müller moved here from Wolfsburg in<br />

the late 1970s, the underground musical subculture<br />

that would later prove fruitful enough for<br />

him to chronicle in his 2013 book Subkultur West<br />

Berlin 1979-1989 was just beginning to coalesce.<br />

The landscape of West Berlin was desolate and<br />

bleak, strewn with post-war ruins and hastily<br />

thrown-together 1950s and 1960s buildings. It<br />

was insular and austere, an island state trapped<br />

behind the Wall, which acted as a pivot between<br />

East and West Cold War tensions.<br />

Gudrun Gut, founder of Malaria!, original<br />

member of Einstürzende Neubauten and head<br />

of the Monika Enterprises record label, remembers<br />

how Berlin felt to her when she first arrived<br />

in 1975 to attend the Hochschule der Künste.<br />

“There was no industry. The houses were in poor<br />

shape, there was coal heating; we took showers in<br />

this big bath. It was pretty run down.”<br />

The idea that an international superstar like<br />

David Bowie would come to live in this wasteland<br />

was, at the time, ludicrous – even more so the idea<br />

of him coming to a notorious heroin capital to detox<br />

from drugs. “The most famous person here was<br />

Christiane F.,” notes Müller. The former teen drug<br />

addict’s 1979 memoir came to symbolise the atmosphere<br />

of desolation and neglect that permeated the<br />

city at the time. “She was a junkie when she was 14,<br />

and she was the biggest star from West Berlin. It’s<br />

not very glamorous, if you think about it.”<br />

Yet something was attracting people, particularly<br />

young people, to live there. One reason was<br />

obvious: West Berlin was a special zone occupied<br />

by the US, the British and the French, which<br />

meant young West German men who lived in the<br />

city were exempt from doing their obligatory<br />

military service.<br />

The artist, musician and queer nightlife regular<br />

Salomé came to Berlin in 1973 as a draftsman for<br />

the US Army, working at Tempelhof Airport. “I<br />

got the job through an agency. I was glad because<br />

I wouldn’t be drafted for the West German army.”<br />

Still, that wasn’t the only reason he made the<br />

move. Working for an architecture company in his<br />

hometown of Karlsruhe, he recalls: “A secretary<br />

there said to me – because I was already a little bit<br />

dragged with coloured hair and high heels – ‘You<br />

have to go there, this is awful for you. You have to<br />

go to Berlin, it’s the place for you to be.’”<br />

The exemption from conscription was a factor<br />

for Müller as well, but not the deciding one. “I<br />

was kicked out of art school in West Germany,<br />

and West Berlin was a good place to come to,” he<br />

says. “Because I lived on the border to East Germany,<br />

I hitchhiked from Wolfsburg all the time to<br />

West Berlin… it was the next big city. It was quite<br />

an open place and it was very cheap.”<br />

Gut felt that West Berlin invoked something<br />

different from the rest of West Germany. “You<br />

know, in those days, it was really kind of organised<br />

and boring, in a way. Everything was perfect.<br />

Berlin was completely different. I remember<br />

clearly how you could smell something.”<br />

The springing up of counterculture and the<br />

feeling of unrest from the 1968 protests was still<br />

resonant throughout the city. Living in the squats<br />

of Kreuzberg as a hippy was an easy way to<br />

express revolt. Yet the idealism of the ’68 era had<br />

long begun to stagnate.<br />

As had Berlin’s music scene. Removed from<br />

the nexus of Cologne and Düsseldorf, Berlin<br />

nonetheless had krautrock and Kosmische groups,<br />

tending towards the ambient electronics of Klaus<br />

Schulze and Tangerine Dream, whose founder<br />

Edgar Froese would befriend Bowie early in his<br />

Berlin stay. But the detached intellectualism of<br />

16 • may <strong>2014</strong>


“David Bowie was just another freak in<br />

town, who cares? I had him a few times as a<br />

customer. He was polite and nice, he got what<br />

he wanted, then you’d leave him alone. People<br />

left him alone and that’s probably why he<br />

enjoyed it so much.“ – Salomé<br />

Die Tödliche Doris – Wolfgang Müller’s private archives<br />

Salomé at Matala on Bayerische Straße, 1977<br />

the genre was far from the attitude which artists<br />

such as Müller, Salomé and Gut would have felt.<br />

“We were trying to invent our own kind of new<br />

music,” Gut says. “German music didn’t have any<br />

kind of impact at all.”<br />

What did have an impact was the American and<br />

British glam and proto-punk scenes, of which David<br />

Bowie and Iggy Pop were un disputed figureheads.<br />

In late 1976, their choice to move to West<br />

Berlin conferred on the city the kind of cool it<br />

had never had before. “He was really the first<br />

international star who moved to this very unfresh<br />

city at this time. It was still wasted by the War,”<br />

says Müller. “David Bowie and Iggy Pop – they<br />

were Anglo-American and they brought something<br />

fresh into this city. It’s a fact.”<br />

Not that any self-respecting Berlin resident<br />

would admit to being impressed by him. Says<br />

Salomé, “David Bowie was just another freak<br />

in town, who cares? I had him a few times as a<br />

customer at Anderes Ufer because I was working<br />

behind the bar. He was polite and nice, he got<br />

what he wanted, then you’d leave him alone. Let<br />

him do what he was doing. People left him alone<br />

and that’s probably why he enjoyed it so much.”<br />

Nonetheless, Berliners paid attention to where<br />

Bowie was going and what he was doing – and<br />

whom he was doing it with. Just before his move<br />

to Berlin, the star had declared his bisexuality in an<br />

interview with Playboy; in the city, his frequenting<br />

of transgressive clubs like Chez Romy Haag and<br />

Lützower Lampe helped usher in the blending of<br />

straight and queer subcultures that was key to the<br />

formation of the German punk scene.<br />

Anderes Ufer opened in 1977, two doors down<br />

from Bowie’s 155 Hauptstraße address in Schöneberg.<br />

“I don’t think it was any accident that David<br />

Bowie lived just a few doors down,” notes Müller.<br />

“He had an influence on these things.”<br />

The bar was seen as being the first publicly gay<br />

locale in Berlin, with its wide-open glass front –<br />

which Bowie famously paid to replace after it was<br />

smashed by angry drunks. Salomé worked there<br />

as a waiter. “In the late 1970s things started to be<br />

different because Anderes Ufer opened. It was<br />

the first gay bar with open windows where everybody<br />

could look in and young people met...“<br />

As the decade began to draw to a close, more<br />

and more venues opened that attracted both<br />

hedonistic hometown revellers and, increasingly,<br />

bands from the US and the UK punk scene,<br />

which was in full swing at the time. 1977 was the<br />

year in which John Lydon’s sneer of “no future”<br />

became a mantra, and it was also the year that<br />

Kantkino in Charlottenburg hosted a show by<br />

UK band The Vibrators, which inspired PVC,<br />

one of West Berlin’s first punk bands; later that<br />

same year, they were opening for Iggy Pop.<br />

One year later, in 1978, the club Dschungel<br />

opened on Nürnberger Straße, quickly gaining a<br />

reputation as “Berlin’s Studio 54”, an anythinggoes<br />

hangout for freaks of all stripes. And the<br />

Kreuzberg punk club SO36 was taken over<br />

by German artist Martin Kippenberger, who<br />

invested his own money in it to save it from<br />

bankruptcy. Kippenberger reinvented the club,<br />

bringing over names from both sides of the<br />

Atlantic: from Bowie himself to post-punk and<br />

industrial pioneers Throbbing Gristle and Wire.<br />

Müller remembers it as though “a UFO had<br />

landed among the hippies”.<br />

“There was this open, liberal atmosphere,” says<br />

Müller. “People really didn’t care. A friend of mine<br />

once lay down on Oranienstraße, on the street,<br />

and cars just slowly passed around her.” Salomé felt<br />

that SO36 was a point where queer scenes and the<br />

music scenes merged. “Those were places where<br />

the crowd mixed. Openly mixed. You could meet<br />

anybody and everybody. That was the change.”<br />

Inspired by the bands they saw, the people they<br />

met and their own West Berlin experiences,<br />

musicians like Gut and Müller began to write<br />

their own songs… in their own language.<br />

Previously, this had been fraught with political<br />

implications. “Singing in German was a taboo –<br />

the Nazi era destroyed the tradition of German<br />

lyrics,” says Müller. “But the punk movement was<br />

all about erasing taboos. We started to think<br />

about singing in German again.”<br />

Bowie’s contribution to this? “He did that<br />

version of ‘Heroes’ in German in 1977 – so we<br />

thought, if David Bowie could sing in German,<br />

then the Germans could, too!” laughs Müller.<br />

By the time Nick Cave, the next international<br />

musician to take up residence in Berlin, arrived in<br />

1983, West Berlin’s cultural landscape was a different<br />

place. Punk, post-punk and industrial bands<br />

like Salomé’s Geile Tiere, Müller’s Die Tödliche<br />

Doris, Gut’s all-female group Malaria! and her<br />

friend Blixa Bargeld’s Einstürzende Neubauten<br />

had created a new musical language that the city<br />

could call its own.<br />

Bowie might have resonated through the city<br />

– “Berlin was nowhere, and Bowie gave it a glam<br />

factor,” as Gut pointed out. But the people who<br />

took up their inspiration through the punk scene<br />

and went on to continue through the 1980s were<br />

able to move on, experiment with genres and<br />

bring in a new era of music to Berlin. n<br />

17


owie in berlin<br />

Always crashing<br />

in the same bar<br />

Exberliner’s music editor meditates on<br />

Bowie, rebirth and Berlin. By D. Strauss<br />

Can I begin an essay on David Bowie<br />

with an anecdote about Scritti Politti’s<br />

Green Gartside? At a Tito Puente concert<br />

in 1981, the post-punk semiotics<br />

autodidact turned lite-funketeer propositioned<br />

Kraftwerk about recording “The Sweetest Girl”<br />

with lovers rock icon Gregory Isaacs. But, of<br />

course, Kraftwerk didn’t like reggae; they may<br />

have been the only Germans who didn’t.<br />

The sense I get is<br />

that David Bowie<br />

suffered a similar set of<br />

false assumptions<br />

about the Continent<br />

he’d leave for. He loved<br />

kraut rock – both he<br />

and collaborator Brian<br />

Eno were convinced it<br />

was the future of pop –<br />

but listening to the<br />

music of his not-reallyaccurately-named<br />

Berlin<br />

Trilogy, he never got at<br />

its essence. Which<br />

might have been German reggae!<br />

Not that it wasn’t easy for this<br />

man, falling away from Earth, to<br />

live in a world of geopolitical<br />

delusion. Didn’t he briefly flirt<br />

with the National Front before<br />

moving to Germany?<br />

When Bowie moved with<br />

Iggy Pop to Berlin in late 1976,<br />

he was just off his commercial<br />

peak, a period during which he made sure that<br />

every rock star bigger than him was absorbed<br />

into his orbit, from Lennon to Elton to Mick<br />

the Lips, with whom he had probably had a longstanding<br />

affair (and from whom he had learned<br />

considerable financial acumen). Jagger had also<br />

pioneered the concept of rock star as aristocrat,<br />

a model Bowie’s alienation prevented him from<br />

entirely aping, though he would make a go of<br />

it. He had been a vaguely pathetic wannabe for<br />

so long – from the mid-1960s of “The Laughing<br />

Gnome” to the Kubrick-esque Moon-faddish<br />

“Space Oddity” to the comedown Nietzscheisms<br />

of The Man Who Sold the World, that when<br />

he found himself ahead of the ball on protopunk<br />

and glam, with a shit-hot guitarist in Mick<br />

Ronson, a sound visionary in Tony Visconti, and<br />

a hungry, hungry handler<br />

in Tony Defries, he was<br />

as downbeat as he was<br />

ambitious. After all, with<br />

Ziggy Stardust, he had to<br />

pretend he was famous<br />

before he became so and<br />

when he finally broke<br />

through it was with an<br />

ambitious<br />

rip-off of “Over the Rainbow”<br />

that meditated on its own ambition.<br />

That song was “Starman”<br />

and, anticipating Berlin, after all<br />

those years of chasing rainbows,<br />

he never seemed entirely comfortable<br />

with being one. So he inhaled<br />

a lot of stardust. The phantasies<br />

that led to glam rock presented<br />

themselves as insecurities: the<br />

young dude was<br />

obsessed, even at his<br />

height, with dystopia.<br />

So was Judy Garland,<br />

for that matter, paeans<br />

to optimism aside – and<br />

her daughter Liza did<br />

both Berlin and glam<br />

first in Cabaret.<br />

Bowie claims to have<br />

forgotten years during<br />

his addiction, but<br />

he is incredibly lucid in<br />

interviews during that<br />

period. In a dark funk, he<br />

fired his Spiders, ditching glam for… dark funk.<br />

It expanded his audience. He has no memory of<br />

recording 1976’s Station to Station, a prog-flecked<br />

record coming together at the birth of punk that<br />

only made him bigger. When he finally attempted<br />

to leave it all behind and<br />

record an album that truly<br />

reflected Bowie Music, it had<br />

Iggy Pop’s name on it. 1977’s<br />

Bowie-produced The Idiot is<br />

his greatest record – an anticipatory<br />

summing up that gives<br />

a slap to the 1960s and a finger<br />

to the incipient 1980s. He<br />

waited until Low was already<br />

out to release it, lest he be<br />

thought derivative of himself. When he wanted<br />

to go commercial, Iggy would be the front man<br />

as well: Lust for Life, released later that year, is a<br />

pop album, but then Elvis had to go and die and<br />

his record company let the record do the same.<br />

The Idiot was<br />

mostly recorded<br />

in France and<br />

Munich. Low<br />

was more a Swiss<br />

album (Bowie’s initial<br />

choice for exile<br />

was considerably<br />

tonier than walledin<br />

Schöneberg).<br />

“Heroes”, whose<br />

cover, like The<br />

Idiot’s, was based<br />

on Erich Heckel’s<br />

“Roquairol”, is<br />

the only truly “Berlin” of his<br />

Berlin albums. Recorded at<br />

Kreuzberg’s Hansa Studios,<br />

the Kraut influences are more<br />

Berlin Kosmische, and probably<br />

the result of Eno’s palling around<br />

with Cluster, though both Neu!<br />

and Kraftwerk are name-checked<br />

in song titles. Like the earlier<br />

“TVC15”, which Bowie performed in the film<br />

Christiane F. (with NYC standing in for BLN),<br />

“Heroes,” the song, minus Robert Fripp’s guitar<br />

and Bowie’s dramatic delivery, is essentially boogie<br />

music, a look back in resignation to Bowie’s<br />

youthful aesthetic interests. The lyrics, which<br />

were inspired by Visconti cheating on his wife,<br />

came to represent political liberation. Which<br />

reflects the confluence of rock and Berlin’s paradoxes<br />

quite nicely.<br />

So is there anything David Bowie has to teach<br />

the Exberliner reader? He came here to dry out,<br />

while most expats arrive here to fuck themselves<br />

up. Of course, when you’re the biggest rock star<br />

in the world, drying out is a relative measure<br />

(“And I/I’ll drink all the time.”). Bowie did not<br />

arrive in Berlin to learn from its decadence,<br />

and decadence was not merely an ideology to<br />

be absorbed by not working, as with the petty<br />

dissolution that Australian youth wrote of in his<br />

notorious New York Times article in 2012. At his<br />

Low-est, Bowie was prolific, and not in spite of it.<br />

Despite the influence of his machinations here,<br />

Bowie made a choice to sit out punk. Post-Berlin,<br />

on 1980’s Scary Monsters, Bowie’s punkest album<br />

and tentative poke back at the mainstream, the<br />

scariness felt like another role (and like “Heroes”,<br />

it’s a nostalgic release, with its “Ashes to Ashes”<br />

pierrot and Bruce Springsteen’s pianist). Berlin<br />

would take to punk, but it<br />

would take a decade and Berlin’s<br />

early punk was pretty<br />

arty. Then again, so was<br />

CBGB’s. Perhaps Bowie had<br />

his hand in there, as well.<br />

Life is a cabaret, even if the<br />

stage is your mirror and<br />

the next act has yet to be<br />

written. In peroxide. And<br />

on MTV. n<br />

18 • may <strong>2014</strong>


1.<br />

3.<br />

1. Hansa Studios, 1977.<br />

2. Bowie, producer<br />

Tony Visconti and Meyer<br />

during the Low recording<br />

sessions, 1976.<br />

3. Bowie and Meyer during<br />

a special one-day recording<br />

session, 1987.<br />

4. The view from the studios’<br />

control room, with the Wall<br />

in the background, 1976.<br />

2.<br />

4.<br />

PHOTOS: EDUARD MEYER’S PRIVATE COLLECTION<br />

The sound behind the vision<br />

Former Hansa Studios recording<br />

engineer Eduard Meyer recalls<br />

his time with Bowie and Iggy.<br />

“<br />

When a journalist came to<br />

interview me at the time of<br />

Bowie’s 60th birthday, his first<br />

question was “So, did David<br />

Bowie sleep with Romy Haag?”<br />

“Ask him yourself,” was my<br />

answer. “I was not in the room.”<br />

That was not at all the kind of relationship that<br />

I had with David Bowie. I began my career at<br />

Hansa Studios on February 15, 1976. David made<br />

his first appearance at the studio that very winter<br />

and let me be clear, when he arrived I had no<br />

idea who he was. My background lies in classical<br />

music. I had some knowledge of krautrock, but<br />

in general I had no interest in pop music. He was<br />

not coming from the stars, we did not roll out a<br />

red carpet for him… he was simply a client of our<br />

studio. Nevertheless, we became friendly. I had a<br />

good deal of experience with musicians and producers<br />

who simply had no idea about how music<br />

should sound and how it should be recorded. This<br />

was completely different with David Bowie and<br />

Tony Visconti. It was clear from day one that they<br />

knew exactly how to make the music they wanted.<br />

They had it in their veins.<br />

I began work on Low as a translator, simply<br />

because I was the best English-speaking engineer<br />

at the studio. I worked as an intermediary,<br />

translating for David during the sessions and for<br />

Tony Visconti during the mixing. Naturally, we<br />

spent some time together. Hansa looked out onto<br />

the Wall; the border guard could see right into<br />

the studio and even hear the music. Once, I made<br />

a little joke – I took one of the studio lamps and<br />

shone it directly at the guard tower. David and<br />

Tony jumped under the table [laughs] but they<br />

would never have shot at us.<br />

It was on one of those evenings that that<br />

photo was taken with the three of us sitting in<br />

the control room, David on the left, Tony in the<br />

middle and me on the right. We were just sharing<br />

a joke at the end of the day when Coco [Schwab,<br />

Bowie’s assistant] snapped that photo. I was also<br />

invited to a Christmas meal at David and Iggy’s<br />

apartment on Hauptstraße – Coco roasted a bird,<br />

it was very nice. Of course I heard that David and<br />

Iggy and the others went for some big nights out<br />

around Berlin, but in general I didn’t meet them<br />

outside of the studio. I had my own private life at<br />

home with my family.<br />

When David started “Heroes”, I was less involved<br />

because the crew were more or less able to<br />

deal with it themselves. But I would still come by<br />

the studio once a day and see what was going on.<br />

The next time I worked with David was on Iggy<br />

Pop’s Lust for Life album, which David produced,<br />

then on the Bertolt Brecht EP Baal [1982]. It<br />

was a great atmosphere. David and Iggy were<br />

always very well behaved, I never saw any drugs<br />

or anything like that, but they would always have<br />

a case of beer to quench their thirst. They had<br />

fun though. One time at Feierabend, three very<br />

beautiful young women came to the control room.<br />

David greeted them and told them to wait before<br />

saying to Iggy, “Pick the one you want. I’ll take<br />

the other two.” [Laughs]<br />

David returned to Berlin to play a concert in<br />

front of the Reichstag in 1987, but during that<br />

week he also booked a day-long session at Hansa.<br />

We had security at all the doors; we took it very<br />

seriously and worked our asses off to get everything<br />

ready. Suddenly the band started playing<br />

“Time Will Crawl”. We couldn’t understand what<br />

was going on – the song had already been released!<br />

I went to David and told him that we had to<br />

prepare a microphone for him, but he just laughed<br />

saying, “No, not for this session.” It was right at<br />

that moment that that photograph was taken,<br />

with David smiling with his cigarette and me in<br />

a state of confusion. It turned out that David’s<br />

crew had a trade union contract that required that<br />

they must be employed at least once a week. He<br />

had just booked the studio to keep them busy. It<br />

ended up being a lot of fun and I still have the<br />

24-track to this day.<br />

Since David Bowie, many famous international<br />

bands and musicians have used Hansa and many<br />

people have asked me about the times I spent<br />

with David. But back in 1977 I had absolutely<br />

no idea. It was simply part of my job. Perhaps I<br />

should have kept a diary!<br />

As told to Dominic Mealy.<br />

Eduard Meyer<br />

Born ‘Edu’ in 1943, Meyer studied recording<br />

engineering and music at the Robert<br />

Schumann Konservatorium in Düsseldorf.<br />

After a stint recording “mainly Schlager” at<br />

Cornet Studios in Cologne, he worked at<br />

Berlin’s iconic Hansa Studios from 1976-2003,<br />

working with such musical luminaries as Can,<br />

Tangerine Dream and, of course, David<br />

Bowie. Also an accomplished cellist, Meyer<br />

played on the Low track “Art Decade”. He’s<br />

currently enjoying his retirement in rural<br />

North Rhine-Westphalia.<br />

19


the experts’ corner<br />

Bowie by the book<br />

Even 35 years after he left Berlin to reboard the spaceship to global stardom,<br />

David Bowie continues to inspire volumes of new writing. We talked to four<br />

authors whose books come to grips with the glam rocker’s “golden years”.<br />

Rory MacLean<br />

Berlin: Imagine a City<br />

(Weidenfeld and Nicholson, <strong>2014</strong>, 421p)<br />

A book aiming to grasp the unique aura of<br />

Berlin through portraits of the memorable<br />

people who inhabited it couldn’t do without<br />

a very special chapter about Bowie –<br />

especially when its author personally spent<br />

time with the star while working on the set<br />

of Just a Gigolo.<br />

What is your personal relationship with<br />

David Bowie? In 1977-78 I was the assistant director on Just a Gigolo, the<br />

derivative and disappointing feature film starring Bowie and Marlene Dietrich.<br />

Bowie, his assistant, the director David Hemmings and I were the<br />

only native English speakers on the picture, hence we naturally gravitated<br />

toward each other. We all spent many evenings together in his Hauptstraße<br />

apartment. Bowie played records for us, explaining how musicians<br />

come together then break up in the pursuit of creative goals, likening the<br />

process to Die Brücke artists earlier in the century:<br />

Roxy Music and Brian Eno, Der Blaue Reiter and<br />

Kandinsky. I’d heard the gossip about him before we<br />

met of course, the stories of a paranoid, egotistical<br />

Thin White Duke who flirted with fascism and the<br />

occult. But over the months that we worked together<br />

I saw only a gentle, articulate, warm and affable man,<br />

filled with self-effacing good humour, on the cusp<br />

of finding his own true self. Over the three-month<br />

shooting schedule he danced with Maria Schell, woke<br />

up in bed with Kim Novak and – on day 51 – was shot<br />

by a nutty Nazi. With blanks. Early one morning, after<br />

the director and I had spent the night reworking<br />

dialogue, I knocked on his trailer door and delivered<br />

a wad of new lines for him to memorise. Bowie<br />

scanned the list, smiled weakly and said: “Now, melody I can handle…”<br />

Your favourite of Bowie’s Berlin albums? “Heroes”. Because it’s fired<br />

with deep emotion. Because it captures a sense of the isolation and aching<br />

loneliness of the then-divided city. Because it tells us, all the fat-skinny<br />

people, all the nobody people who then dreamt of a new world of equals,<br />

that there was hope, and that we could be ourselves.<br />

Your favourite anecdote about Bowie and Berlin? The memory that<br />

endures most from those days was Christmas together: Bowie and my<br />

boss, with partners, children and add-ons like me at a secluded restaurant<br />

in the Grunewald, Forsthaus Paulsborn. We drank too much and Bowie<br />

gave me a copy of Fritz Lang’s biography. At the end of the happy evening<br />

I followed him downstairs to the huge, ceramic lavatory where – as we<br />

stood before the urinals – we sang Buddy Holly songs together (or, at least,<br />

a line-and-a-half from Little Richard’s “Good Golly, Miss Molly”).<br />

Tobias Rüther<br />

Helden: David Bowie<br />

in Berlin<br />

(Rogner & Bernhard, 2013, 222p)<br />

“I followed him downstairs<br />

to the huge,<br />

ceramic lavatory<br />

where – as we stood<br />

before the urinals –<br />

we sang Buddy Holly<br />

songs together...”<br />

From Iggy Pop to Romy Haag, from Die<br />

Brücke to krautrock and from Low to<br />

Lodger, German journalist Rüther follows<br />

Bowie on the Berlin trail. Originally<br />

conceived in 2006 as an article in honour<br />

of the 30th anniversary of Bowie’s move<br />

to Berlin, it will be available in English<br />

translation this autumn from Reaktion Books.<br />

What is your personal relationship with David Bowie? I’m not a<br />

fan. I do like a lot of Bowie’s work, but not all of it. I always admired that<br />

he wanted pop music to be more than melodies. This intellectual ambition<br />

he had. And I like that he never trusted authenticity in pop. He’s never<br />

been a sweaty rock ‘n’ roller. For him it was always about the possibility<br />

of becoming someone else for the duration of a song. What a wonderful<br />

thing that there’s another life waiting for you<br />

in a song! Over and over and over again.<br />

Your favourite of Bowie’s Berlin work?<br />

My personal favourite would be “Moss<br />

Garden”, an ambient instrumental from the<br />

second side of “Heroes”. It’s so quiet and beautiful<br />

and simple. For some reason it sounds<br />

like spring to me.<br />

Your favourite anecdote about Bowie<br />

and Berlin? I love that he liked to use public<br />

transportation. People told me he was quite<br />

a fan of the BVG, which is somewhat hard to<br />

believe if you live in Berlin nowadays. But it<br />

seems to be true – there was an old S-Bahn map in his exhibition at the<br />

V&A. He obviously archived it!<br />

A unique discovery you made while writing/researching your<br />

book? I found the parallels between Bowie and West Berlin striking.<br />

Both the divided city and the artist were at a loss what to do next in the<br />

mid-seventies. West Berlin started to redefine itself as a cultural metropolis<br />

around 1976, 1977. Having no political relevance due to its Cold War<br />

status as a neutralised city, it turned to the arts – to history and historical<br />

discourse – to start anew. At the same time Bowie, exhausted and confused,<br />

found new energy in dealing with the ghosts of his own past. He’d<br />

loved expressionist art and film since he was a kid. He adored Kirchner<br />

and Brecht. He explored the cultural and historical undercurrents of the<br />

past (Weimar, Die Brücke, Marlene Dietrich) to write the most innovative<br />

pop music of his time. So it was a perfect match: Berlin found a future for<br />

itself by looking back, Bowie looked back and wrote music of the future.<br />

20 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Peter Dogett<br />

The Man Who Sold<br />

The World: David<br />

Bowie and the 1970s<br />

(Vintage, 2012, 432p)<br />

An insightful and personal recounting of<br />

every song in the Bowie oeuvre between<br />

Space Oddity and Scary Monsters by a<br />

writer who eschews Bowie’s colourful personal<br />

life to focus on his work, which, he<br />

says “is arguably the most compelling and<br />

accurate account of the 1970s assembled<br />

by any artist, in any medium.”<br />

What is your personal relationship with<br />

David Bowie? I don’t have a personal relationship<br />

with Bowie in a face-to-face way. But as<br />

a fan I followed his music almost with a sense<br />

of disbelief, because of how quickly he was<br />

changing, how many different identities he was<br />

moving through, and how diverse his music was.<br />

But he wasn’t just changing for change’s sake: he<br />

was responding with incredible<br />

flexibility to what was happening<br />

both within his own psyche, and<br />

in the wider society around him.<br />

One of the great joys for me of<br />

writing this book was being able<br />

to spend several months soaking<br />

myself in Bowie’s 1970s music<br />

– not just hearing what was on<br />

the records, but trying to think<br />

myself into what was happening<br />

inside Bowie’s life, and his head,<br />

when each one was made. I was able to track<br />

down much of what he was reading, watching<br />

and listening to during the 1970s, which helped<br />

to give me a unique insight into the music he<br />

made and where it came from.<br />

Your favourite of Bowie’s Berlin albums?<br />

I don’t think there’s anything in Bowie’s Berlin<br />

period that is more emotionally charged, and musically<br />

exciting, than the first side of the “Heroes”<br />

album. “Joe The Lion” and “Blackout” are about<br />

as personally and musically extreme as it is possible<br />

to be without losing control of<br />

oneself artistically, and Bowie almost<br />

never loses control in the 1970s.<br />

A unique discovery you made<br />

while writing/researching your<br />

book? I love the fact that Bowie<br />

threw himself so wholeheartedly into<br />

the street life of Berlin, rather than<br />

trying to live a closeted rock star life.<br />

But for me the key moment was how<br />

entranced he became by the work of<br />

the expressionist art group Die Brücke. I think<br />

those pictures had a huge effect on Bowie visually,<br />

emotionally and spiritually. I was astonished<br />

to find some film clips of Bowie in New York in<br />

1980, when he was performing the lead role in<br />

The Elephant Man on stage – because he was like a<br />

living embodiment of one of the twisted figures<br />

in Egon Schiele’s self-portraits. There was talk<br />

that Bowie might play the lead role in a movie<br />

of Schiele’s life. It’s a real shame that the film<br />

was never made, because it might have been the<br />

crowning glory of his years in Berlin.<br />

Thomas Jerome Seabrook<br />

Bowie in Berlin: A New<br />

Career in a New Town<br />

(Jawbone Press, 2008, 272p)<br />

“I was named after his character in The<br />

Man Who Fell to Earth. So you could<br />

say I was destined to write this book.”<br />

Seabrook’s definitive book on Bowie’s<br />

three-year expat stint delves into why<br />

the musician fled from fame in LA to<br />

comparative anonymity in Berlin. It<br />

offers insight into Bowie’s recording<br />

process and, as Seabrook says, goes<br />

beyond Bowie’s image “as a cardboard<br />

glam rock character with red hair and slightly throwaway songs.<br />

His Berlin records are the complete antithesis of that.”<br />

What is your personal relationship with David Bowie? We never<br />

met, but Bowie and his music have always been part of my life. I was<br />

named after his character [Thomas Jerome Newton] in The Man Who Fell<br />

to Earth. So you could say I was destined to write this book, if you believe<br />

in that sort of thing. I first got into him as a teenager, at a time when<br />

his music was probably as unfashionable as it’s ever been. I was mostly<br />

listening to hairy American bands at the time, but something made me<br />

want to borrow a cassette best-of from my local library, and then I realised<br />

I knew most of the songs on it already.<br />

Your favourite of Bowie’s Berlin albums? “Heroes”. Much as I love<br />

Low, “Heroes” pushes the ideas on it quite a bit further. Bowie, Eno, and<br />

co are very much in the groove; the sound is broader and more confident,<br />

and it’s got some of Bowie’s best songs on it – also things like “Beauty<br />

and the Beast” and “Blackout”. It’s also much more of a Berlin album,<br />

both in a literal sense (it’s the only one of the supposed trilogy that was<br />

entirely made there) and in the way it feels.<br />

Your favourite anecdote about Bowie and Berlin? The one that<br />

starts the book: Bowie and Iggy driving around Berlin, probably out of<br />

their minds on god knows what, spotting a car owned by some drug dealer<br />

they knew, and deciding it would be a good idea to ram their Mercedes<br />

into it, over and over again. This episode ended up inspiring one of his<br />

greatest songs of the period – “Always Crashing in the Same Car”. And<br />

it kind of sums up the brilliant irony of Bowie’s madcap scheme to go to<br />

Berlin – the drug capital of Western Europe – to get cleaned up.<br />

DEUTSCH IN ENGLISH!<br />

MAXIM GORKI THEATRE<br />

NOW WITH ENGLISH SURTITLES<br />

www.gorki.de<br />

21


Article portraits tag<br />

The fans who<br />

fell to Earth<br />

Diehards, collectors, lookalikes and<br />

former stalkers: meet Berlin’s Bowie nuts.<br />

We talked to them about their obsession.<br />

By Dominic Mealy. Photos by Michał Andrysiak.<br />

The teen Bowistin<br />

Nelly P. was born in 1972 in Wilmersdorf, West Berlin.<br />

Following her amateur dramatics as a teenage Bowie<br />

devotee, she pursued a career in theatre, studying acting<br />

in Berlin before moving to London to complete an<br />

MA. Now a part-time actress, businesswoman and loving<br />

mother, she lives in Berlin with her eight-year-old son.<br />

The first time I saw him was in the film Labyrinth and I fell totally in<br />

love with him! I saw it at the cinema with my friend and the next day<br />

at school we couldn’t stop talking about him, about his tight stockings,<br />

about how you could see everything… for us, it was so erotic.<br />

Through the film I became introduced to his music and as soon as<br />

I heard it I was completely hooked. I needed to find out more, so I<br />

bought every book I could find on him. The best was the David Bowie<br />

Black Book, but it was in English. Until then I had been very bad at<br />

English in school, but I sat down with that book, translating every<br />

single word from English to German. I quickly became top of the class.<br />

Then I heard the news: he was coming to play in Berlin! It was<br />

1987, I was 14 years old and it was my first concert. When I received<br />

the ticket it was like holding something holy. He played at the<br />

Reichstag with Genesis and Eurythmics, but I didn’t care about them<br />

at all, all I wanted to see was Bowie. The concert was HUGE, there<br />

were people everywhere, including people from the East who had<br />

gathered on the other side of the wall and he greeted them! He<br />

said: “…und dann Gruß noch der Leute hinter den Mauer” in his<br />

really sweet German, and then he sang “Heroes”. It was like magic.<br />

My father had insisted on chaperoning me and he made us leave before<br />

the concert finished because he wanted to “avoid the crowds”<br />

– I was really, really angry with him for a long time after that. I saw<br />

Bowie again when he played at the Deutschlandhalle – the place no<br />

longer exists but it’s the venue you see in Christiane F, so it felt very<br />

authentic – and then at Neue Welt. I waited for him at the exit. He<br />

walked straight to his car without looking up, but I wasn’t disappointed<br />

– I ran through the street following his car. It felt amazing.<br />

My younger sister also caught the Bowie bug. We didn’t call<br />

ourselves “Bowie fans”, it sounded lame, so we called ourselves<br />

“Bowisten”. We were delighted to realise that Bowie had once<br />

lived in Berlin – that seems obvious now, but back then, without the<br />

internet, it was like insider’s knowledge. We desperately wanted<br />

to know where exactly Bowie had lived, but my books didn’t give<br />

the address, only hints, mentioning that he lived around 20 minutes<br />

away from Hansa Studios above some kind of tool shop. We set off<br />

with our bikes from Wilmersdorf where we lived at that time, riding<br />

to Hansa where West Berlin met the Wall, and we criss-crossed<br />

the streets looking for somewhere that fit the vague description in<br />

my book. When we found a block of spacious apartments over a<br />

hardware store, we knew it must be the right place. We spoke excitedly<br />

about what it must have been like when Bowie and Iggy Pop<br />

lived there, we were so proud of our discovery – it was our secret! In<br />

reality we were on Yorckstraße, not Hauptstraße, so we weren’t far<br />

away, but it wasn’t the right building. Somehow that didn’t matter –<br />

to us, it was Bowie’s house.<br />

When I turned 16 and was finally allowed to travel alone, I boarded<br />

a train for Montreux. I had read in a music magazine that David Bowie<br />

was living in the Swiss city, so with little more than a small rucksack,<br />

a toothbrush and one set of clothes, I set off to find him. I ran around<br />

the city, asking everyone where David Bowie lived in my bad French,<br />

especially in Asian restaurants – I knew Bowie loved Asian food...<br />

Of course I was hoping I would meet him, in my fantasy he would<br />

already know who I was and we would go out, but the main thing for<br />

me was just to find him. I knew I was too shy to ring his doorbell, but<br />

I thought perhaps I would leave him a letter. I went to Mountain Studios<br />

and eventually got to speak to a producer. He said he couldn’t<br />

tell me where the house was and that Bowie had finished recording<br />

and left. Most heartbreaking of all, he told me that if I had been there<br />

a month before I probably would have met him in the studio.<br />

David Bowie totally influenced my life. His songs were so complex<br />

that unravelling them was a journey in itself, an almost spiritual<br />

thing. Through Bowie’s music I became enamoured with English<br />

culture and the<br />

English language,<br />

even moving<br />

to London...<br />

Today, I look at<br />

that time as a<br />

growing-up experience.<br />

David<br />

Bowie is a part<br />

of my past.I actually<br />

gave away<br />

all my David<br />

Bowie albums<br />

a few weeks<br />

ago. I have all<br />

these songs<br />

and all these<br />

memories in my<br />

head, I don’t<br />

really need to<br />

listen to them<br />

anymore.<br />

22 • may <strong>2014</strong>


The doppelgänger<br />

A natural-born Bowie lookalike with the<br />

nom de plume to match, multimedia<br />

artist and art director Alexandra Moon-<br />

Age was born in Sydney in 1987. She<br />

studied theatre and art before moving<br />

to London. With a creative career spanning<br />

performance, music, painting and<br />

fashion, Moon-Age has recently moved<br />

to Berlin – the natural choice, where her<br />

Ziggy-inspired getups fit right in.<br />

It was love at first sight. I was about nine when I<br />

first saw Labyrinth and I just couldn’t believe<br />

how he was dressed. The first album I heard was<br />

Ziggy Stardust and I became obsessed. David<br />

Bowie is the first member of the opposite sex I<br />

felt really attracted to. Since then, everything<br />

I’ve done has been influenced by him.<br />

What’s so amazing about Bowie is the way he<br />

tried so many different things. He participated in<br />

Beckenham Arts Lab, he performed mime, he<br />

painted, he acted, all that beside the costumes<br />

and the music. I have tried to mimic all of that in<br />

my own life, from theatre school to painting and<br />

drawing, and later in London when I did fashion<br />

styling and made music. Now that I am in Berlin I<br />

am working to fuse all of these things together,<br />

mixing stage performance, music videos,<br />

choreographed dance, audio-visuals, strange<br />

instruments and interactive transformative<br />

costumes... all inspired by Bowie.<br />

My fashion style is totally influenced by Bowie,<br />

particularly the Ziggy Stardust era. I got into<br />

anything colourful, garish and louder than life. I<br />

love big platform shoes, jumpsuits, giant hats,<br />

feather boas. There is something super sexy<br />

about pretending to be Bowie. It’s the androgyny:<br />

pretending to be a guy, pretending to be a<br />

girl. I dressed as Bowie for parties or just for<br />

myself. I was once at a party in the wee hours,<br />

my friend took me into her room and gave me<br />

an immaculate Jareth makeover. she put on<br />

“Magic Dance” and I came out of the bedroom<br />

and launched into this impersonation, everyone<br />

went crazy... Then friends in Australia were<br />

organising a Bowie-themed night and I couldn’t<br />

attend in person, so I decided to make a video<br />

and play Bowie through the ages. The film was<br />

screened at the party and we put it online. Not<br />

long afterward, I got a call from the manager of<br />

Bowie’s website: he asked me if he could include<br />

the video. Yes, David Bowie has seen it!<br />

I attended the exhibition four times in London,<br />

once dressed as Bowie, and I’m so stoked<br />

that I’ll get to see it again at the Martin-Gropius-<br />

Bau... yes, most probably dressed up as Bowie!<br />

23


Article portraits tag<br />

The collector<br />

DJ, musician, producer and record<br />

collector Ragnar was born in West<br />

Germany in 1973. He now performs<br />

in the industrial band Gerechtigkeits<br />

Liga. The owner of Berlin’s<br />

largest David Bowie record collection,<br />

with 130 discs, he also organises<br />

and DJs at Bowie-themed club<br />

nights – the next one is on July 19<br />

at Berghain Kantine.<br />

I grew up in southwest Berlin and Bowie<br />

was always there in the background, on<br />

the radio and TV. The first record I bought<br />

was “China Girl” as a seven-inch in 1984.<br />

I bought it because it’s a great song, but I<br />

first became aware of it because of the video.<br />

It made quite an impact because it had<br />

a half-naked girl in it; that obviously gets<br />

your attention as a teenage boy! My collection<br />

of Bowie records has slowly grown<br />

ever since. I’m a record collector so I collect<br />

records in general, but I have more records<br />

by David Bowie than any other single artist,<br />

around 130 on vinyl and some more on CD.<br />

Many of these are different pressings from<br />

different countries with different covers.<br />

It’s a good field because there is simply so<br />

much stuff out there. A lot of the records<br />

were bought during my time in London in<br />

the late 1990s and early 2000s.<br />

When I was around 13 years old, I<br />

watched Christiane F. and it made a big<br />

impression on me, I still like it a lot. I was<br />

here during the late 1970s and early 1980s<br />

– I was too young to experience it properly,<br />

but I had a sense of it. This film really<br />

captured the atmosphere of the time, a<br />

Berlin that was free and experimental but<br />

also dark and drug-riddled. The use of<br />

Bowie’s music in the film really captures<br />

this. When I listen to Low I can see the S-<br />

Bahn trains go by, the dirt in Schöneberg,<br />

the filthy public toilets.<br />

The Berlin trilogy is without doubt my<br />

three favourite records. They show influences<br />

from krautrock and the mark of Brian<br />

Eno’s production. As a musician and sound<br />

engineer for 22 years, I really appreciate<br />

the sense of experimentation on these<br />

records, the synthesisers, the effects and<br />

the unconventional use of instruments. I<br />

really love “Look Back in Anger” because<br />

it’s just so strange. “Sense of Doubt” is<br />

also amazing – it’s really evocative of Berlin,<br />

of the trains, it’s really an industrial track.<br />

I have been DJing and putting on parties<br />

since 1994, particularly at goth clubs, and<br />

I have often played David Bowie and it has<br />

always gone down very well. This led naturally<br />

to starting a Bowie night with DJane<br />

Ina of Panic in Berlin – we’re both massive<br />

Bowie fans, and we were surprised that<br />

there weren’t already any Bowie-themed<br />

nights. The first was in February at Berghain<br />

Kantine and it went really well, so we will<br />

put on another on July 19 and a smaller<br />

Bowie party at 8mm on April 29. Bowie<br />

has had a lot more influence on all of us<br />

than we realise. He took what was new and<br />

innovative in culture, gave it a twist and got<br />

it on TV. In the late 1980s and early 1990s I<br />

really dressed up, I wore make-up and I had<br />

big hair. I wasn’t even very aware of Bowie<br />

at that time, but I honestly don’t know if<br />

that would have been possible without him.<br />

That’s what is so remarkable about him – he<br />

put little revolutions into pop songs.<br />

The Ossi guide<br />

A child of the GDR, music tour guide and<br />

Bowie aficionado Thilo Schmied was born<br />

in 1973 in former East Berlin. A pop-rocker<br />

and professional musician in the early 1990s,<br />

Schmied subsequently worked as an audio<br />

engineer, promoter, booker and talent scout<br />

before beginning Berlin Music Tours in 2005.<br />

His most popular one: the Bowie in Berlin tour.<br />

I grew up in East Berlin near the Wall at Fischerinsel,<br />

a stone’s throw from Checkpoint Charlie and Hansa<br />

Studios. We couldn’t travel to concerts, but we<br />

listened to the West German radio and that’s how my<br />

passion for music started. When I first heard “Ashes<br />

to Ashes”, I must have been 10 or 11 years old. I<br />

couldn’t understand the words, but that didn’t<br />

matter, that was the first real contact I had with music<br />

and from then on, everything changed.<br />

You couldn’t buy these kinds of records in the<br />

GDR and the black market was incredibly expensive,<br />

but there were other ways. Our grandparents could<br />

travel to the West to visit relatives, so they would<br />

smuggle us back records and music magazines. We<br />

also had a strong culture of taping music off the<br />

radio and sharing the tapes, but all the same it was<br />

illegal and not without danger. As a teenager in the<br />

late 1980s I became a musician, though not a very<br />

successful one [laughs]. I was a singer in a pop-rock<br />

band, and the music was definitely influenced by<br />

Bowie (and Depeche Mode!).<br />

Bowie lived in West Berlin, but he and his music<br />

played a very particular role in the GDR as well. In<br />

1987, it was the 750th anniversary of the establishment<br />

of Berlin and celebrations were held on both<br />

sides of the divided city. In the GDR the regime held<br />

demonstrations with Erich Honecker greeting the<br />

people, but in the West they had these big pop and<br />

rock concerts at the Reichstag. It was right by the<br />

Wall, and they kindly turned the PA so we on the<br />

Eastern side could listen. I was there with thousands<br />

of others, a 14-year-old kid, when David Bowie<br />

played. He greeted us and sang “Heroes”, the<br />

Berlin anthem, and the kids were joking with the<br />

border guards – “Let us go over there for just a<br />

minute, we’ll come back, we promise” – but they<br />

started beating and arresting people. Everyone was<br />

shouting, “The Wall must go! The Wall must go!” It<br />

was the first time something like that had happened<br />

in the 1980s. Bowie obviously didn’t bring down the<br />

Wall, but it was a moment that made people aware<br />

that if they want to change things, they had to come<br />

out and demonstrate.<br />

I never planned on becoming a music tour guide, it<br />

just happened this way. But I’m now able to talk all<br />

day to people from all over the world about the<br />

music that I am passionate about and the music that<br />

has inspired me, and for that I am totally thankful.<br />

24 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Rant<br />

David Bowie is the stewed cabbage of rock!<br />

The Thin White Duke hung out in Berlin in the 1970s. He recorded “Heroes” here. So what?<br />

Will the hype ever cease? Amid the sycophantic din surrounding the new Bowie exhibition<br />

(and the Bowie-centrism of this issue), we gave space to a lone dissenting voice.<br />

By Jacob Sweetman<br />

The U-Bahn hushed as people’s eyes<br />

flashed with the news. They<br />

murmured to each other, looking<br />

around the carriage to see if there<br />

was a fellow appreciative traveller<br />

there, someone, probably, with acne<br />

poorly concealed by a lightning bolt<br />

inaccurately drawn on their pasty<br />

face. The news was in, right there up<br />

on the screen. Bowie was back and,<br />

heavens be praised, he had mentioned<br />

Berlin. This bore repeating.<br />

He had mentioned Berlin! This was<br />

like finding an original Da Vinci<br />

model helicopter with a strangely<br />

smiling woman tucked inside the<br />

backseat, or seeing a 65-year-old Pelé<br />

coming on as a sub to win the World<br />

Cup with a bicycle kick.<br />

Bowie was back and half of Berlin<br />

went mental. So it is worth representing<br />

some of the lyrics of this<br />

astonishing comeback:<br />

Twenty thousand people<br />

Cross Bösebrücke<br />

Fingers are crossed<br />

Just in case<br />

Well, thank God for that; the world<br />

had really been waiting for one of its<br />

momentous moments of modern history<br />

to be boiled down to a para-rhyme as delivered by a bored geography<br />

teacher. Otherwise rational people started talking about going to have<br />

a final look at the outside of the Hansa studios, or smoking a fag by the<br />

plaque outside the old Dschungel as a kind of pilgrimage. For a city with<br />

an artistic heritage so steeped and thick stretching back from Voltaire to<br />

Mark Twain, it was irritating to see everyone getting so worked up about<br />

a man who made a couple of good songs here spread across three albums<br />

that have got far too much Robert Fripp on them to ever be able to be<br />

considered passable.<br />

Now, I accept that David Bowie was very important for a swathe of<br />

young men unsure of, or brutalised for, their sexuality, who were genuinely<br />

liberated by seeing him play on Top of the Pops for the first time. I am<br />

certain, too, that he also made it a lot easier for a whole other swathe of<br />

said young men to pick up girls by wearing thick, badly drawn eyeliner for<br />

the first time. I am also a big fan of the fact that he refused to accept a<br />

knighthood, which shows that he has integrity: something that counts for<br />

a lot in an age when music has been turned into a mere marketing tool.<br />

But who is responsible for that then, eh?<br />

David Bowie is the stewed cabbage of rock. He reduces everything he<br />

touches to the sum of its parts. He took the sex, the grind and the slink<br />

out of funk and R‘n’B, he boiled the<br />

power and the vigour of psychedelic<br />

rock and left it bereft at the side of<br />

the plate, a soulless mush where the<br />

sharpness of one’s cheekbones is more<br />

important than the ability to create<br />

emotion or vigour. And he reduced<br />

Berlin to a poorly rendered cartoon of<br />

itself: a city of vapid and selfish catatonic<br />

shop dummies. Where George<br />

Grosz could sum up the city with<br />

a swish of his pencil, Bowie would<br />

render it a greying dirge.<br />

When Bowie played in front of the<br />

Reichs tag in 1987, the speakers were<br />

turned to face the East. The poor<br />

bastards, as if they didn’t have enough<br />

to deal with. The only saving grace<br />

was that his pompous self-regard and<br />

joylessly plodding stadium schtick<br />

was slightly better than Barclay James<br />

Harvest, who played for free in Treptow<br />

Park that same summer. As if life<br />

behind the Wall wasn’t grey enough.<br />

Berlin is a beautifully ugly city<br />

where dirt and glamour clash together<br />

in a riot of people and ideas, and it<br />

stinks to see it being represented by a<br />

man who made accountants’ music for<br />

accountants. Music is about more than<br />

the colours on our backs. It is about<br />

the throbbing in our loins and the<br />

pain in our hearts. So you can feel free to ignore the copyists and the collectors<br />

and the lazy references and the half-arsed throwaway lines of David<br />

Bowie. He certainly doesn’t represent the city I live in, and only half<br />

of that hallowed trilogy of albums that everyone was searching through<br />

their collections for to<br />

prove how much they had<br />

always loved him (though<br />

it turns out that they had<br />

never really bought them)<br />

was even recorded here in<br />

the first place.<br />

In fact, David Bowie<br />

was perfectly represented<br />

on the screens of the U-<br />

Bahn as they announced<br />

the news of his new<br />

album last year. They were<br />

using his name to sell a<br />

few more papers. It was<br />

remarkably fitting. n<br />

lena valenzuela<br />

When Bowie played<br />

in front of the<br />

Reichstag, the<br />

speakers were<br />

turned to face the<br />

East. The poor<br />

bastards, as if they<br />

didn’t have enough<br />

to deal with.<br />

25


erlin bites By Françoise Poilane<br />

Lebensmittel in Mitte: Dinner with the white queen<br />

It started last month, and<br />

will only last till June: it’s<br />

Spargelzeit! Eat asparagus now,<br />

commands Françoise Poilâne…<br />

but not just anywhere.<br />

There are three good reasons why you should<br />

take advantage of Germany’s collective lust for<br />

the white spears: they’re healthy, they’re local,<br />

they’re delicious. While the two former statements<br />

are pretty indisputable (they’re diuretic,<br />

they cleanse the body: eliminate!; Berliners, like<br />

the rest of the Teutons, swear by them: integrate!).<br />

The latter is more problematic: good,<br />

well-prepared asparagus is hard to come by.<br />

Dubbed Zartes Elfenbein (soft ivory) by the Teutonic<br />

gourmet, they are delicate things; like ladies<br />

in the old days, they shy away from sunlight to<br />

retain their pristine whiteness. The beautiful ones<br />

are the most expensive, and unlike their green sisters<br />

from the south, they’re not easy maintenance:<br />

it’s hard to cook them right. We can’t count our<br />

disappointing experiences at local restaurants:<br />

stringy or soggy, bitter or sugared, or topped with<br />

dodgy hollandaise, a sauce so heavy and overpowering<br />

that it’d spoil the subtle flavour of the fresh<br />

shoots, even if they were cooked right anyway.<br />

Our favourite place for Spargel cooked just<br />

right: Lebensmittel in Mitte. The small restaurant<br />

off Münzstraße is known to local lunchers<br />

for its small chalkboard menu filled with South<br />

German classics such as Leberwurst (served<br />

with delicious potato salad and a side of sweet<br />

or hot mustard, €7.50), or superior Käsespätzle<br />

(made with their signature mountain cheese and<br />

served with a side salad, €8.50), but also daily<br />

fish and roasts (Bavarian pork with dumplings<br />

and Sauerkraut, €9.50) and impeccable German<br />

wines to boot, all<br />

served in a pleasant,<br />

rustic grocery<br />

shop atmosphere.<br />

The name literally<br />

translates as<br />

“groceries in<br />

Mitte” – a nod to<br />

the place’s former<br />

fresh veggie stall.<br />

They’ve removed<br />

it from<br />

the dining<br />

Lebensmittel<br />

room, but you in Mitte Rochstraße<br />

2, Mitte,<br />

can still buy<br />

homemade Tel 030 27596130,<br />

jams, wines U-Bhf Weinmeisterstr.,<br />

Mon-Fri<br />

and schnapps<br />

by the bottle, 11-24, Sat 10-24<br />

hearty sausages<br />

from the<br />

Bavarian town of<br />

Wolframs-Eschenbach, and Swabian sourdough<br />

breads from a Friedrichshain baker. There’s also<br />

a fun selection of southern drinks like Austrian<br />

Almdudler or Chabeso, a century old Bavarian<br />

orange-tinged lemonade from Augsburg also<br />

available as Radler (shandy). Best of all, enjoy on<br />

the spot a meal that hardly ever disappoints.<br />

Every year we come here for the perfect<br />

Spargel, cooked al dente yet so tender to the bite<br />

you can eat them from stem to tip. Topped with<br />

clear butter and breadcrumbs – and a side of<br />

those delicious small, thin-skinned and oh-sosweet<br />

new potatoes so much in season right now –<br />

they’re just to die for (€12, lunch; €15.50, dinner).<br />

They also come with a delicious ham from Lower<br />

Franconia (€15/17) or schnitzel, of course (€17/21),<br />

as crispy and thin and veal-y as it should be.<br />

The snow-white spears arrive fresh daily<br />

straight from Beelitz (50km southwest of Berlin)<br />

– a small Brandenburg town so engrossed with its<br />

Spargel fame that it boasts an Asparagus-Apotheke<br />

and elects an annual asparagus queen.<br />

The Beelitz girls are thrown in a pot with cold<br />

water, a pinch of sugar, a squeeze of lemon and<br />

a dash of white wine. Then they’re slow-cooked<br />

until perfectly tender, yet not mushy. How do<br />

they master the timing? The answer lies in all<br />

those years of practice, answer the Lebensmittel<br />

folk. One’s not born a natural asparagus cook.<br />

Eat them with one of Lebensmittel’s many<br />

Rieslings (€4.50-8; try one of their beautiful<br />

Ayler Kupp bottles from the Saar region) – and<br />

savour one of Berlin’s most perfect Spargel<br />

experiences. n<br />

Veronica jonsson<br />

Veronica jonsson<br />

Chili & Paprika:<br />

Red, green<br />

and hot<br />

Chilli cravers, rejoice: there’s a new<br />

spice dealer in town. Mathias Jung,<br />

the East Berlin-born owner of Chili &<br />

Paprika, has loosely organised<br />

his shop around Hungary and<br />

Voigtstr. 39 Mexico, catering both to fellow<br />

Ossis nostalgic for Eastern<br />

Friedrichshain,<br />

Mon- Bloc summer vacations and<br />

Fri 11-19:30, younger North American expats<br />

hoping to recapture the<br />

Sat 11-18:30<br />

burn of back home. The Hungarian<br />

side includes multiple paprika<br />

varieties (Eros Pista, €2.29) alongside<br />

sausages (€5.59/350g), fiery pickles<br />

and liquor; the Mexican shelves display<br />

hot sauces (€1.89-14.99), canned and<br />

dried chillis (including chipotles, €1.89/<br />

can) and even corn tortillas (€4/30). All<br />

that plus a mini Asia section and novelties<br />

like spicy gummies, chilli beer and<br />

a habanero sauce that reaches 800,000<br />

Scoville heat units (just to give you<br />

an idea, Tabasco weighs in at a mere<br />

5000). The selection may not rival that<br />

of spice giant Pfefferhaus, but with its<br />

mom ‘n’ pop vibe, helpful owner and<br />

occasional free sample, it should win<br />

over even the pickiest capsaicin freaks<br />

in town.VJ/JS<br />

26 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Spit takes<br />

Just when you thought<br />

that Berlin had OD’ed on<br />

everyone’s favourite meat<br />

-on- a-stick, here comes the<br />

next wave of alternative<br />

döners. We braved the<br />

caloric onslaught and<br />

sampled some of the city’s<br />

strangest.<br />

Choco Kebab<br />

No, this doesn’t involve cocoa powder<br />

all over your veal. In lieu of the<br />

usual spinning wheel of mystery meat,<br />

owner Quynh Trang Le carves shavings<br />

from a giant, conical mass of milk and<br />

white Ferrero chocolate. The sugary<br />

curls are sprinkled onto a warm crêpe,<br />

drizzled with up to six sauces and, if<br />

you so choose, garnished with fruit.<br />

The “choco kebabs” (€2.99) have been<br />

selling briskly since February, thanks to<br />

some clever early marketing buzz. Of<br />

course, that may be just because the customers<br />

are too entranced by the whirling block<br />

of candy to notice that the whipped cream is<br />

canned, the crêpes come from a mix and the<br />

whole thing doesn’t bear much resemblance<br />

to its namesake. But if you can enjoy a good<br />

gimmick, happen to be in the area (on your<br />

way to, say, the Amerika-Gedenk bibliothek)<br />

and can afford to put some fresh mango on top<br />

(€3.49!), it is tasty. DH Taste Away, Mehringplatz<br />

36, Kreuzberg, U -Bhf Hallesches Tor, Mon -Fri 8- 20, Sat<br />

11 -20, Sun 11 -19:30<br />

Kung Fu Kebap<br />

This “Asian-influenced” döner (€3) is precisely<br />

what you might imagine – think wok -fried bell<br />

peppers, cabbage and mushrooms slapped on a<br />

bulging, overstuffed bun, with or without chicken.<br />

It’s a German take on Chinese food mixed up<br />

with a German take on Turkish food. While this<br />

Taste Away<br />

Nur gemüsekebap<br />

borderline -meta bun may be culturally confused,<br />

it tastes a whole lot better than its premise<br />

implies. It helps that the chicken and mounds<br />

of veggies are impeccably fresh, and that the<br />

scharf sauce packs an actual punch. It’s not an<br />

improvement on the stand’s original kebap, but<br />

on a late -night, tipsy wander through Neukölln,<br />

it might just hit the spot. Load it up with plenty<br />

of sumac and curry and avocado sauces – there’s<br />

no such thing as overkill with this one. DH<br />

NUR Gemüsekebap, Hermannstr. 205, Neukölln, U -Bhf<br />

Hermannstr., Mon -Sun 10- 2; closed Fri-Sat 13-14<br />

Daeji Döner<br />

When Linh Vu and a few friends packed leftover<br />

Korean barbecue on a picnic, one of them<br />

decided to put it on Turkish bread. “We thought<br />

it was an awesome idea,” Vu says. “I grew up in<br />

Germany, eating burgers and whatnot, but at<br />

home my family always served Asian food.” In<br />

photos by: Veronica jonsson<br />

March, she and her<br />

partner Mark Roh, who<br />

is half -Korean, started<br />

dishing up these fusion<br />

döners (€5.30) at their<br />

multikulti Imbiss in Neukölln.<br />

All the Korean<br />

fusion might be a few<br />

Ban ban kitchen<br />

years behind the global<br />

trend, but the presentation<br />

is cute and clever.<br />

Available either with<br />

grilled bulgogi- style<br />

pork or a vegan soy<br />

meat substitute, these<br />

buns are packed with<br />

fresh herbs, crunchy<br />

salad and sesame sauce.<br />

They’re on the mild<br />

side, so ask for scharf if<br />

you’re looking for more<br />

of an authentic flavour.<br />

Still hungry? Try a side<br />

smox<br />

of kimchi fries (€4.90).<br />

DH Ban Ban Kitchen,<br />

Hermannstr. 205, Neukölln, U -Bhf Boddinstr., Sun -Thu<br />

17 -2:20, Fri -Sat 17 -3:30<br />

Smox<br />

With its kiosk swimming in foodie catchphrases<br />

– “slow” and “organic” top the list – Smox, the<br />

latest addition to Alexanderplatz’s U-Bahn passageway,<br />

is a rather transparent attempt to cash in<br />

on current trends, serving barbecued, hand-pulled<br />

organic beef with vegetables and homemade sauce<br />

on döner-ish bread in vaguely cultural variations<br />

(from €2.90). The result is less spectacular than it<br />

sounds. While the meat and toppings are mostly<br />

fine (especially the guac on the “Smoky Italian”,<br />

even if there are no “slices” as advertised and<br />

avocados have nothing to do with Italy anyway),<br />

the “homemade” sauces lack in either quantity or<br />

quality (stay away from the Caesar!) and the vegan<br />

version comes with cold, poorly lubricated falafel.<br />

Still, a passable between-trains snack provided you<br />

go for white bread over whole wheat (extremely<br />

dry), wait till they’ve pulled a new piece of beef<br />

out of the cooker so you don’t get stuck with the<br />

gristly end, and reach for the salt shaker... JS<br />

Smox, U-Bhf Alexanderplatz, Mitte, Mon-Sun 9-21<br />

7x in Berlin<br />

Charlottenburg: Kaiserdamm 12<br />

Treptow: Bouchéstr. 12<br />

Prenzlberg: Kollwitzstr. 17<br />

Kreuzberg: Mehringdamm 20<br />

Kreuzberg: Reichenberger Str. 37<br />

Friedenau: Hauptstr. 78<br />

Now also in Steglitz:<br />

Albrechtstr. 33<br />

NEW<br />

Welcome to bio paradise<br />

LPG<br />

BioMarkt<br />

fair & local since 1994<br />

Honey 1kg from 5,99 € *<br />

Wine 0,75l from 2,49 € *<br />

Kiwis 1 piece from 0,19 € *<br />

Bread 1kg from 1,99 € *<br />

Musli 1kg from 2,59 € *<br />

Potatoes 1kg from 1,49 € *<br />

*Permanently reduced prices for members<br />

Check our new website for special<br />

offers and a lot more information:<br />

www.lpg-biomarkt.de<br />

27


What’s on<br />

calendar<br />

<strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong><br />

Festival<br />

MyFest <strong>2014</strong><br />

Thu 1.5<br />

More than an addendum to Berlin’s<br />

traditionally raucous <strong>May</strong> Day<br />

marches, MyFest serves up a full<br />

day of everything from reggaeton<br />

to punk, plus packed crowds and<br />

plenty of Polizei. Oranienstraße.<br />

Starts 11:30.<br />

FOOD<br />

‘Horsemeat Optional’<br />

Sat 17.5<br />

Berlin restaurants (the likes of Nalu<br />

Diner and Maria Bonita) compete<br />

for Berlin’s top chili stew award.<br />

With music, live tats and lots of<br />

beans! Exberliner will publish the<br />

winning recipe. Lagari. Starts 18:30.<br />

Film<br />

Freiluftkino<br />

Kreuzberg opening<br />

Fri 2.5<br />

With the evenings getting warmer,<br />

it’s open (air) season. Beginning<br />

with Inside Llewyn Davis and running<br />

through Aug 26, Freiluftkino<br />

offers a rich array of international<br />

films. Starts 21:00 (see page 34).<br />

FILM<br />

Too Drunk To Watch<br />

Sat 10.5<br />

The third punk rock film festival<br />

runs at Kreuzberg’s local cinema<br />

gem. Catch highlight The Punk<br />

Singer about riot grrrl Kathleen<br />

Hanna today. From <strong>May</strong> 8 through<br />

<strong>May</strong> 11. Moviemento. Starts<br />

20:00. (see page 34)<br />

MUSIC<br />

The Julie Ruin<br />

Sun 18.5<br />

Quintessential riot grrrl and Bikini<br />

Kill frontwoman Kathleen Hanna<br />

returns after the dissipation of Le<br />

Tigre with the more rock-centric<br />

Julie Ruin (the “the” is extra). Bi<br />

Nuu. Starts 20:00.<br />

My perfect Bowie weekend<br />

David Bowie superfan<br />

and tour guide Thilo<br />

Schmied (see page 24)<br />

has been running Berlin<br />

Music Tours since 2005.<br />

Friday 20:00 Start the<br />

weekend with a rock concert<br />

at SO36 (Oranienstr.<br />

190, Kreuzberg), Bowie<br />

and Iggy also loved to<br />

check in there for some<br />

live music or performance art. 23:00<br />

A drink at Franken Bar (Oranienstr.<br />

19a, Kreuzberg) just on the other side<br />

of the street.<br />

Saturday 11:00 Shopping at<br />

KaDeWe (Tauentzienstr. 21-24,<br />

Schöneberg). 13:00 Lunch at Paris<br />

Bar (Kantstr. 152, Charlottenburg) with<br />

some friends. 15:00 Visit the Brücke<br />

Museum (Bussardsteig 9, Dahlem) to<br />

see the art of Bowie’s favourite painters’<br />

group. 17:30 Coffee<br />

and a chat with owner<br />

Frank at Café Neues<br />

Ufer (Hauptstr. 157,<br />

Schöneberg), just metres<br />

away from Bowie’s old<br />

apartment. 18:30 Dinner<br />

at Horváth Restaurant<br />

(Paul-Lincke-Ufer 44a,<br />

Kreuzberg), formerly Exil.<br />

20:00 Brecht and Weill’s<br />

Threepenny Opera at Berliner<br />

Ensemble (Bertolt-<br />

Brecht-Platz 1, Mitte). 23:55 Last<br />

order at old-style restaurant Ganymed<br />

(Schiffbauerdamm 5, Mitte), right next<br />

to Berliner Ensemble.<br />

michal andrysiak<br />

Sunday 12:00 Do a Bowie Berlin Tour<br />

including a visit to the legendary Hansa<br />

Studios for Bowie and Iggy fans. 16:00<br />

Buy some rare vinyl at the original<br />

Berlin flea market (Straße des 17. Juni,<br />

Tiergarten) 19:00 Watch the movie Just<br />

a Gigolo – although Bowie still hates it.<br />

Theatre<br />

Haus//Nummer/Null<br />

Sun 11.5<br />

Part of this year’s Theatertreffen,<br />

Mona el Gammal’s installation<br />

explores a dystopian parallel world.<br />

Taking place in a secret space,<br />

tickets must be booked for allotted<br />

times. Starts 13:00. (see page 36)<br />

MUSIC<br />

La Sera<br />

Mon 19.5<br />

Ex-Vivian Girl Katy Goodman<br />

bursts through the LA haze with<br />

energetic, “Leslie Gore fronting<br />

Black Flag” third album Hour of the<br />

Dawn. Monarch. Starts 20:00.<br />

OPERA<br />

Billy Budd<br />

Thu 22.5<br />

Benjamin Britten’s take on<br />

Melville’s tale of life on board a<br />

warship and mutiny with a queer<br />

love story woven throughout is<br />

as pertinent today as it was 100<br />

years ago. In English. Deutsche<br />

Oper. Starts 19:30.<br />

Henrietta Butler piffl medien<br />

Music<br />

Mozart-Fantasie!<br />

Sat 3.5<br />

The second serving of Komische<br />

Oper’s annual Mozart Mai presents<br />

a late night performance of<br />

Mozart’s celebrated Fantasia<br />

complemented by pieces from<br />

Brett Dean and Jean Françaix.<br />

Starts 23:00.<br />

FILM<br />

EXBlicks: Exberliner<br />

Film Award Winners<br />

Mon 12.5<br />

a special screening of the winners<br />

of our first Exberliner Film Award<br />

from Achtung Berlin: A Promised<br />

Rose Garden and “The Silence Between<br />

Two Songs”. Lichtblick Kino.<br />

Starts 20:30. (see page 35)<br />

MUSIC<br />

Black Lips<br />

Fri 23.5<br />

Their <strong>May</strong> 22 gig sold out, so the<br />

former “Bad Kids” turned global<br />

garage rock ambassadors are<br />

sticking around for an extra night.<br />

With such a small venue, it’s sure<br />

to be a sweaty good time. Privatclub.<br />

Starts 20:00.<br />

ART<br />

Berlin Biennale<br />

Thu 29.5<br />

Bringing together local and<br />

international contemporary artists,<br />

the eighth edition has three focal<br />

points: the built environment,<br />

citizenship and labour. Through Aug<br />

3. Check website for programme.<br />

28 • may <strong>2014</strong>


➞ Programme in English language<br />

ART<br />

Berlin Gallery Weekend<br />

Sun 4.5<br />

The last day of the 10th anniversary<br />

celebration. The 50 participating<br />

galleries will act as hosts to<br />

everything from film screenings to<br />

discussions with the artists and<br />

more. From <strong>May</strong> 2. (see page 46)<br />

Music<br />

Dieter Meier<br />

Wed 7.5<br />

Oh, yeah. Panorama Bar plays<br />

host to a solo performance from<br />

pioneering Yello frontman and<br />

conceptual artist Dieter Meier,<br />

marking the release of his most<br />

recent album Out of Chaos. Starts<br />

20:00.<br />

6.+7.5., 9.–11.5. / HAU3 DANCE<br />

Kat<br />

Válastur<br />

Premiere: GLAND<br />

Language no problem<br />

EXHIBITION<br />

David Bowie Is<br />

Tue 20.5<br />

Taking a cue from Bowie’s “Sound<br />

and Vision”, the London success<br />

moves to Berlin for an immersive<br />

experience with a newly expanded<br />

Berlin section. Through Aug 10.<br />

Martin-Gropius-Bau. (see page 15)<br />

Music<br />

Tangerine Dream<br />

Fri 30.5<br />

Ignore those ‘Edgar Froese is retiring’<br />

rumours – the current line-up<br />

will be in force for some cosmoelectronic<br />

vibes from the krautrock<br />

informers. Admiralspalast. Starts<br />

20:00. (see page 39)<br />

martin-gropius-bau<br />

Classical<br />

David Garrett<br />

Tue 13.5<br />

Widely hailed as the finest young<br />

violinist of his generation, the<br />

virtuoso David Garrett comes to<br />

Berlin for a one-off guest performance.<br />

Berliner Philharmoniker.<br />

Starts 20:00.<br />

theatre<br />

Japan Syndrome<br />

Mon 21.5<br />

Three years after Fukushima, the<br />

cultural (not to mention nuclear)<br />

fallout shows no sign of abating.<br />

Over 10 days a range of Japanese<br />

creatives explore the seismic rifts<br />

in Japan’s social fabric. From <strong>May</strong><br />

20. HAU 1-3. (see page 36)<br />

MUSIC<br />

Owen Pallett<br />

Sun 25.5<br />

The former Final Fantasist and<br />

nominee for Her stops off in Berlin<br />

with his positive-yet-melancholic,<br />

insanity-pondering, beautiful fourth<br />

album, In Conflict. Volksbühne.<br />

Starts 20:00. (see page 40)<br />

FILM<br />

XPOSED Queer<br />

Film Festival<br />

Sat 31.5<br />

The third day of XPOSED starts off<br />

with a discussion of bodily representation<br />

in the media and public,<br />

followed by film. <strong>May</strong> 29-Jun<br />

1. Various locations. Check website<br />

for programme. (see page 35)<br />

Theatre<br />

Ohne Titel Nr. 1<br />

Wed 14.5<br />

Experimental dramaturg Herbert<br />

Fritsch presents his latest work<br />

as part of Theatertreffen. Ripe<br />

with contradictions, it is an opera<br />

without speech. Also <strong>May</strong> 15.<br />

Volksbühne. Starts 19:30.<br />

(see page 37)<br />

Design<br />

DMY International<br />

Design Festival<br />

Wed 28.5<br />

Opening today, aesthetes and<br />

designophiles congregate for one<br />

of the largest design fairs in the<br />

world. Through June 1. Tempelhof.<br />

Starts 19:00.<br />

FILM<br />

Bowie Film Festival<br />

Sun 1.6<br />

Exberliner and realeyz.tv put on<br />

a one-day Bowie extravaganza,<br />

showing our own Berlin trilogy with<br />

classic Christiane F., documentary<br />

Bowie in Berlin and a music video<br />

medley. Lichtblick Kino.<br />

(see page 35)<br />

6.5. / HAU2 DIALOG<br />

Phantasma<br />

und<br />

Politik #7<br />

With Florian Malzacher,<br />

Jonas Staal, Helmut<br />

Draxler and others<br />

English and German<br />

15.+16.5. / HAU2 THEATRE PERFORMANCE<br />

Gintersdorfer<br />

/<br />

Klaßen<br />

Das neue schwarze<br />

Denken – Chefferie<br />

English, French and German<br />

20.–29.5. / HAU1, HAU2, HAU3<br />

Festival:<br />

Japan<br />

Syndrome<br />

Art and Politics after<br />

Fukushima<br />

Performances, lectures, films,<br />

installations and more with Toshiki<br />

Okada, Akira Takayama, Takuya<br />

Murakawa, Tadasu Takamine, Nina<br />

Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Hikaru<br />

Fujii, Sachiko Hara, Kyoichi Tsuzuki,<br />

Tori Kudo & Maher Shalal Hash Baz,<br />

Sangatsu and others<br />

English, Japanese and German<br />

29<br />

www.hebbel-am-ufer.de


What’s on<br />

film<br />

STARTS MAY 1<br />

Casse-tête chinois<br />

D: Cédric Klapisch (France,<br />

USA 2013) with Romain<br />

Duris, Audrey Tautou, Kelly<br />

Reilly ◆◆ A writer<br />

(Duris) leaves Paris in the<br />

pursuit of his two kids,<br />

who’ve been uprooted to<br />

New York by his ex-wife<br />

(Reilly). Just as he’s<br />

chided by the editor of his<br />

novel-in-progress over how<br />

his work lacks real drama, this hip, middle-class fairytale is<br />

more modern-living complications than actual story. Still,<br />

peer past the immediate rom-com façade and there’s a<br />

hint of something deeper, as Duris finds himself a bit lost<br />

in translation with the trappings of his new life. AM<br />

STARTS MAY 1<br />

Vergiss Mein Ich<br />

D: Jan Scholmburg (Germany<br />

2013) with Maria<br />

Schrader, Johannes Krisch<br />

◆◆◆ In this compelling<br />

film, Lena Ferben<br />

(Schrader) suddenly loses<br />

her memory as a result of<br />

retrograde amnesia. Confused<br />

and terrified by the<br />

world, Lena embarks on a<br />

mission to reconcile her<br />

forgotten past with her new perception of the world, while<br />

her husband (Krisch) attempts to resurrect her former<br />

self. Visually intriguing and perfectly paced, this film deals<br />

with constructing identities and relationships while Lena’s<br />

childlike naïveté creates moments of humour throughout,<br />

with the end product being a genuinely moving story. AM<br />

STARTS MAY 1<br />

Muppets Most Wanted<br />

D: James Bobin (USA<br />

<strong>2014</strong>) with Kermit the<br />

Frog, Miss Piggy ◆◆◆<br />

Kermit and co. return<br />

to take in some familiar<br />

European capitals for<br />

another bout of selfreferential<br />

gags, ludicrous<br />

cameos and Bret Mc-<br />

Kenzie sing-a-long tunes.<br />

An early number informs<br />

us that sequels are never quite as good and indeed this<br />

follow-up is nowhere near as tight as Jason Segel’s original<br />

but it’s still way more fun than most things out there.<br />

A Lady Gaga cameo occurs within seconds of an Ingmar<br />

Bergman gag. Where else would you get it? ROC<br />

STARTS MAY 8<br />

Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case<br />

D: Andreas Johnsen<br />

(Denmark, China, UK<br />

2013), documentary<br />

◆◆◆ This doc opens<br />

with a shot of young Lao<br />

Ai’s back as he’s taking<br />

an outdoor pee on the<br />

walled premises of his<br />

father Ai Weiwei’s studio<br />

compound at 258 Fake<br />

in Caochangdi, Beijing,<br />

where the renowned artist is under house arrest. The tone<br />

is set: this is a behind-the scenes affair. Johnsen’s veritéstyle<br />

camera follows Weiwei as he struggles with legal<br />

issues, undercover police, journalists, models, fellow artists,<br />

fans, art dealers and family while preparing for a new<br />

show based on his 81 days spent in solitary confinement.<br />

A moving portrait of a giant with feet of clay... MY<br />

30 • may <strong>2014</strong><br />

Truth and reconciliation<br />

By eve lucas<br />

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was<br />

set up in 1955 by Mandela’s Government of National<br />

Unity to collectively witness and, in some<br />

cases, grant amnesty to perpetrators of human<br />

rights violations committed by a system.<br />

Its work raised legitimate questions on officially<br />

prescribed reconciliation. Forgiveness<br />

is also an individual act, even within a political<br />

context. It’s this confluence that lies at the<br />

heart of Zulu (from Jérôme Salle) as it follows<br />

black South African police captain Neuman<br />

(Forest Whitaker) from childhood trauma at<br />

the hands of ANC rival Inkhata through the<br />

carnage of post-Apartheid politics. Now in his<br />

forties, Neuman works in Cape Town’s violent<br />

crime department, hurrying between scenes<br />

of bloodied depravation with only his mother,<br />

two colleagues and a prostitute to inspire weary<br />

affection. Linking a string of vicious killings to<br />

a new street drug, Neuman and his colleague<br />

Epkeen (Bloom) uncover evidence that points to<br />

a shockingly cynical vision of white supremacy.<br />

Amidst scenes of veracious brutality and private<br />

collateral tragedy, Neuman is forced to test the<br />

limits of his reconciliation mantra.<br />

Both Whitaker and Bloom inhabit their roles<br />

with conviction: a considerate black South African<br />

partnered with a white man whose rock-hard<br />

abs and spiked coffee also cover Apartheid scars.<br />

Shooting his way from the slums to a desert<br />

showdown strongly reminiscent of John Ford,<br />

Salle would have done well to follow Ford’s more<br />

readable plots – and measured camera. Layering<br />

economics atop politics with a central character<br />

sinned against by black, not white, South<br />

Africans and bigotry espoused across the board<br />

by individuals and institutions, it’s hard to track<br />

Salle’s steps – and not only because there’s so<br />

much blood on the floor. If he’s making the point<br />

that reconciliation comes unstuck when things<br />

get personal, it feels a lot more like default than<br />

intent, leaving viewers to seek the truth for<br />

themselves. It’s there, but well congealed.<br />

Which is why Labor Day from Jason Reitman<br />

(Young Adult, Up in the Air) starts out so much<br />

more promisingly by keeping reconciliation<br />

apolitical. An opening long-take of rustling beauty<br />

meanders through late 1980s small-town New<br />

England, drawing us into the lives of Adele (Winslet)<br />

and adolescent son Henry (Griffith), broken<br />

by the absence of husband/father who now lives<br />

nearby with his second wife and family. Even before<br />

escaped con Frank (Brolin) intrudes on their<br />

shuttered existence by forcing himself on them<br />

during a supermarket run, Adele’s insecurities<br />

testify to her inability to forgive herself for a failed<br />

marriage. Frank too has plenty that he needs to<br />

reconcile: a tragic accident involving his errant<br />

wife and the perceived injustice of prison time.<br />

With remarkable alacrity (and a bloodstained<br />

t-shirt), Frank is soon hiding out with Adele and<br />

Henry over Labor Day weekend, baking peach<br />

pies and basking under their appreciative gaze.<br />

But where, o where, is the due diligence of<br />

process? Not all the yearning of warm, filtered<br />

sunlight in quiet interiors can account for<br />

such intimacy. Investing these developments<br />

with more dialogue and pace would have given<br />

them greater credibility. As it is, Reitman’s<br />

screenplay is too forgiving of its own inconsistencies<br />

to bear the weight of reconciliation<br />

that it pre-supposes for its characters. ■<br />

Starts <strong>May</strong> 8<br />

Zulu ◆◆<br />

Directed by Jérôme Salle (France, South Africa 2013) with Forest<br />

Whitaker, Orlando Bloom<br />

Starts <strong>May</strong> 8<br />

Labor Day ◆◆<br />

Directed by Jason Reitman (USA 2013) with Kate Winslet, Josh<br />

Brolin<br />

film<br />

editor’s<br />

pick<br />

All movies are in OV with german subtitles unless otherwise stated


STARTS MAY 8<br />

Fruitvale Station<br />

D: Ryan Coogler (USA 2013) with Michael<br />

B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz ◆◆◆◆ In Oakland,<br />

California, in the early hours<br />

of 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant<br />

was on his way home from celebrating<br />

the turn of the New Year<br />

when he was shot dead in a BART<br />

station by a local policeman. For<br />

his film Fruitvale Station, director<br />

Ryan Coogler took a look at the 24<br />

hours preceding the crime: the final<br />

day of Oscar Grant’s life.<br />

He shows a young man trying to<br />

make the best of it, depicting Grant<br />

as a great father, a not-so-great<br />

boyfriend and a decent son who<br />

struggles with bosses, ponders<br />

marriage and comforts a dying dog<br />

during his last day on Earth.<br />

There’s a lingering sense that<br />

Coogler is portraying Grant as almost<br />

too much of a ‘good guy’, but<br />

the scriptwriters can be forgiven<br />

for delving into sentimentality. The<br />

director is attempting to ram home<br />

the tremendous, unnecessary loss<br />

inherent in this tragic event as a<br />

father, a son and a lover are gone<br />

in an instant due to one man’s<br />

moment of madness. The Wire star<br />

Michael B. Jordan focuses all the<br />

film’s weight and empathy, rising<br />

from the performance a genuine<br />

star. ROC<br />

STARTS MAY 22<br />

One Chance<br />

D: David Frankel (USA, UK 2013) with<br />

James Corden, Julie Walters, Colm Meaney<br />

◆◆◆◆ From the man who gave us<br />

The Devil Wears Prada comes this<br />

conventionally predictable real-life<br />

story of Paul Potts, winner of<br />

Britain’s Got Talent and numerous<br />

other dubious accolades including<br />

the rare honour of performing at<br />

The Albert Hall.<br />

It’s not as if Potts’ (Corden) rise<br />

from car-phone salesman in Port<br />

Talbot to operatic maverick hasn’t<br />

been well documented elsewhere.<br />

Decent performances by Corden,<br />

with Walters and Meaney as his<br />

parents, bring Potts’ story to life,<br />

but basically it’s your average rough<br />

childhood, a good mate, a great girl<br />

and lots of Nessun Dorma and better<br />

teeth at the end of the rainbow.<br />

The whole point of productions<br />

like Britain’s Got Talent is to provide<br />

a rigorously staged forum for underdog<br />

talent – and the moist-eyed<br />

appreciation of die-hard cynics.<br />

Why throw good money (and talent)<br />

after bad and rehash it all for the<br />

big screen? No service done here<br />

to anybody but Messrs Weinstein<br />

and a shamelessly self-promoting<br />

Cowell, wolfishly announcing<br />

“You’re through.” You will be after<br />

this. EL<br />

Undubbed at CineStar Original<br />

EDGE OF TOMORROW 3D<br />

From <strong>May</strong> 29<br />

Mega thrilling and epic: See Tom Cruise as Lt. Col.<br />

Bill Cage, who is dropped into a suicide mission<br />

against aliens. Killed within minutes, Cage finds<br />

himself inexplicably thrown into a time loop –<br />

forcing him to live out the same brutal combat<br />

over and over, fighting and dying again... and again.<br />

Find more info and tickets at cinestar.de<br />

31


What’s on<br />

film<br />

STARTS MAY 8<br />

Über-Ich und Du<br />

D: Benjamin Heisenberg<br />

(Germany, Austria,<br />

Switzerland <strong>2014</strong>) with<br />

Georg Friedrich, André<br />

Wilms ◆◆◆ Cashflow<br />

problems force drifter<br />

Nick (Friedrich) to lie low<br />

and he passes himself<br />

off as carer to an elderly<br />

star-psychoanalyst in the<br />

process of writing one last<br />

vindicatory paper to account for that Nazi stain on his CV.<br />

The cat is called Lacan, a sketch of a familiar shepherd<br />

dog hangs on the wall… but like father figures and<br />

transfer therapy, it could all be flummery. Fresh but never<br />

flippant, Heisenberg puts us through our Freudian paces,<br />

reinventing significant slapstick as he goes. EL<br />

STARTS MAY 8<br />

3 Days to Kill<br />

D: McG (France, USA<br />

<strong>2014</strong>) with Kevin Costner,<br />

Amber Heard, Hailee<br />

Steinfeld ◆ Runner<br />

(Costner) is a mature CIA<br />

agent on a limited time<br />

budget (brain tumour)<br />

who chucks it all in and<br />

joins his estranged wife<br />

and daughter in Paris,<br />

hoping to reconnect before<br />

the curtain comes down. He finds himself contending<br />

with African squatters in his flat, some attitude from the<br />

offspring and a vamp CIA agent (Heard), promising him<br />

revolutionary treatment in exchange for one last job. Costner<br />

still has it. But the rest is woefully inadequate. EL<br />

STARTS MAY 8<br />

Good Vibrations<br />

D: Lisa Barros D’Sa, Glenn<br />

Leyburn (UK, Ireland<br />

2012) with Richard<br />

Dormer, Jodie Whittaker<br />

◆◆◆ Beardy charmer<br />

Terri Hooley sets out to<br />

set up a record shop in<br />

Troubles-torn Belfast,<br />

and ends up shambolic<br />

godfather (or at least<br />

coolish uncle) of the<br />

Northern Irish punk scene. Wry yet sweet, the film is part<br />

testament to how punk’s sweaty teenage dynamism won<br />

over men of a previous generation. Despite occasional<br />

trouble maintaining its own sense of pogoing propulsion,<br />

the whole lovingly crafted edifice walks a suitably<br />

defiant and rousing line between darkness and light. CE<br />

STARTS MAY 8<br />

Devil’s Due<br />

D: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin,<br />

Tyler Gillett (USA <strong>2014</strong>)<br />

with Allison Miller, Zach<br />

Gilford A V O I D The<br />

unplanned pregnancy<br />

of a young couple takes<br />

a turn for the twisted<br />

as increasingly strange<br />

occurrences bring about<br />

an unhealthy dose of<br />

paranoia and fear. This<br />

might sound oddly familiar (Rosemary’s Baby), but the<br />

hand-held jumpiness is a far cry from the suspense, not<br />

to mention the quality, that made the former a success.<br />

Often involuntarily funny and never actually scary, the<br />

film is utterly unbelievable from beginning to end. Even<br />

more unbelievable? How bad it actually is. MH<br />

Villeneuve’s work often deals with the point at<br />

which emotionally experienced violence seeks<br />

and finds a physical outlet. In Enemy (see review,<br />

next page), he goes out even further on a hairy,<br />

tentacled limb, exploring the doppelgänger motif<br />

as a visualisation of our need to control essentially<br />

destructive tendencies.<br />

How was it to adapt Saramago’s The Double<br />

for the screen? There are a lot of differences. I<br />

never met Saramago – and I never will. He’s dead<br />

now. But I think that the best way to respect an<br />

author is to be very honest about the way you<br />

adapt his work: to totally destroy the original<br />

and make it your own. So in a way, the movie has<br />

nothing to do with the book – and from another<br />

point of view, it’s very close to it.<br />

You’ve got Jake Gyllenhaal playing one<br />

character and two roles. I’ve used special<br />

effects in some movies. But not that much. I’d<br />

never ask an actor to play against a tennis ball.<br />

The thing about all this complex technology, this<br />

complex way of acting and dealing with space, is<br />

that if the actor is not good, you don’t believe it.<br />

You believe it because Jake is fantastic.<br />

Did you know him before you worked with<br />

him on this? I didn’t know Jake before. I knew<br />

the actor. I had a lot of admiration for what he<br />

did. Some of his movies are landmark movies<br />

– Brokeback Mountain is a movie that deeply<br />

touched me. I was aware of his talent. But I<br />

didn’t know that we’d get that close. It was my<br />

dream to find that relationship. I was very lucky.<br />

He could have been an asshole. But if it had been<br />

Enemy<br />

<strong>May</strong> 22<br />

“The best way to respect<br />

an author is to totally<br />

destroy the original”By Eve Lucas<br />

French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve goes double or nothing in<br />

Enemy, his adaptation of the José Saramago novel The Double.<br />

different, I would have shot the film differently.<br />

It’s just that I found someone who had a strong<br />

intelligence, a lot of creativity and a beautiful<br />

vision of the character. It’s always good for a<br />

director to follow the actor instead of telling him<br />

where to go. I love that.<br />

So your working environment was more<br />

collaborative than in your previous films?<br />

I love chaos. It makes me comfortable when it’s<br />

chaotic. In my previous movies, I was more like<br />

a dictator. But I’ve realised that the more movies<br />

I do, the more I like to share creativity, to take<br />

strength from the other crew members. I choose<br />

my director of photography (DP) carefully<br />

because I’ll give him a lot of freedom and power<br />

on the set. I need a brother. I need someone who<br />

has no ego and will be there just for the project.<br />

I always have a strong relationship with my DP<br />

on set and I was looking for the same thing with<br />

the actor: someone with whom to share creativity<br />

and give space. It was a risk.<br />

How did you come up with the use of<br />

spiders as a metaphor? I was looking for a<br />

perfect image that would say something specific<br />

about sexuality and the subconscious of a man.<br />

For me, it was the perfect image. Now, I won’t<br />

explain it. It’s more fun to not explain it, by far.<br />

Before, when I used images like this and was<br />

questioned about it, I felt pressured to give<br />

answers. Not anymore. I think it’s perfect to<br />

leave this open to interpretation. I could answer<br />

but it’s more interesting to see the impact of this<br />

image on your imagination through the story. I<br />

think it’s more powerful to let it go. ■<br />

32 • may <strong>2014</strong><br />

All movies are in OV with german subtitles unless otherwise stated


BERLiNS ONLy OPEN AiR-CiNEMA ShOwiNG<br />

MOViES EXCLuSiVELy iN ORiGiNAL VERSiONS<br />

PROGRAM MAy <strong>2014</strong><br />

STARTS MAY 22<br />

Zeit der Kannibalen<br />

D: Johannes Naber (Germany 2013) with<br />

Sebastian Blomberg, Devid Striesow, Katharina<br />

Schüttler ◆◆◆◆ Who knew the<br />

Germans could do dark comedy?<br />

And Zeit der Kannibalen is as<br />

wickedly dark as it comes. Öllers<br />

and Niederländer are two travelling<br />

business consultants working for<br />

the mysterious “Company”. But<br />

they wouldn’t know or care about<br />

the people their work affects,<br />

as they never leave their hotels,<br />

content to sit back, pick the blood<br />

from their claws and await the holy<br />

grail of becoming partner. When<br />

Bianca, a young new consultant,<br />

appears and informs them that<br />

another colleague was promoted<br />

instead, the shock is brief – before<br />

we learn that the new (and never<br />

STARTS MAY 22<br />

Enemy<br />

D: Denis Villeneuve (Canada, Spain 2013)<br />

with Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent<br />

◆◆◆◆ Torontonian professor Adam<br />

(Gyllenhaal) expounds in civil but<br />

dry eloquence on Hegel’s repetition<br />

of history during the day. In the evening,<br />

he and his girlfriend (Laurent)<br />

barely talk but have sex that verges<br />

on rough. Watching a rental one<br />

evening in the reflected glare of<br />

his laptop screen, Adam sees his<br />

doppelgänger, actor Anthony (also<br />

played by Gyllenhaal) in a three-bit<br />

role. Fascinated and horrified, Adam<br />

insists on meeting his flashier counterpart<br />

and is drawn into a scenario<br />

of fears and needs. But whose?<br />

Using a novel by José Saramago<br />

more as inspiration than literal<br />

seen) partner has mysteriously<br />

jumped to his death. The carnage<br />

plays out on an expertly designed<br />

series of sets: only furniture and<br />

staff vary to indicate a change of<br />

land and the exact same set of<br />

grey blocks represents the cities<br />

that the cannibals have come<br />

to destroy. At times dispensing<br />

with political correctness to get a<br />

greater point across, Naber directs<br />

a strong cast with enough hints of<br />

humanity to make sure the chasm<br />

between us and them doesn’t<br />

yawn too deeply, with a primal<br />

score setting a frenetic pace that<br />

never loses steam as all three<br />

characters careen towards an<br />

extremely satisfying and appropriate<br />

end. WC<br />

template, Villeneuve’s exploration<br />

of emotional mechanisms is<br />

profoundly rattling. In earlier films<br />

such as Incendie and Prisoners<br />

Villeneuve (see interview, previous<br />

page) embedded violence and love<br />

in plot. They are twinned here with<br />

an instinctual pursuit of basic,<br />

basest instinct. Set in a Toronto<br />

of mucous, polluted yellow with<br />

flashes of red bouncing off Anthony’s<br />

Spiderman-style motorcycle<br />

helmet, Villeneuve’s use of the<br />

ancient doppelgänger motif juggles<br />

imagined demons and psychological<br />

realities, finding a language<br />

for the subconsciously inarticulate<br />

that’s perhaps too longwinded<br />

– but uniquely compelling. EL<br />

Fri<br />

2nd 9 00 pm Opening: inside LLewyn davis Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Sat 3rd 9 00 pm The wOLf Of waLL sTreeT Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Sun 4th 9 15 pm The LunchbOx Engl.Hindi./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Mon 5th 9 15 pm Le passé The pasT French, Persian/Ger. sbtls.<br />

Tue 6th 9 15 pm finsTerwOrLd Ger./Engl. sbtls.<br />

Wed 7th 9 15 pm The daLLas buyers cLub Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Thu 8th 9 15 pm american husTLe Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Fri 9th 9 15 pm The grand budapesT hOTeL Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Sat 10th 8 30 pm eurOvisiOn sOng cOnTesT<br />

Our anual celebration of Europes finest and trashy music.<br />

Presented by Inge Borg and Gisela Sommer / Admission free!<br />

Sun 11th 9 30 pm La grande beLLezza<br />

The great beauty Ital./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Mon 12th 9 30 pm aLL is LOsT Engl. OV<br />

Tue 13th 9 30 pm frances ha Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Wed 14th 9 30 pm weTLands feuchtgebiete Ger./Engl. sbtls.<br />

Thu 15th 9 30 pm Oh bOy Ger./Engl.sbtls.<br />

Fri<br />

16th 9 30 pm fack ju göhte f*ck yOu, gOeThe German<br />

Sat 17th 9 30 pm her Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Sun 18th 9 30 pm wadjda das mädchen wadjda Arab/Ger. sbtls.<br />

Mon 19th 9 30 pm a TOuch Of sin Chin./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Tue 20th 9 30 pm deuTschbOden Ger./Engl.sbtls.<br />

Wed 21st 9 30 pm snOwpiercer Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Thu 22nd 9 30 pm bLue jasmine Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Fri 23rd 9 30 pm The LOsT chiLd Of<br />

phiLOmena Lee Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Sat 24th 9 30 pm graviTy Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Sun 25th 9 30 pm baaL (Germany 1970) German<br />

Mon 26th 9 30 pm nebraska Engl./Ger.sbtls.<br />

Tue 27th 9 30 pm nymphOmaniac: vOLume i Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Wed 28th 9 30 pm nymphOmaniac: vOLume ii Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Thu 29th 9 30 pm das finstere Tal The dark vaLLey Ger./Engl. sbtls.<br />

Fri<br />

30th 9 30 pm OnLy LOvers LefT aLive Engl./Ger. sbtls.<br />

Sat 31st 9 30 pm 12 years a sLave Engl./Ger. sbtls<br />

ADDRESS:<br />

ENTRANCE FEE:<br />

ADVANCE SALE:<br />

BOX OFFiCE OPENS:<br />

MuLTi ShOw TiCkET:<br />

CONTACT/GROuP DiSCOuNTS<br />

FOR SChOOL CLASSES: kreuzberg@pifflmedien.de<br />

OPERATOR:<br />

Piffl Medien GmbH<br />

www.freiluftkino-berlin.de<br />

Located near “Kottbusser Tor” metro station (U7,U8) in the<br />

courtyard of “Kunstquartier Bethanien” at Mariannenplatz<br />

7,00 e (also online ticket)<br />

7,40 e incl. booking fee at all concert ticket outlets<br />

30 min. before showtime<br />

Multi-show tickets at the cinema box office<br />

5 Shows 27,50 e | 10 Shows 50,00 e<br />

Please note: this is not a group ticket!<br />

ONLiNE TiCkET<br />

AND PROGRAM<br />

iNFORMATiON:<br />

33


What’s on<br />

film<br />

STARTS MAY 15<br />

W imie...<br />

(Im Names des…) D:<br />

Malgorzata Szumowska<br />

(Poland, 2013) with<br />

Andrzej Chyra, Mateusz<br />

Mosciukiewicz, Lukasz<br />

Simlat ◆◆ Winner of<br />

the 2013 Berlinale Best<br />

Feature Teddy, Szumowska<br />

presents a priest “transferred”<br />

to small-village<br />

Poland to oversee a boys’<br />

home for delinquents. The charismatic priest begins life<br />

anew, impressing the boys and charming the local ladies,<br />

but when a young man who looks uncannily like a teenage<br />

Jesus enters the picture, old “demons” return. Well<br />

scripted, beautifully shot and palpably felt provincial insularity<br />

make the film enjoyable to watch, but an ambiguous<br />

ending muddles any message. WC<br />

STARTS MAY 15<br />

Stereo<br />

D: Maximilian Erlenwein<br />

(Germany <strong>2014</strong>) with<br />

Jürgen Vogel, Moritz<br />

Bleibtreu ◆◆ Flaky<br />

characters and esoteric<br />

mystery hound motorbike<br />

mechanic Erik (Vogel)<br />

who’s trying to settle down<br />

with his girlfriend when the<br />

shadowy Henry (Bleibtreu)<br />

appears, trailing general<br />

mayhem. Brimming with action, Stereo keeps you guessing<br />

for a while, but the uneven character development detracts<br />

from the overall impression. The descent into human<br />

depravity is enjoyable enough however, and sprinkled with a<br />

few laughs along the way. MH<br />

STARTS MAY 22<br />

Words and Pictures<br />

D: Fred Schepisi (USA<br />

2013) with Clive Owen,<br />

Juliette Binoche ◆<br />

Clive Owen plays a drunk,<br />

washed-up author who<br />

teaches English. He falls<br />

for a crippled, cranky Juliette<br />

Binoche who teaches<br />

art. They start a ‘war’ to define<br />

whose trade is more<br />

powerful and thus begin<br />

to intellectually duke it out. A decent premise perhaps,<br />

but Fred Schepisi’s film is, regretfully, a misconceived and<br />

incredibly banal call-to-arms; think Dead Poets Society but<br />

without all that suicide, emotion and class. Owen compares<br />

a tweet to a haiku. There’s really little else to say. ROC<br />

STARTS MAY 22<br />

Love Eternal<br />

D: Brendan Muldowney<br />

(Ireland 2013) with Robert<br />

de Hoog, Polly McIntosh<br />

◆◆◆ Based on the<br />

novel by Japanese author<br />

Kei Oishi, this stunningly<br />

realised Irish production<br />

draws you down into the<br />

disturbed mind of Ian (de<br />

Hoog) whose consuming<br />

obsession with death and<br />

the dead is mesmerising. His undertakings as a suicide<br />

assistant and lapses of necrophillia are done with a tenderness<br />

that defers judgement, providing complexity to the<br />

most morbid themes of the film. Its bleakness, while requiring<br />

of stamina, is captivating and poignant. Not a first-date<br />

movie. Best followed by a double whisky. RD<br />

34 • may <strong>2014</strong><br />

Flicks our picks<br />

Special screenings, festivals and retrospectives you shouldn’t miss this month<br />

A Promised Rose Garden<br />

MAY 1-7<br />

Bresson’s boldness<br />

Strongly and unusually marked both by strict Catholicism<br />

and his experiences as a POW, Robert<br />

Bresson’s work finally returns to Arsenal for a<br />

long-overdue retrospective. Of the films showing in<br />

<strong>May</strong>, most explore the connection between suffering<br />

and redemption in narratives that range from the<br />

biblically allusive (Au hazard Balthazar, 1966) to the<br />

mythological (Lancelot du Lac, 1974) and literary<br />

(L’argent, 1983 or 1962’s Procès de Jeanne d’Arc).<br />

His uncompromising anti-theatrical formality, developed<br />

to express a sense of pre-ordained destiny, is<br />

characterised by intense, monotonous declamation<br />

that allows philosophically weighted texts and rigorously<br />

composed sets and scores to co-exist in inimitably<br />

stark contrast: essential viewing for anybody<br />

interested in a seminal period in cinema history<br />

that influenced not only fellow nouvelle vaguers but<br />

filmmakers including the Dardennes, Tarkovsky and<br />

Haneke. For details, go to www.arsenal-berlin.de. EL<br />

Robert Bresson Retrospective | Arsenal, Potsdamer Str.<br />

2, Mitte, S+U-Bhf Potsdamer Platz<br />

STARTS MAY 2<br />

A little Berliner Freiluft<br />

Berlin’s open-air cinemas are about to light up their<br />

silver screens for a new season. As usual, your best<br />

bet is Freiluftkino Kreuzberg, boasting the<br />

most gigantic screen to be seen on lawn, deckchairs<br />

and an impeccable programme of great indie<br />

flicks in OV and German gems with English subs.<br />

Opening this year’s season on <strong>May</strong> 2 is the Coen<br />

brothers’ folk music dramedy Inside Llewyn Davis<br />

(21:00); among other early highlights are David O.<br />

Russell’s heavily accoladed American Hustle (<strong>May</strong> 8,<br />

21:15) and Joon-Ho Bong’s dystopian vision Snowpiercer<br />

(<strong>May</strong> 21, 21:30). You also shouldn’t miss<br />

the chance to catch some of the past year’s best<br />

German films: Frauke Finsterwalder’s absurd drama<br />

Finsterworld (<strong>May</strong> 6, 21:15) and André Schäfer’s<br />

documentary Deutschboden (<strong>May</strong> 20, 21:30). For<br />

a literal exploration of Berlin’s heavens head to<br />

Freilichtbühne WeiSSensee, new on the expat<br />

Freiluft map – this year they’ll be kicking off the<br />

season with a range of classics in English (such as<br />

Blow Up and Bonnie and Clyde) or with English subs,<br />

including Wim Wenders’ Der Himmel über Berlin<br />

(Wings of Desire). Two screens, a biergarten and<br />

direct proximity to the lake make it worth the trip.<br />

Exberliner<br />

Film AWARD<br />

winners<br />

<strong>May</strong> 12<br />

For future summer open-air highlights, watch this<br />

space. MH Freiluftkino Kreuzberg | Mariannenplatz 2,<br />

U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor Freilichtbühne WeiSSensee | Große<br />

Seestr. 9, S-Bhf Greiswalder Str.<br />

MAY 5-31<br />

Siodmak in America<br />

Zeughauskino continues its retrospective of the<br />

Dresden-born Jewish-American director Robert<br />

Siodmak, focusing on the filmmaker’s exile in the<br />

US when he became known as a master of noir for<br />

movies such as Christmas Holiday and The Strange<br />

Affair of Uncle Harry, which explored the thin ice of<br />

seemingly secure relationships in deeply refractive<br />

black and white. Taking this cinematographic<br />

approach to its zenith, Siodmak followed up with<br />

the now-legendary The Spiral Staircase (1945) and<br />

The Killers (marking Burt Lancaster’s screen debut<br />

in 1946). Cry of the City (1948) takes Siodmak’s<br />

themes into the streets of New York’s Little Italy for<br />

an enthrallingly unfussy version of an ancient trope<br />

as two friends struggle with conflicting loyalties –<br />

a reminder that Siodmak’s work set the tone for<br />

much that was yet to come. For dates and times,<br />

go to www.dhm.de/zeughauskino. EL Retrospective<br />

Robert Siodmak | Zeughauskino im Deutschen Historischen<br />

Museum, Unter den Linden 2, Mitte, U-Bhf Hausvogteiplatz<br />

MAY 8-11<br />

Never bind the bollocks<br />

While punk is hardly new on the Kreuzberg block, a<br />

swathe of films relating to the topic now descends<br />

on Moviemento, where one of Berlin’s original<br />

punks, Blixa Bargeld, worked as projectionist<br />

on The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the 1970s.<br />

Showing 20 films on music’s most rebellious subculture,<br />

this year’s punk film festival offers everything<br />

from the legends to the locals to the little<br />

ones. Documentary on riot grrrl founder Kathleen<br />

Hanna, The Punk Singer, explores the cult figure’s<br />

past and sometimes overlooked influence she had<br />

on 1990s and early 2000s cultures. Cute comingof-age<br />

Norwegian film Sons of Norway features a<br />

cameo by original punk Johnny “Rotten” Lydon. For<br />

a fix of hometown focus, Terrorgruppe and Die Ex<br />

bin ich should give us something to pogo about.<br />

This year also features a selection of kids’ punk<br />

films, involving an ‘acceptable’ questioning of parental<br />

authority: Sweden’s Pippi Longstocking and<br />

West Germany’s Momo. As per usual, a splattering<br />

All movies are in OV with german subtitles unless otherwise stated


exblicks<br />

<strong>May</strong> 20<br />

Art War<br />

helden film<br />

of concerts and other activities accompany the<br />

fest. Up the punx! See www.toodrunktowatch.<br />

de for full programme. WC Too Drunk To WATCH<br />

– 3. Punkfilmfest Berlin | Moviemento, Kottbusser<br />

Damm 22, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Schönleinstr.<br />

MAY 12, 20:30<br />

Rose ceremony<br />

Join us for a very special EXBlicks this month<br />

as we screen the first-ever Exberliner Film<br />

aWard Winners, presented at last month’s<br />

Achtung Berlin film festival: both grand prize<br />

winner A Promised Rose Garden (Lisa Violetta<br />

Gaß) and the special mention, short “The<br />

Silence Between Two Songs” (Mónica Lima).<br />

With its portrayal of the frequently overlooked<br />

aspects of international Berlin, A Promised<br />

Rose Garden stood out for us as a very unusual<br />

fairytale of “expat” life. Following two different<br />

couples of North and Central Vietnamese backgrounds<br />

whose lives are intertwined, the superb<br />

actors (all first-timers) and script illustrate Berlin<br />

as a Weltstadt in all its beauty and ugliness.<br />

“The Silence Between Two Songs” impressed<br />

us thoroughly by not trying to impress us at all.<br />

Understated and beautifully shot, two young<br />

siblings must arrive on a decision about their<br />

relationship in Berlin and its ability to enchant<br />

and repel us simultaneously. Join us for a gettogether<br />

with directors present for a Q&A and<br />

complimentary wine. WC EXBLICKS: AWARD Winners|<br />

Lichtblick Kino, Kastanienallee 77, Prenzlauer Berg<br />

MAY 20, 20:00<br />

Art after Arab Spring<br />

Berliner filmmaker Marco Wilms’ documentary<br />

Art War follows the lives of Egyptian artists<br />

in the wake of Arab Spring. In a society whose<br />

collective needs include paying honour to fallen<br />

martyrs and fellow activists, an explosion of<br />

creativity emerged; for instance, the radical anti-<br />

Islamic feminist blogger Aalia, whose naked selfportraits,<br />

posted online, became a motif of the<br />

cultural dissent boiling over in Egypt’s emerging<br />

and radicalised youth culture. Wilms shows how<br />

the artists not only utilised but instrumentalised<br />

art as a transcendental and effective weapon<br />

in the fight for their unfinished revolution. We<br />

will be providing customary refreshments and<br />

welcoming Wilms for a post-screening Q&A, as<br />

well as other special guests for a discussion<br />

on Egypt since the revolution. RD EXBLICKS: ART<br />

WAR| Lichtblick Kino, Kastanienallee 77, Prenzlauer Berg<br />

MAY 29-JUN 1<br />

Frigid tenderness<br />

The ninth XPOSED International Queer Film<br />

Festival shifts attention towards Scandinavia<br />

with an homage to Swedish feminist filmmaker<br />

Gunvor Nelson. Opening the ball is a screening<br />

of Nordic shorts followed by Charles Atlas’ Turning,<br />

an intimate look into the touring life of Antony<br />

and the Johnsons. Later, head to the opening<br />

party at Südblock for Nelson’s Fog Pumas<br />

and steamy cinematic surprises in The Naughty<br />

Room. Come Friday it’s time for the German<br />

shorts, followed by Susanna Helke’s American<br />

Vagabond, a snapshot of America’s medieval<br />

attitude towards homosexuality. Saturday’s<br />

a queer sandwich of Nordic and international<br />

shorts with a filling of Lisa Aschan’s Apflickorna,<br />

and Sunday wraps it up with a retrospective<br />

of Nelson’s transgressive oeuvre, awards and a<br />

closing feature: Yann Gonzalez’ Les Rencontres<br />

d’apres minuit, which centres on a young couple<br />

as they prepare for an orgy. For prices, venues<br />

and times, go to www.xposedfilmfestival.com.<br />

MH XPOSED QUEER FILM FESTIVAL | Moviemento,<br />

Kottbusser Damm 22, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Schönleinstr.<br />

JUN 1<br />

A Bowie trilogy<br />

Appetite whetted from our Bowie special?<br />

Exberliner’s teaming up with realeyz.tv for a<br />

one-day David Bowie film festival. Christian<br />

Davies’ 2012 documentary Bowie in Berlin<br />

examines the Berlin trilogy, offering an in-depth<br />

analysis of the songs, while the 1981 classic<br />

Christiane F – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo uses<br />

a Bowie-centric soundtrack – and a performance<br />

from the man himself, filmed separately<br />

in New York – to underscore its tragic tale of<br />

teenage drug abuse in bleak Cold War-era West<br />

Berlin. Last up is 90 minutes of music videos<br />

spanning Bowie’s entire career, from 1972’s<br />

“Space Oddity” to last year’s “Where Are We<br />

Now?” by Floria Sigismondi. Screenings will<br />

be followed by surprise guests. MH EXBlicks:<br />

Bowie film festival | Jun 1, Lichtblick Kino, Kastanienallee<br />

77, Prenzlauer Berg<br />

UND<br />

35


What’s on<br />

stage<br />

<strong>May</strong> 6-8, 19:00<br />

Die Jahreszeiten<br />

Gisela Höhne just received<br />

the Carolin Neuber Prize<br />

for her outstanding<br />

engaged work: for the<br />

past 24 years, she’s been<br />

running the RambaZamba<br />

theatre with actors with<br />

so-called ‘disabilities’,<br />

creating a successful<br />

working environment as<br />

well as remarkable artistic<br />

works using each actor’s particular expressive potential.<br />

Her company’s brilliant non-verbal piece – a dance theatre<br />

work dealing with metamorphosis of life based on musical<br />

pieces such as Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring or Vivaldi’s Four<br />

Seasons – is also an opportunity to discover this warm theatre<br />

located in the Kulturbrauerei. Theater RambaZamba,<br />

Knaackstr. 97, Prenzlauer Berg, U-Bhf Eberswalder Str.<br />

<strong>May</strong> 15-17, 20:30<br />

La Merda/The Shit<br />

“You leave the theatre<br />

feeling as if you’ve had all<br />

your skin scraped off,” reported<br />

The Guardian after<br />

seeing La Merda at the<br />

Edinburgh Fringe Festival,<br />

where it won major awards<br />

including the Scotsman<br />

Fringe First Award.<br />

Silvia Gallerano literally<br />

performs naked in Cristian<br />

Ceresoli’s angry, disturbing play. With an astonishing voice,<br />

she reveals her bulimic, revolting and public secrets with<br />

no boundaries between childhood, sex, the body, food, shit,<br />

fame and politics. In English. Maxim Gorki Theater, Am<br />

Festungsgraben 2, Mitte, S+U-Bhf Friedrichstr.<br />

<strong>May</strong> 20-29<br />

Japan Syndrome<br />

How did the nuclear<br />

meltdown at Fukushima<br />

contribute to disclose rifts<br />

within Japanese society?<br />

This interdisciplinary festival<br />

explores that question<br />

with a rich program of performances,<br />

installations,<br />

talks, films and concerts,<br />

mostly with English<br />

surtitles. Starting with<br />

Toshiki Okada’s conversation play Current Location (photo),<br />

one of the first artistic reaction to the catastrophe, it ends<br />

with his current project Super Premium Soft Double Vanilla<br />

Rich, set in a 24-hour convenience store: a metaphor for<br />

an increasingly darkening world with part-time employees,<br />

bosses and customers giving free reign to their irritability.<br />

HAU 1, 2 and 3, Stresemannstr. 29, Hallesches Ufer 32,<br />

Tempelhofer Ufer 10, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Möckernbrücke<br />

COMEDY IN ENGLISH<br />

■ Off The Cuff, comedians improvise from topics they<br />

have never seen, <strong>May</strong> 9, 20:30, T Berlin<br />

■ ETB International Comedy Showcase,<br />

hosted by Paul Salamone; this month’s headliner: Will<br />

Franken (Comedy Central), <strong>May</strong> 12, 20:00, English<br />

Theatre Berlin<br />

■ Baum Haus Comedy Open Air A uniquely Berlin<br />

show in a spectacular setting: treehouses, BBQ, markets…<br />

and, of course, comedy! <strong>May</strong> 24, 18:00, Griessmuehle<br />

■ The Neukölln Confessional, one of Berlin’s<br />

longest running and cosiest comedy showcases, <strong>May</strong> 30,<br />

20:30, Myxa Cafe<br />

For more listings, visit comedyinenglish.de<br />

Tsukasa Aoki Guido Harari Rob de Vrij<br />

Redefining<br />

theatre: three<br />

young authors<br />

to watch By Nathalie Frank<br />

As part of the Berliner Festspiele’s<br />

annual Theatertreffen festival,<br />

the Stückemarkt invites three<br />

unconventional theatre makers to<br />

examine broader forms of authorship<br />

and creative processes.<br />

While Theatertreffen’s main programme focuses<br />

on theatre from the German-speaking world, the<br />

Stückemarkt showcases new theatre authors from<br />

across Europe. This year’s selections go beyond<br />

playwright to work outside clearly defined theatre<br />

categories, Mona el Gammal, Chris Thorpe and<br />

Miet Warlop were chosen by acclaimed theatremakers<br />

Katie Mitchell, Signa Köstler and Simon<br />

Stephens to present their work.<br />

Creating unique “narrative spaces”, El Gammal<br />

(Germany) won the Cologne Theatre Prize for<br />

Haus//Nummer/Null. She works with renowned<br />

performance groups such as La Fura dels Baus<br />

and Signa. Author and performer Thorpe (UK)<br />

has collaborated with Unlimited Theatre, Third<br />

Angel and the BBC; now, together with director<br />

Sam Pritchard, he presents There Has Possibly<br />

Been An Incident, which premiered at the Latitude<br />

Festival in July of last year. Warlop (Belgium)<br />

received the Young Theatre Award for her graduation<br />

work at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in<br />

Gent; since then she has developed works for the<br />

Campo festival and the Kunstenfestivaldesarts.<br />

She comes to Theatertreffen with her 2012 piece<br />

Mystery Magnet.<br />

Working beyond disciplines<br />

When it comes to financing a new project,<br />

strict categories still prevail. However, they no<br />

longer apply to mixed artistic forms. Coming<br />

from the visual arts, Warlop started doing<br />

theatre as she felt the need to bring her tableaux<br />

vivants to life: “At some point I decided that my<br />

things need action because they have to<br />

transform,” she explains. Thorpe writes and<br />

performs at the same time. And El Gammal’s<br />

work, somewhere between scenography, theatre<br />

and visual arts, doesn’t really fit any existing<br />

notion: in fact, her Professor Penelope Wehrli<br />

invented the term “narrative space” as an<br />

assignment. “I was immediately extremely<br />

enthusiastic,” El Gammal recalls. Her spaces<br />

literally tell a story, with the help of numerous<br />

visual details, texts and sounds: “It’s a bit like<br />

being in a book, but in a room, and it’s not<br />

linear: the spectator has many different options<br />

to explore the story by exploring the space.” She<br />

THEATER­<br />

TREFFEN<br />

<strong>May</strong> 2-18<br />

has never met<br />

anyone else<br />

doing<br />

explicitly<br />

narrative<br />

mystery magnet<br />

spaces, but<br />

says, “The<br />

world is big,<br />

there might be other people doing that. I’d be<br />

glad to visit one.”<br />

Individuals vs. collectives<br />

Although developed collectively, the selected<br />

projects did begin individually. The starting<br />

point for Haus//Nummer/Null was El Gammal’s<br />

wish to create a futuristic dystopia – a world<br />

that she imagined first with her co-author Juri<br />

Padel, then with various sound, light, video,<br />

graphic and internet designers. “In that sense it’s<br />

really a collective process. But I have the artistic<br />

responsibility on the whole thing.” Warlop didn’t<br />

develop her piece with her performers but imagined<br />

everything herself, from set to costumes<br />

to character interactions, long before rehearsal<br />

began. “My piece is like one big moment that<br />

I completely shape and sculpt and take care of.<br />

It’s my language and my visual ideas that my<br />

colleagues perform.” The collective part of the<br />

work takes place onstage: “I’m always performing<br />

in my pieces. I think it’s very important that<br />

I know my work from the inside, and I believe<br />

in the energy of the group.”<br />

The idea of authorship<br />

coming from a collaborative background, Thorpe<br />

wrote “essentially an instruction manual for<br />

a performance, which is then worked, rehearsed<br />

and designed. I’m very open and flexible to<br />

refine my text in the rehearsal room.”<br />

Thorpe re-centres the very idea of authorship,<br />

based on his playwright experience: “Authorship<br />

for me is responsibility for a part of the process<br />

of having a conversation in a room. However,” he<br />

adds, “it’s hard to separate the concept of authorship<br />

with ego, with the wish to be recognised. It<br />

would certainly be interesting if all plays, just for<br />

a year, were anonymous.” ■<br />

36 • may <strong>2014</strong>


23 rd – 25 th <strong>May</strong><br />

■ Mona el Gammal:<br />

Haus//Nummer/Null<br />

The audience enters one by one into a gloomy,<br />

dystopian, futuristic world. El Gammal and her<br />

team based their creation on extensive scientific<br />

and sociological readings, and on the statement<br />

that we don’t need to do much more to<br />

completely destroy our planet and social life. “We<br />

picked some actual tendencies and exaggerated<br />

them. The future that we show is not really far<br />

away from what we have now. Some of it is actually<br />

even real.” The story develops the mysterious<br />

case of Frau N, who helped shape this world and<br />

needs to face the disaster. The venue is kept<br />

secret until you buy your ticket. The texts and<br />

sounds are in German – however, you should enjoy<br />

the performance’s atmosphere even without<br />

understanding the words. <strong>May</strong> 11-18 (except <strong>May</strong><br />

15), 13:00-1:00, unknown venue Talk with Mona el Gammal<br />

and Signa Köstler on Narrative Spaces, <strong>May</strong> 17, 17:00, Haus der<br />

Berliner Festspiele<br />

■ Chris Thorpe: There Has<br />

Possibly Been An Incident<br />

In Thorpe’s text, protagonists find themselves<br />

“making the mistake that they originally thought to<br />

eradicate. The idea of dealing with heroism came<br />

from the idea that most people think that they are<br />

right most of the time. I find that an astonishing<br />

thing about human beings, because it leads us<br />

to the worst of ourselves.” The author, who wrote<br />

the text “for performance rather than a play”<br />

constantly seeks a very specific relationship with<br />

the audience. “All performers including me are<br />

reading the text. Hopefully, it destroys the weird<br />

impressive trick of knowing all those words.” And<br />

helps the spectator to actually listen to them.<br />

<strong>May</strong> 13, 21:30, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Side Stage<br />

Talk with Chris Thorpe and Simon Stephens on Theatre As a<br />

Dissecting Table, <strong>May</strong> 13, 17:00<br />

Theatertreffen: our picks<br />

The main part of Theatertreffen’s<br />

programme consists of the 10 most<br />

“remarkable” pieces produced last year in<br />

a German-speaking country. Half of them<br />

are accessible across language barriers or<br />

shown with English surtitles. The opening<br />

piece, Zement by Heiner Müller, gives you<br />

an insight in great Dimiter Gottscheff’s last<br />

work before his death last fall. Chekhov’s<br />

UNCLE Vanya from Schauspiel Stuttgart<br />

and Castorf’s take on Céline’s Journey to<br />

the end of the night can also be followed<br />

in English. A powerful performance for five<br />

dancers and one actress, Alain Platel’s tauberbach<br />

is nearly unspoken and so is the<br />

eccentric Herbert Fritsch’s opera Untitled<br />

Nr.1. Visit www.berlinerfestspiele.de for<br />

the full schedule. For live English-language<br />

updates from Exberliner, check out the Theatertreffen<br />

blog at www.theatertreffenblog.<br />

de. Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Schaperstraße 24,<br />

Wilmersdorf, U-Bhf Spichernstr.<br />

■ Miet Warlop: Mystery Magnet<br />

“I wanted to make a very generous work, with<br />

a lot of ideas and problems and also beauty,”<br />

says Warlop. In the middle of the stage is a fat<br />

man, “the character who consumes the whole<br />

world”. All the other things are happening for<br />

him – in his head. Expect horses, tables, tall<br />

pairs of trousers, cardboard boxes... “And I<br />

also want to show the magic behind the wall.”<br />

It is about seducing, desire, aggression. It is<br />

about making the invisible visible. <strong>May</strong> 11-12,<br />

20:00, Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Side Stage Talk<br />

with Miet Warlop and Katie Mitchell on Visual Art Stage,<br />

<strong>May</strong> 11, 21:30<br />

reinout hiel<br />

Berlin<br />

Opera<br />

Prize 14<br />

Go! Aeneas, Go!<br />

3 composers create the<br />

odyssey of Aeneas through<br />

Europe convinced about<br />

the indispensability of the<br />

Union.<br />

(Spin of Collective,<br />

Barcelona )<br />

Luftschloss/ Erdreich<br />

An anti capitalistic critic<br />

made with the elements of<br />

dance and music.<br />

(Verena Marisa, Munich)<br />

neukoellneroper.de<br />

Karl-Marx-Str. 131–133<br />

D-12043 Berlin<br />

Tel.: 030 / 68 89 07 77<br />

tickets@neukoellneroper.de<br />

37


What’s on<br />

stage<br />

On stage in<br />

motor city<br />

An hour’s train ride away from Berlin (about<br />

€80 round-trip), the home of Volkswagen is quite<br />

a sight in itself. The disused original VW factory<br />

towers over the Autostadt, a retro-futuristic theme<br />

park combining 1930s industrial modernism and<br />

state-of-the-art landscape architecture, complete with<br />

restaurants and attractions for kids (day pass, €15).<br />

Performances (€9-48) take place inside the old<br />

power plant – think Berghain on a massive scale, with<br />

open metal structures and leftover turbines bathed in<br />

neon lighting – and range from dance, jazz and pop to<br />

classical music, all related to this year’s theme: happiness.<br />

Stay for the night in the affordable Tryp Hotel<br />

or Holiday Inn, or come back to Berlin with the last<br />

train departing Wolfsburg at 11:17pm. www.autostadt.<br />

de; full programme at www.movimentos.de<br />

Our tips:<br />

n Wild Grass, Beijing Dance Theater No wonder<br />

that Wang Yuanyan, Beijing Dance Theater’s founder,<br />

felt inspired by the struggle for survival described in Lu<br />

Xun poems. The former choreographer of the National<br />

Ballet of China faced great difficulties as she moved<br />

on to form her own company, looking for the greater<br />

artistic freedoms of contemporary dance, especially<br />

when she created The Great Lotus, banned in China for<br />

its explicit portrayals of sex and corruption. Based on<br />

Lu Xun poetry, this new production is made of three<br />

pieces, ending with people “submerged in life’s dizzying,<br />

excruciating happiness”. <strong>May</strong> 8-11, 20:00, Kraftwerk,<br />

The Autostadt, Stadtbrücke, Wolfsburg<br />

n Scharoun Ensemble and Mojca Erdmann From<br />

Scharoun’s building to Scharoun’s building. Made of<br />

eight string and brass musicians from the Berlin Philharmonic,<br />

the Ensemble, formed in 1983, was named<br />

after Hans Scharoun, the architect of the impressive<br />

Berlin Philharmonic building. An excursion to Wolfsburg<br />

allows them to play in another of his buildings: the<br />

Theater Wolfsburg, where they will perform works by<br />

Jörg Widmann and Mozart, accompanied by soprano<br />

Mojca Erdmann. Two days later they will play the same<br />

in Berlin, just next to the Philharmonic. <strong>May</strong> 18, 20:00,<br />

Theater Wolfsburg, Klieverhagen 50, Wolfsburg <strong>May</strong> 20, 20:00, St.<br />

Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz 1, Mitte, S-Bhf Potsdamer Platz<br />

n mOVe on up This one-evening pop festival features,<br />

on different stages in the same venue, Jochen<br />

Distelmeyer, now solo after having been part of the<br />

influential Hamburger Blumfeld band; Brazilian singer<br />

Cibelle; German<br />

electropop band<br />

Sizarr, hailing<br />

from Landau<br />

in Germany’s<br />

winegrowing<br />

region; and the<br />

brand-new Swedish<br />

pop band The<br />

Majority Says.<br />

<strong>May</strong> 24, 20:00,<br />

Hallenbad – Kultur<br />

am Schachtweg,<br />

Schachtweg 31,<br />

Wolfsburg<br />

MOVIMENTOS<br />

FESTIVAL<br />

WEEKS<br />

Apr 22 - Jun 1<br />

When dance imitates science<br />

By Annika Burges<br />

Dance innovator WAYne McGregor comes to Movimentos with<br />

his sci-fi creature feature Atomos, viewed in 3D.<br />

The multi-award-winning British choreographer<br />

has staged works for the Paris Opera<br />

Ballet, La Scala and the Nederlands Dans<br />

Theater as well as a dance number for the<br />

Olympic Games in London and choreography<br />

for Harry Potter’s magical creatures. With his<br />

London-based company Wayne McGregor/<br />

Random Dance, founded in 1992, he experimented<br />

with science and technology to create<br />

movement. His scientific questionings reveal<br />

what happens when atomised movement, film,<br />

sound and light collide.<br />

How have scientific developments allowed<br />

you to further explore your ideas<br />

for dance? What’s been interesting over the<br />

last 10 years or so has been the advancements<br />

in cognitive science and the technology by<br />

which things can become visible from the<br />

inside of the body which were once invisible.<br />

Our understanding of brain science has developed<br />

– how we start to look at what’s going on<br />

in the brain and the instruments to be able to<br />

serve this. This is why with this piece I got so<br />

interested in biometric data. How do you take<br />

intimate signals from inside your body and use<br />

them as a resource for dance making?<br />

In Atomos you ask the question, “What is<br />

the body?” How did the use of technology<br />

contribute to that questioning? It came<br />

out of the fact that I wanted to take a kind of<br />

iconic film from the 1980s, a film I knew very<br />

well and loved (Blade Runner), and cannibalise<br />

it. One thing we did is that we took the film<br />

and we atomised it. a<br />

software programme<br />

divided it into 1200<br />

parts – the little atoms of<br />

the film. The computer<br />

Atomos <strong>May</strong><br />

15-18, 20:00 |<br />

The Autostadt,<br />

Stadtbrücke,<br />

Wolfsburg<br />

analyses the motion in that clip and throws<br />

it out on the screen as a 3D creature. So on<br />

screen, wearing 3D glasses, you see this kind of<br />

autonomous agent that takes the maths from<br />

the movement in the image and it creates<br />

these physical kinds of tendon, bone and, kind<br />

of, strangeness. We use that for improvisation.<br />

So your dancers wear 3D glasses and<br />

work with the creature’s movements?<br />

Yeah, they work with this creature. The<br />

creature has parts of the film motion that it<br />

captured, in a form you don’t recognise. It’s<br />

not like a stick figure trying to do the moves,<br />

it’s a very hypnotic, very beguiling creature in<br />

its own right. The dancers wear 3D glasses and<br />

improvise with it to provide novel or unfamiliar<br />

solutions for the body.<br />

How did you experiment with biometric<br />

data? Studio XO, who we did the costumes<br />

with, they took my biometric data – my sense<br />

of arousal, excitement and adrenalin – and<br />

converted it into maths and made objects out<br />

of it. These Styrofoam-type objects we then<br />

improvised with to give us a kind of relationship<br />

to the object. We then took the object<br />

away and we had choreography.<br />

Tell me a bit about the music. What’s<br />

interesting about Blade Runner is the music by<br />

Vangelis, which was one of the first electronic<br />

scores for a movie. I asked [post-classical duo]<br />

A Winged Victory for the Sullen to kind of<br />

atomise, pixelise the Vangelis and then work<br />

with it to guide those granules of sound.<br />

You’re well-known for your collaborations<br />

with influential artists from all<br />

fields, like Thom Yorke. I think dance has<br />

to be plugged into the real world. So often art<br />

forms can be stifled off into side communities<br />

and I’ve never been interested in that.<br />

With someone like Thom, I’m interested in<br />

people’s physical signatures. Thom has an<br />

amazing way of dancing anyway, so it was<br />

really all him and me helping him sculpt and<br />

shape that in a choreographic form. That’s<br />

why I loved working with him. ■<br />

38 • may <strong>2014</strong>


What’s on<br />

music and nightlife<br />

music<br />

editor’s<br />

pick<br />

Going for the Two By D. STRAUSS<br />

Retrograde and static as I am, have I never graced<br />

this column on the topic of progressive rock? I<br />

suppose life in Berlin retards one’s perception of<br />

progression in most areas. But that also means<br />

that this city continues to embrace your timesignature-futzing<br />

favs from the 1970s preserved<br />

in amber, their walrus moustaches awaiting their<br />

summer tour schedules. It’s not just Berlin: in a<br />

continental Europe for whom Wagner is James<br />

Brown, prog, like Eurodisco, is soul music.<br />

But you know what? From Radiohead to Björk<br />

to Timbaland’s productions to Lady Gaga to Imagine<br />

Dragons – prog won. Generally, if music isn’t<br />

pointedly idiotic along the lines of Kesha, then<br />

it must be serious to be taken seriously. What is<br />

trance music if not prog saturated with a spiritual<br />

ideology slightly less coherent than that of YES’<br />

Tales from Topographic Oceans? Some lesser iteration<br />

of that much reshuffled band will be playing three<br />

of their 1970s albums in full under reduced circumstances,<br />

though you’d think the imagery in Game<br />

of Thrones would have jumpstarted their careers by<br />

now. Then again, Game of Thrones offers the viewer<br />

naked women, while the only hipster icon willing<br />

to expose himself while in Yes’ corner is Vincent<br />

Gallo, and it turns out that, as with Yes’ replacement<br />

members, he was using a prosthetic.<br />

Regardless of genre, almost any band that lasts<br />

nearly half a century ends up left with a single<br />

mastermind bending the rest of the ensemble to<br />

his Randian will. So credit Berlin’s own ambient<br />

electronic pioneers TANGERINE DREAM, whose<br />

origins predate even the Zodiak Free Arts Lab,<br />

for realising that their ARPs have issued their<br />

terminal burps. If only this realisation hadn’t<br />

come about three decades too late. TD, in its<br />

final iteration, is the sort of girl-violinist-in-gypsyhat-with-strobe-lights<br />

act that would be cast in a<br />

1988 sci-fi film starring Jean-Claude van Damme<br />

to represent the music of future, with a warehouse<br />

in Toronto standing in for a space station<br />

on Pluto which has since, like Tangerine Dream,<br />

been downgraded in status.<br />

Tangerine Dream, which was Berlin’s bestselling<br />

band during the period David Bowie was<br />

living here, had long changed its musical purview<br />

out of its fear of a lack of commerciality which,<br />

like Crimea, no amount of compromise (or aggression)<br />

could ever recapture. Fellow ambient<br />

visionary and Brian Eno collaborator LARAAJI ,<br />

unconcerned with sales figures or, for that matter,<br />

the material world, just waited out the intervening<br />

decades with his vaporiser, until the current<br />

generation once again embraced a lysergic<br />

spirituality and New Age came back into style.<br />

He’ll be zither-jamming with stoner white-dub<br />

master SUN ARAW, putting the “me generation” in<br />

“meander” for future hip-replacement hipsters.<br />

But you can’t ditch it all if you’ve never made it<br />

in the first place. Former flower-headed Genesis<br />

frontman PETER GABRIEL finally hit it big in the<br />

1980s with a chilly prog-electro hybrid, shaking a<br />

tree red-raining down with shockable monkeys,<br />

with whom he later abandoned his chart run to flee<br />

to the jungles and make music. When he finally<br />

semi-reentered the public eye a few years ago, he’d<br />

transformed into a bald, goateed guru type, eager<br />

to mentor the more ambivalent of the artsy indie<br />

stars of today. Previously displaying an urge toward<br />

relevancy, he’s on a big-money tour of So, his most<br />

successful album, with its original 1987 band.<br />

Which is to say, the tour evinces a nostalgia for a<br />

previous generation’s new wave. For those who’d<br />

rather hear Gabriel’s music of an even earlier era,<br />

guitarist STEVE HACKETT, his former Genesis bandmate,<br />

will be playing his old band’s non-hits, which<br />

beats having to get a job as his old lead singer’s<br />

roadie. Prog may have won, but something as progressive<br />

as guaranteed labour? Not so much. n<br />

Music Editor D.Strauss may be contacted at strauss@exberliner.com<br />

Buy your concert tickets at www.exberliner.com/tickets<br />

Steve Hackett Mon, <strong>May</strong> 19, 20:00 | Tempodrom, Möckernstr. 10, Kreuzberg, S-Bhf Anhalter Bahnhof Peter Gabriel<br />

Sun, <strong>May</strong> 25, 19:00 | Waldbuhne, am Glockenturm, Spandau, U-Bhf Olympiastadion Sun Araw and Laraaji w/DJ Deep<br />

Magic Mon, <strong>May</strong> 26, 20:00 | Urban Spree, Revaler Str. 99, Friedrichshain, S+U-Bhf Warschauer Str. Yes Tue, <strong>May</strong> 27, 20:00<br />

| Admiralspalast, Friedrichstr. 101, Mitte, S+U-Bhf Friedrichstr. Tangerine Dream Fri, <strong>May</strong> 30, 20:00 | Admiralspalast,<br />

Friedrichstr. 101, Mitte, S+U-Bhf Friedrichstr.<br />

39


What’s on<br />

music and nightlife<br />

club picks<br />

Fri, <strong>May</strong> 2, 23:00<br />

Dead Fader Album Release (Industry Tech)<br />

Berlin’s techno, industrial<br />

and avant strains all converge<br />

— sometimes in the<br />

same project — for Small<br />

by Hard’s celebration of<br />

the industrial tech-house<br />

hijinx of DEAD FADER,<br />

new record in hand. They’ll<br />

be joined by label head<br />

DJ SCOTCH EGG, DJ DIE<br />

SOON, ANBU and BOCA AL<br />

LUPO with Shitmat in his new Planet Mu trap duo project<br />

MISTY CONDITIONS DJing along with the dubby DJ TAPES.<br />

In the small room: TIME$UP & BIRD¥, GONER, SHINS-K,<br />

TOM BATTERY and WAKE. Urban Spree, Revaler Str. 99,<br />

Friedrichshain, S+U-Bhf Warschauer Str.<br />

Fri <strong>May</strong> 9 - Sat, <strong>May</strong> 10, 23:00<br />

Humboldthain Club’s 1st Anniversary<br />

(Berlin Traditional)<br />

One year in Wedding is like<br />

10 in Neukölln, so let’s<br />

give unpretentious Humboldthain<br />

its props before<br />

it starts buying up all the<br />

real estate and becomes<br />

a dynasty. Friday features<br />

mostly techno locals<br />

like CINTHIE, JIM NASTIC<br />

and DAVID PASTERNACK,<br />

though the headliner is<br />

brainy Chicago housemeister TEVO HOWARD (photo), who’s<br />

finally starting to accrue props. Saturday stars Monsieur<br />

Schaffel himself, Shitkatapulter T.RAUMSCHMIERE, along<br />

with more HC regulars: GREENVILLE MASSIVE, AROMA/<br />

PITCH, BOBBY SOULO and ALEX FICTION. Humboldthain<br />

Club, Hochstr. 46, Wedding, U-Bhf Reinickendorfer Str.<br />

Wed, <strong>May</strong> 28, 23:00<br />

Phuture (Aceeeeed)<br />

Through a mixture of<br />

darkness, smoke and<br />

Daft Punk helmets, DJ<br />

culture has allowed its<br />

innovators to age more<br />

gracefully than their rock<br />

brethren, letting house<br />

and techno pioneers<br />

continue partying like it’s<br />

1989, particularly so when<br />

Chicago acid founders DJ<br />

PIERRE (photo) and PHUTURE show. Then again, Pierre may<br />

not be out of his forties. You really can’t underestimate his<br />

influence: when you think of acid house’s template, you’ve<br />

internalised his musical language. Minimal maestros GERD<br />

JANSON and DIXON make up the bill. Panorama Bar,<br />

Rüdersdorfer Str. 70, Friedrichshain, S-Bhf Ostbahnhof<br />

Sat, <strong>May</strong> 31, 23:30<br />

DJ Sliink (Boooooty)<br />

It sometimes feels as if<br />

this post-dubstep/babystep<br />

EDM period has been<br />

secretly masterminded by<br />

Luther Campbell, his voice<br />

disguised by Autotune, but<br />

that might be because<br />

the booty derivatives<br />

that hang low from<br />

dancehall trees have never<br />

entirely dropped. Newark’s<br />

DJ SLIINK waxes Diplo-esque through various ass cultures,<br />

high and low, thick and thin, though there’s almost always a<br />

touch of the travelling scholar to him – the booty never gets<br />

his hands too dirty. Gretchen regulars DELFONIC and SOUL-<br />

MIND will provide hand towels. Gretchen, Obentrautstr.<br />

19-21, Kreuzberg, U-Bf Hallesches Tor<br />

Supermensch in<br />

the supermarket<br />

By seymour gris<br />

From East German puppeteer to global<br />

Youtube star, bearded 58-year-old wanderer<br />

FRIEDRICH LIECHTENSTEIN possesses a<br />

career trajectory that is anything but linear.<br />

Lichtenstein’s slightly sleazy reworking of<br />

his music video “Supergeil” for grocery chain<br />

EDEKA went viral, with 9,656,719 views as of<br />

publication, and counting. A crooner and flaneur<br />

of the old school comparable to Louie Austen,<br />

Lichtenstein aka “Dolphin Man” has a new<br />

album, Bad Gastein (Heavylistening) forthcoming<br />

along with the campy, atmospheric video<br />

and single “Belgique, Belgique”. You might<br />

call it dumb, but so does he: he’ll be performing<br />

Silly Love Songs at Haus der Kulturen der<br />

Welt on Saturday, <strong>May</strong> 10 as part of its Doofe<br />

Musik (Stupid Music) series, along with Adriano<br />

Celentano Gebäckorchester, Justus Köhncke<br />

and Lifafa.<br />

In “Belgique, Belgique” you say you’re 72<br />

years old. Surely not! No, I’m not. But the<br />

biography that I create for myself there is that<br />

of an older man. I feel older with the beard; if I<br />

shaved, no one would recognise me. But my age<br />

is irrelevant. Sometimes I feel younger, say 20,<br />

but sometimes I feel very old.<br />

And for a Youtube star, you are. The viral<br />

thing on the net has nothing to do with me.<br />

When people click on it, I don’t notice anything;<br />

it’s not a physical action. I just danced through<br />

some supermarket shelves and it went online<br />

and people click on it, and it doesn’t have any<br />

consequences for me. But then I was at the Echo<br />

Music Awards and there were so many people<br />

who wanted snapshots of me – which is a physical<br />

action – and then I noticed right away how<br />

much people love it. I have to see how I deal<br />

with it. It was really too much.<br />

In “Belgique Belgique,” you have several<br />

nicknames: “Dolphin man”, “Kinky<br />

King”… The Dolphin Man is a guy who<br />

communicates in an unconventional manner.<br />

Dolphins can really see right through you, they<br />

scan you, they perceive the whole of you. I try<br />

to approach people the same way:<br />

I stand opposite a person and<br />

take three seconds to scan the<br />

whole person. Also, dolphins look<br />

a bit phallic and I think, “OK,<br />

I’m kind of a phallic guy.” Dolphin<br />

Man is the continuation of<br />

Superman or Spiderman. When<br />

I performed on the MS Europa<br />

cruise liner, some Englishmen<br />

liked me and dubbed me the<br />

Kinky King.<br />

Doofe Musik: Silly<br />

Love Songs w/<br />

Adriano Celentano<br />

Gebäckorchester, Justus<br />

Köhncke, Friedrich<br />

Liechtenstein, Lifafa<br />

Sat, <strong>May</strong> 10, 20:00 | Haus<br />

der Kulturen der Welt,<br />

John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10,<br />

Tiergarten, S-Bhf Bundestag<br />

You’ve done<br />

more in your<br />

life than just<br />

videos.<br />

Yes: I’m a<br />

flaneur. I walk<br />

around the<br />

city a lot.<br />

Right now I<br />

have less time.<br />

In artistic<br />

terms, I’m<br />

also a flaneur,<br />

which I’m<br />

very proud<br />

of. I show up<br />

everywhere, from the opera to Kit Kat Club, on<br />

the radio, with Deichkind, on TV, across Europe<br />

– and it makes me happy that so many different<br />

places think I fit in well.<br />

Including Bad Gastein, in the Austrian<br />

Alps. I once ended up there by chance. Some<br />

hoteliers invited me. When I arrived, it was love<br />

at first sight. It was like the fairytale Frau Holle.<br />

I saw so many unresolved themes there, this<br />

emptiness, a kind of strange morbidity. But the<br />

whole thing is still worth seeing, like East Berlin<br />

after the fall of the Wall: here’s the empty Palast<br />

der Republik, large empty hotels, Tacheles, flats.<br />

That’s what it feels like in Bad Gastein – room<br />

for imagination. And healing springs, too!<br />

What’s your fascination with Belgium?<br />

Bad Gastein is a concept album, comprised of<br />

related stories, and “Belgique, Belgique” is the<br />

story of the journey to the place Bad Gastein,<br />

in which I tell where I come from and where I<br />

want to go, I want to go to the mountains and<br />

heal. Of course, it’s a metaphorical story which is<br />

interwoven with my reality. Stories are also reality.<br />

In a way, art is also real because it is anchored<br />

in reality. It has its poetic logic. A lot of people<br />

ask me, “Who is that guy?”<br />

A former puppeteer, for one<br />

thing. I attended the Ernst Busch<br />

Theatre School and they offered a<br />

specialisation in puppetry. I come<br />

from the East. East Germany<br />

specialised in certain fields that<br />

didn’t work so well in the free<br />

market, such as puppet theatre<br />

or certain types of sport. It was<br />

perfect for me, because it was<br />

40 • may <strong>2014</strong>


tICKEtS: (030) 30 10 6 80 88<br />

www.trinitymusic.de<br />

15.05.14 . zitadelle 15.05.14 . huxleys<br />

really on the fringe of society. One didn’t feel<br />

under surveillance. In this small, poetic niche,<br />

one could act relatively freely. My kids were still<br />

small – I did puppet shows for them. I didn’t do<br />

puppet theatre for long, though. I began to do<br />

one-man shows.<br />

Do you possess any Ostalgie? Not really, to<br />

be honest. I’m happy that things move on. I<br />

still have an unfulfilled yearning for glamour. It<br />

really was very, very grey in the East. The clothes<br />

looked bad. Nothing was done right – nothing<br />

was really rocking. I’m interested in the Western<br />

world, and all the refinement and glamour,<br />

especially of earlier times, which is why I am so<br />

fascinated by Bad Gastein.<br />

And now your album is sponsored by<br />

trendy sunglasses brand ic!Berlin. I’ve been<br />

working with them for a very long time. I am<br />

like their ornamental hermit, a hermit who lives<br />

in an English park because the English lords like<br />

it. As an ornamental hermit one plays loneliness,<br />

at the edge of society. The funny thing is<br />

that, with this, I landed in the middle of society,<br />

amidst branding and marketing.<br />

You’re performing at the Doofe Musik<br />

[Stupid Music] Festival, a kind of an intellectual<br />

look at escapism in music. How<br />

do you understand the concept of stupid<br />

music? It’s an ambivalent situation. I find escapism<br />

fundamentally good. There is actually really<br />

stupid music, meaning really dumb. But I take<br />

it as when you love someone and you tell them,<br />

“You’re being silly” – it’s more of an embrace. For<br />

me, that’s a compliment. Of course, if everyone<br />

is escapist, the world will fall apart. But we need<br />

people at the edges of society who build side<br />

streets into the unknown. And when they return<br />

and walk back-and-forth, it becomes a main<br />

street on which other people can walk back-andforth<br />

– and this is how reality expands. Escapism<br />

is very important. Artist are escapists. Lovers<br />

and alcoholics are escapists. There are many<br />

attempts to escape this world, and thereby one<br />

expands the world.<br />

Is this what you mean when your website<br />

declaims, “We’re not in this world to love<br />

the wrong women. Do you understand<br />

me?” Actually, it’s a literal declaration of love.<br />

It’s a hugely flirty thing to say to a women you’re<br />

trying to seduce. “We’re not in this world to love<br />

the wrong women” implies that this is, perhaps,<br />

the right one. ■<br />

Friedrich<br />

Liechtenstein<br />

in five dates<br />

1956 Born in Stalinstadt<br />

(now Eisenhüttenstadt)<br />

as Hans-Holger<br />

Friedrich.<br />

1995 Moves to Berlin.<br />

2003 Launches<br />

electropop career as<br />

Friedrich Liechtenstein.<br />

2013 Produces “Supergeil” with Der Tourist.<br />

The viral EDEKA commercial based<br />

on the track follows shortly thereafter.<br />

<strong>2014</strong> Release of the single “Belgique,<br />

Belgique” in April, to be followed by the album<br />

Bad Gastein in June.<br />

Esra Rotthoff<br />

Ralph Anderl<br />

04.06.14 . zitadelle<br />

Liz green<br />

17.05.14 . Privatclub<br />

emiLy barker<br />

+ Chris t-t + John aLLen<br />

18.05.14 . grüner salon<br />

rodrigo amarante<br />

sänger von „Los hermanos“ & „LittLe Joy“<br />

18.05.14 . Privatclub<br />

badbadnotgood<br />

19.05.14 . grüner salon<br />

bear‘s den<br />

+ matthew & the atLas<br />

20.05.14 . Lido<br />

Cherub<br />

21.05.14 . Prince Charles<br />

the Pretty things<br />

22.05.14 . Frannz<br />

KulturNews & ZITTY präsentieren:<br />

NEIL FINN<br />

spec. guest: Tiny Ruins<br />

Do. 08.05. Einlass 20:00 Postbahnhof<br />

THE TROUBLE<br />

WITH TEMPLETON<br />

Do. 15.05. Einlass 19:00 Maschinenhaus<br />

KulturNews & ZITTY präsentieren:<br />

THE QUEEN<br />

EXTRAVAGANZA<br />

The Official Queen Tribute Band<br />

Di. 20.05. Einlass 20:00 Postbahnhof<br />

INTRO, ByteFM, PIRANHA & RADIO FRITZ präsentieren:<br />

LORDE<br />

Do. 29.05. Einlass 19:00 Columbiahalle<br />

Infos unter www.mct-agentur.com<br />

Online Tickets unter www.tickets.de Ticket Hotline: 030 - 6110 1313<br />

ISAAC’S<br />

EYE<br />

SCienCe & TheaTre<br />

Written by LuCAS HNATH<br />

Directed by GüNTHER GRoSSER<br />

etb<br />

plus concerts by Saudia Young<br />

and Sofia Talvik, Comedy<br />

Sportz, PS122 Global, the<br />

International Comedy Showcase<br />

and much more!<br />

<strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong><br />

10.06.14 . astra kulturhaus<br />

young knives<br />

27.05.14 . magnet<br />

miCah P. hinson<br />

28.05.14 . Privatclub<br />

robert FranCis<br />

& the night tide<br />

31.05.14 . Frannz<br />

merChandise<br />

02.06.14 . kantine berghain<br />

awoLnation<br />

04.06.14 . C-Club<br />

wye oak<br />

+ baCheLorette<br />

04.06.14 . Lido<br />

Luke sitaL-singh<br />

04.06.14 . kantine berghain<br />

International Performing Arts Center<br />

41<br />

ETBERLIN.dE


What’s on<br />

music and nightlife<br />

concert picks<br />

Fri, <strong>May</strong> 2 - Sat, <strong>May</strong> 3, 20:00<br />

Occulto Fest (Wild ’n’ Wacky)<br />

Although the now-annual<br />

Occulto Fest is less Crowley-esque<br />

than an average<br />

night at the Kit Kat Club, it<br />

does bring some likeably<br />

outré souls to Berlin. Night<br />

one hosts the Godspeed-y<br />

ENSEMBLE ECONOMIC,<br />

the chip scratch fever of<br />

MARTA ZAPPAROLI and<br />

locals RVNES, whose<br />

name is so au courant that I can’t be bothered to figure out<br />

what they sound like. Saturday stars Thurston-benighted<br />

JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER (photo), Boring Machines’<br />

UMCB – VON TESLA and SARA BONAVENTURE in drone-y<br />

and industrial collaboration, and post-punky RUINS OF<br />

KRÜGER. Plus videos. And DJs! West Germany, Skalitzer<br />

Str. 133, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor<br />

Fri, <strong>May</strong> 23, 19:30<br />

Thomas Dutronc (Chanson Aristocrat)<br />

This child of yé-yé heroes<br />

and occasional movie<br />

stars François Hardy<br />

and Jacques Dutronc<br />

shows that the beignet<br />

does not fry far from<br />

the boulangerie, with an<br />

approach a bit jauntier –<br />

or Djangoier – than the<br />

similarly pedigreed<br />

Benjamin Biolay. Starting<br />

out as a jazz guitarist, those Django comparisons are<br />

inevitable, and though THOMAS DUTRONC has been a<br />

French pop fixture since his mid-thirties, Gypsy-besotted<br />

Berlin should take to him like the aforementioned beignet<br />

takes to a colon. Imperial Club, Friedrichstr. 101, Mitte,<br />

S+U-Bhf Friedrichstr.<br />

Sun, <strong>May</strong> 25, 21:00<br />

Billy Hart Quartet (Jazz Legend)<br />

Having driven the electric<br />

music of Miles Davis and<br />

Herbie Hancock at their<br />

most avant, Pharaoh<br />

Sanders at his most cosmic<br />

and Stan Getz at his<br />

most plaintive, drummer<br />

BILLY HART has released<br />

excellent records under his<br />

own name in the past, but<br />

many have been surprised<br />

by his recent ECM-based renaissance, leading a band<br />

featuring Ethan Iverson on piano and Mark Turner on reeds.<br />

Finagling an experimental edge within the tradition, it’s one<br />

of jazz’s finest working bands. A-Trane, Bleibtreustr. 1,<br />

Charlottenburg, S-Bhf Savignyplatz<br />

Sat, <strong>May</strong> 31, 20:00<br />

Lee “Scratch” Perry & the White Belly Rats<br />

(Dub Legend)<br />

When Exberliner interviewed<br />

Black Ark dub legend<br />

LEE “SCRATCH” PERRY<br />

almost a decade ago, he<br />

informed us that if any<br />

human were to be like an<br />

animal, then “that human<br />

being would be fucking<br />

lucky.” So it makes sense<br />

that his longtime backing<br />

band is named THE WHITE<br />

BELLY RATS. At 78, Perry has been taking a decadeslong<br />

victory lap; though he records pretty frequently, he’s<br />

more of a producer’s collectible. Not unlike many of the<br />

rare records he’s put out. Yaam, An der Schillingbrücke,<br />

Friedrichshain, S-Bhf Ostbahnhof<br />

John Rogers<br />

Veronica Jonsson<br />

A chat with... Owen Pallett<br />

By Aoife McKeown<br />

Longtime Arcade Fire fiddle player and Canadian loop-pedal enthusiast<br />

OWEN PALLETT’s fourth solo album, In Conflict (Domino), is aptly titled<br />

in its aggression, so don’t confuse him with his former Final Fantasy<br />

moniker. Just off an Oscar nomination for the score to Spike Jonze’s<br />

Her, he’ll be personalising our algorithms along with fellow avant-queer<br />

band Xiu Xiu at Volksbühne on Sunday, <strong>May</strong> 25.<br />

You went to the Oscars. Well, I don’t think<br />

that the Oscar nomination necessarily gauged<br />

for the quality of the movie. Spike won, which<br />

was great. I really don’t know what to say about<br />

the awards ceremony. It seems much more<br />

glamorous maybe than it actually is. I had a<br />

conversation with Ethan Hawke for a while,<br />

but I didn’t actually know it was him. I was<br />

just in my own world and not paying attention<br />

or something, or it could also be that he just<br />

looks really different in real life. He was like,<br />

“Something something something,” and I was<br />

like, “Oh yeah, did you have a movie in the<br />

race?” and he said, “Oh, yeah, like, Before Midnight.”<br />

And I said, “Oh yeah, I love that movie!”<br />

But afterwards I thought that must have been<br />

so weird for him to hear. And I met Benedict<br />

Cumberbatch. He was nice.<br />

Plus the hors d’oeurves. You’re being ironic,<br />

but I’m serious. It’s like taking a flight – it<br />

sounds really exciting because you fly out into<br />

the sky, but you think, “I’m kind of uncomfortable.<br />

Where do I get out? Where are my bags?”<br />

Your new record is entitled In Conflict,<br />

but from what I understand, that could<br />

have applied to Her’s recording sessions.<br />

I came to that project late. I was<br />

collaborating with Arcade Fire<br />

on it – so in a way, I had two<br />

bosses. The band had already<br />

been working on the score for a<br />

long time. They felt that there<br />

were some things that needed to<br />

be done that I was quite good at,<br />

like scoring. In the last six weeks,<br />

OWEN PALLETT w/<br />

Xiu Xiu and DJ Mr.<br />

Freeze Sun, <strong>May</strong> 25,<br />

20:00 | Volksbühne,<br />

Linienstr. 227,<br />

Mitte, U-Bhf Rosa-<br />

Luxemburg Platz<br />

I’d say that we got at least half of the score<br />

done. Spike would be just so gentle in expressing<br />

himself and I’d be, like, “Yeah, here we go,<br />

do another take” and I would just seem like<br />

such an asshole. He’s a sweetheart.<br />

Were the changes related to Scarlett Johansson<br />

replacing Samantha Morton as the<br />

voice of the OS? One hundred percent. When<br />

the band first started working on it, it began as a<br />

science fiction movie examining the technological<br />

and philosophical questions. But along the<br />

way – Spike didn’t have any producers to answer<br />

to, so this was entirely his decision – he wanted to<br />

turn it more into a romance. So the score had to<br />

be entirely redone. Initially, it was a much more<br />

futuristic, Blade Runner-y kind of style – still very<br />

beautiful and organic, but instrumentally, sonically,<br />

more sci-fi. So then they had to redo it in<br />

this more romantic kind of way, with strings and<br />

electric guitars – more explosions in the sky.<br />

What did In Conflict explode from? Essentially,<br />

the songs were born out of a period<br />

in my life when I was feeling confused about<br />

the relationship between my conscious self and<br />

my unconscious self. I was confused that when<br />

my body was free from caffeine and alcohol,<br />

or if I was doing exercise, my body had<br />

an entirely different way of processing<br />

information than when I was intoxicated.<br />

And other darker states of being relating<br />

to sanity and gender dysphoria. Like,<br />

transgenderism? Some people can feel<br />

completely non-male or non-female depending<br />

on their birth gender. That would<br />

take me all afternoon to talk about. ■<br />

42 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Ich will nicht nach Berlin<br />

Ghosts and heroes of Hansa By Lady Gaby<br />

We know Hansa Studios, in farwest<br />

Kreuzberg just off Potsdamer<br />

Platz, as the birthplace of David<br />

Bowie’s “Heroes” and U2’s Achtung<br />

Baby. But what’s it like to record<br />

there today? German musician<br />

Andrea Schroeder and her band<br />

had the chance to find out while<br />

laying down a pair of tracks for<br />

their sophomore album, Where<br />

the Wild Oceans End.<br />

“I believe the studio is very<br />

important for the mood in the<br />

song. Houses have their memories;<br />

mixing desks do too. And while<br />

recording in such a place you are<br />

able to record things besides what’s<br />

obviously heard. You catch spirits.”<br />

Appropriate, then, that one of the<br />

tracks her band recorded in Hansa<br />

is titled “Ghosts of Berlin”.<br />

“‘Ghosts of Berlin’ got born as one for all<br />

the forgotten people, for the hidden in the<br />

dark, and also for remembering the ghosts<br />

of the past,” says Schroeder. The first time<br />

the band played the song live at the release<br />

concert for debut album Blackbird, Lutz<br />

Mastmeyer from Glitterhouse Records<br />

imagined Andrea singing the German version<br />

of “Heroes” but with original lyrics. “My<br />

first thought was that it would be a kind of<br />

suicide, but I started to discover the German<br />

‘Helden’ (‘heroes’) lyrics for myself and found<br />

a very personal meaning. The first times we<br />

played it, I always heard David Bowie’s voice<br />

in my head. But he slowly disappeared and<br />

left space for my own interpretation.”<br />

While the majority of the album was<br />

recorded at Ocean Sound Recording Studios<br />

in Giske, Norway, it made sense for them to<br />

record these two songs in Hansa Studios. “I<br />

could even feel the Wall while singing the lyrics,”<br />

says Schroeder. “It was the only possible<br />

place to record these very Berlin connected<br />

songs.” They also recorded a third track,<br />

“Kisses For My President”, for the upcoming<br />

Jeffrey Lee Pierce Session Project, out in <strong>May</strong>.<br />

The only German in the band, Schroeder<br />

is accompanied by Jesper Lehmkuhl (guitar)<br />

from Copenhagen and Dave Allen (bass) and<br />

Chris Hughes (drums) from Australia.<br />

Most of the songs are created by<br />

Schroeder in close collaboration with<br />

Lehmkuhl, and once the song starts,<br />

everyone else adds their personal<br />

interpretation and creativity. “Sometimes<br />

we play a song 20 times just to<br />

get the feel of it. We have a shared<br />

vision and because we come from a<br />

similar musical background, things<br />

fall easily into place,” says Hughes.<br />

He, too, was excited to record in<br />

the same house as the band’s musical<br />

heroes. “It had the atmosphere of the<br />

old divided city and is very much in<br />

the zeitgeist from Berlin, and if you<br />

looked out of the window 25 years<br />

ago, you would have seen the Wall.”<br />

There were drawbacks to recording<br />

there. “The air conditioning in<br />

the studio was so cold that for the vocal<br />

recordings we had to put up a boilingwater-filled<br />

bucket to moisten the air,” says<br />

Schroeder. And, says Lehmkuhl, “I missed a<br />

smokers’ lounge. Smoking was possible out<br />

of the kitchen window only.”<br />

Despite that, says Schroeder, “It is an<br />

excellently equipped studio in the centre of<br />

Berlin, and the songs on their new album are<br />

very inspired by the town itself. I’m sure our<br />

fans appreciate our music being recorded<br />

there. The only appropriate place to record a<br />

cover of ‘Heroes’ is the place where the song<br />

was born. So it was amazing that we could go<br />

there to make it happen.” ■<br />

Dixie Schmiedle<br />

Billy Budd – Benjamin Britten<br />

Conductor: donald Runnicles<br />

director: david Alden<br />

Opening Night on 22 <strong>May</strong> <strong>2014</strong>; 28, 31 <strong>May</strong>; 3, 6 June <strong>2014</strong><br />

Stan Hema; Fotografie © Heji Shin<br />

Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bismarckstraße 35, 10627 Berlin<br />

Tickets and Information: +49 [30]-343 84 343<br />

www.deutscheoperberlin.de<br />

43


What’s on<br />

art<br />

Hans Richter – Encounters –<br />

“From Dada till today”<br />

This exhibition showcases<br />

the highly influential<br />

Modernist’s work ranging<br />

from the early years as<br />

one of the founders of<br />

the Dada movement and<br />

onwards till his death in<br />

1976. As Richter was an<br />

early proponent of film as<br />

an artistic outlet, a large<br />

portion of the exhibition<br />

centres on moving<br />

pictures and features collaborations with contemporaries<br />

such as Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and Kazimir Malevich.<br />

It’s a thorough retrospective showing the multi-medial<br />

artist’s lasting influence on both the art world and the<br />

politically radical one. MH Through Jun 30, Martin-<br />

Gropius-Bau, Niederkirchnerstr. 7, Kreuzberg, S+U-Bhf<br />

Potsdamer Platz, Wed-Mon 10-19<br />

Irene Hofmann – Bewohnter Planet<br />

The desperate obliqueness<br />

of desolate city<br />

outskirts is something<br />

Berlin-based painter Irene<br />

Hofmann uses to her<br />

advantage, somehow extracting<br />

beauty from barren<br />

concrete graveyards.<br />

Her current show, whose<br />

title means “Inhabited<br />

Planet”, confronts the<br />

leftover spaces that go overlooked and ignored, yet are<br />

integral to the overflow of any urban area. Formally her<br />

work explores geometric patterns and soft colour palettes,<br />

varying by season with the light from work to work. CM<br />

Through <strong>May</strong> 18, Brotfabrik, Caligariplatz 1, Prenzlauer<br />

Berg, S-Bhf Prenzlauer Allee, Mon-Sat 9-18<br />

Kei Takemura + Isa Schmidlehner –<br />

Take Good Care<br />

The two ladies join<br />

force to bring a strong<br />

throwdown of expressionism<br />

and daily insight. The<br />

exhibition shows that loud<br />

can also come softly, as<br />

the works approach in<br />

an almost quiet way, yet<br />

get louder just moments<br />

after you make contact<br />

with their presence.<br />

Schmidlehner’s bright watercolour-esque paintings<br />

serve as backdrop to Takemura’s light-infused daily life<br />

performance. This is one of those shows that just sneaks<br />

up on you and... BOOM! FM <strong>May</strong> 27-Jul 5, Patrick<br />

Ebensperger Galerie, Plantagenstr 30, Wedding, S-Bhf<br />

Wedding, Tue-Fri 12-18-30, Sat 12-16<br />

Lawrence Power – Paintings<br />

Buried within the wildly<br />

abstract, heavily textured<br />

works in Lawrence Power’s<br />

first solo exhibition are<br />

suggestions of landscapes<br />

or human faces. Eyes<br />

seem to wink in and out<br />

of broad fields of colour<br />

punctuated by violent<br />

streaks. Power, a New<br />

Zealander who migrated<br />

to Berlin, started working with oils on cardboard before<br />

switching to canvas. His creations still have a slightly sculptural<br />

feel, thanks to the thick layers of colour he applies,<br />

molds, slices, slashes and scrapes. The overall effect borders<br />

on collage, hovering somewhere between classical and<br />

contemporary. DH Through <strong>May</strong> 24, Galerie Emmanuel<br />

Post, Grolmanstr. 46, Charlottenburg, Tue-Sat 12-19<br />

“It’s kind of like the puzzle<br />

of a psycho” By Fridey Mickel<br />

Berlin-based, world-travelling, award-winning photographer Sascha<br />

Weidner reveals his illogical side at his new show Aokihagara.<br />

This month he receives the first-ever Entrepreneur<br />

4.0 prize, worth €15,000, for his groundbreaking<br />

photography. Yet what makes us fall<br />

in love with his work is his illogical, poetic side,<br />

which Berlin art lovers can witness for themselves<br />

at his show at Pavlov’s Dog, opening <strong>May</strong> 1.<br />

Your series about the suicide forest in<br />

Japan is quite striking. I was there, like eight<br />

times, in that forest where people kill themselves.<br />

It’s the second-biggest location for suicide.<br />

In the one I won the prize for, the cherry<br />

blossom at night, there’s also some weird thing<br />

inside, for the aesthetics or whatever to add up.<br />

Where do your photos come from? That’s<br />

a good question! I like what the jury said, they<br />

gave me the prize because i knew myself and<br />

that my works are like different aspects of approach<br />

to photography, questioning photography,<br />

and also questioning myself in the field of<br />

photography. There’s a big biographical aspect<br />

in my work, but also a huge fragility. There are<br />

some German moments inside of a romantic,<br />

clinched... restlessness, like since my first cry as a<br />

baby. Always in a hurry, trying to find images.<br />

But how is what you do different?<br />

In one of the exhibitions I<br />

did in the museum of photography,<br />

there was one room with 1001<br />

photographs. They were arranged<br />

by colour, which is totally strange,<br />

and totally stupid for photography<br />

in a way. So actually, I invited every<br />

person who visited the exhibition<br />

Sascha Weidner —<br />

Aokihagara<br />

Starts <strong>May</strong> 1 |<br />

Pavlov’s Dog, Bergstr.<br />

19, Prenzlauer Berg,<br />

S-Bhf Nordbahnhof,<br />

Thu-Sat 16-20<br />

to take one photograph with them as a present.<br />

Every photograph was signed, there was a stamp,<br />

there was a number. So here you can also see<br />

how the exhibition space changed. Of course, it<br />

was intellectual manipulation. If you say, “You<br />

get one for free”, the person looks at the exhibition<br />

differently. There were people coming and<br />

spending 40 minutes in this room...<br />

“You don’t have to photograph it to own it.”<br />

What do you think about that? Sure. <strong>May</strong>be<br />

I am the one who took the picture, but that<br />

doesn’t mean the image belongs to me, I was<br />

just the one able to see it. I don’t need to pick<br />

the flowers, because also maybe the photograph<br />

leaves them there. That’s almost too sentimental<br />

and starts to get kitschy, but for example, a lot of<br />

images that I photograph are like codes.<br />

Do you have an example in mind? I have that<br />

one photograph of a bed linen. You were not<br />

in that bed. <strong>May</strong>be I was, you don’t even know.<br />

The photograph stands in one context for love;<br />

in another, it looks almost like an aerial view<br />

of mountains. If I put this in this installation<br />

where I did it already, where you can see the<br />

death portrait of my mother or my dad, you have<br />

sheets inferring lovers and sex moving<br />

over to the last sheet, which you pull<br />

over a dead body. So, it’s about the<br />

codes. If I photograph flowers, the<br />

image might remind them of another<br />

location in their lives, and even more<br />

about smell, feeling a stage of their<br />

lives. This is also a very interesting<br />

thing, it’s full of interpretation. It’s<br />

44 • may <strong>2014</strong>


art<br />

editor’s<br />

pick<br />

always in a flow; it’s kind of like the puzzle<br />

of a psycho.<br />

Your exhibitions are never quite just<br />

about the photos... It’s not about putting<br />

pictures on the wall. I use the room to<br />

tell my story, to create a theme, a storyline,<br />

underlined by a romantic melancholy. It’s<br />

totally authentic, like I am. A lot of times,<br />

it’s also too much, like I am. Feeling too<br />

much and speaking too much. ■<br />

The Biennale bounces back<br />

uwe walter<br />

Since 1998 the Berlin Biennale, the near cultlevel<br />

fair initiated by KW founder Klaus Biesenbach,<br />

has surfaced biannually with new curators,<br />

themes, and locations, on the heels of Documenta<br />

as one of Germany's most important art events.<br />

With the 2012 edition poorly received by critics<br />

like Frieze Magazine's Jörg Heiser and Monopol's<br />

Sarah Lehnert, this year's Biennale, the eighth, has<br />

nowhere to go but up. Locations have expanded to<br />

include new participants in the west of Berlin, including<br />

the picturesque waterfront Haus am Waldsee as<br />

well as the Ethnological Museum Dahlem.<br />

Looking backwards, curator Juan A. Gaitán has<br />

harnessed the works of 50-plus international artists<br />

in a Berlin-centric, yet universal exhibition. This year<br />

is themed around historical narratives and their<br />

timeless relevance to our lives. As broad a concept<br />

as it is, research and preparation focused on 18thand<br />

19th-century perceptions and comparisons to<br />

Berlin today, especially relationships to building and<br />

architecture, residents and labour movements<br />

(or, sometimes, lack thereof).<br />

Already open for visitors since late<br />

January, KW's exhibition Crash Pad, by<br />

participating artist Andreas Angelidakis,<br />

was this Biennale's first commissioned<br />

work. The cosy sitting space and library resembles<br />

a 19th-century salon and is filled<br />

with antique carpets intended to portray an<br />

iconographic transition from an Ottoman<br />

to a more European style of domesticity.<br />

The title has equal relevance to Greece's<br />

initial economic crisis from 1893, after<br />

which European intervention was needed<br />

to restore economic security. Relevant ties<br />

to the past are anything but a stretch.<br />

Australian text-based artist Agatha<br />

Gothe-Snape has already released an<br />

ongoing work titled Untitled, the meat<br />

of which comes from multiple sources,<br />

currently including a regular dialogue with<br />

Gaitán about Biennale production, execution<br />

and conception. Along with conversations<br />

with Gaitan, she uses text from all facets of<br />

modern life as inspiration, including various forms<br />

of social media, news, entertainment, literature,<br />

advertisements and other dialogues from<br />

relationships – personal, business or otherwise. A<br />

current version of this digital work is available for<br />

viewing on the Biennale website.<br />

Specific pieces from participants remain elusive,<br />

but more are announced with every passing week.<br />

Included in the lineup is Berliner Mariana Castillo<br />

Deball, whose Richard Serra-esque swooping sculptures<br />

combine soft abstraction<br />

with complex pattern<br />

and detail work. Her largescale<br />

work "Uncomfortable<br />

Objects" wowed at 2012's<br />

Documenta, showing promise<br />

for the upcoming show.<br />

Camille Moreno<br />

Berlin Biennale<br />

<strong>May</strong> 29 - Aug 8 | KW,<br />

Haus am Waldsee,<br />

Museen Dahlem, full<br />

programme at www.<br />

berlinbiennale.de<br />

UNTIL 02.06.<strong>2014</strong><br />

DOROTHY IANNONE<br />

THIS SWEETNESS OUTSIDE OF TIME<br />

GEMÄLDE, OBJEKTE, BÜCHER 1959–<strong>2014</strong><br />

Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobstraße 124–128, 10969 Berlin, Wed–Mon 10am–6pm<br />

www.berlinischegalerie.de, www.facebook.com/berlinischegalerie<br />

45<br />

Dorothy Iannone, aus: Dialogues (unnumbered), 1968,<br />

Sammlung Andersch, Neuss, Foto: Kai-Annett Becker


What’s on<br />

art<br />

Neue Baukunst<br />

This rare glimpse of<br />

German architecture in<br />

the early 20th century<br />

showcases black and<br />

white photographs and<br />

sketches from Walter<br />

Müller-Wulckow’s Die<br />

Blauen Bücher series.<br />

The exhibit offers other<br />

glimpses into the development<br />

of the four books,<br />

including critical reviews, letters and even instructions<br />

to “burn the sky” or “remove that pile of trash” from<br />

specific images. The work on display seeks out beauty<br />

in otherwise understated, everyday architecture. DH<br />

Through Jun 10, Bauhaus-Archiv Museum, Klingelhöferstr.<br />

14, Charlottenburg, Wed-Mon 10-17<br />

Raïssa Venables – Clearing Space<br />

Visitors should expect<br />

to be lured into another<br />

dimension when viewing<br />

Venables’ work. She takes<br />

a very important element<br />

of successful painting<br />

and re-appropriates it<br />

for use in packaging her<br />

photography. Her works<br />

glimmer, not due to<br />

high-resolution, light or<br />

sharpness, but to the fact that each ‘photo’ consists of<br />

many tiny photos acting sort of like pixels that compose<br />

the total image. What at first looks seamless concedes<br />

to layers and layers of work, giving the contents of the<br />

exhibition backbone and material weight in this world. FM<br />

<strong>May</strong> 9 - Jun 21, Wagner + Partner, Strausberger Platz 8,<br />

Friedrichshain, U-Bhf Schillingstr., Tue - Sat 13-18<br />

Rembrandt Bugatti<br />

The brother of the famous<br />

carmaker takes over Alte<br />

Nationalgalerie with a<br />

large selection of sculptures<br />

and sketches. Ranging<br />

from the ordinary with<br />

cows and fawns to the<br />

exotic with anteaters and<br />

elephants, the sculptures<br />

often take on an organic<br />

character with visible<br />

tool marks accentuating the materials, blurring the divide<br />

between material and subject matter. He only rarely<br />

depicted human characters, but when he did they give<br />

off a sense of projected savageness, silently speaking<br />

volumes about human nature. MH Through Jul 27, Alte<br />

Nationalgalerie, Bodestr. 1-3, Mitte, S-Bhf Hackescher<br />

Markt, Tue-Sun 10-18<br />

The Children Pox Collective – The tree of<br />

the bird with a shadow<br />

Marking their first exhibition<br />

as ‘The Children Pox<br />

Collective’, artists Juan<br />

Zamora & Alejandra<br />

Freymann work under<br />

alter egos Josephine and<br />

Victor Glass, to produce<br />

a postal cadavre exquis.<br />

Exchanging drawings<br />

per snail mail between<br />

Madrid and Johannesburg<br />

over the last six months, they created a complete<br />

storyline through their works. This form of change due to<br />

circumstance presents themes of artistic identity from a<br />

new angle. The visitor actively takes part in the development<br />

and resolution, deepening the game of cognition<br />

and mystery. FM Through <strong>May</strong> 18, Vesselroom Project,<br />

Adalbertstr. 4, Kreuzberg, U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor, Wed-Fri<br />

2-18, Sat 15-18<br />

Chinese art: the next generation<br />

In 1993, the<br />

show Mythos<br />

China at the<br />

Haus der Kulturen<br />

der Welt<br />

became the stuff<br />

of Berlin legend.<br />

A young German<br />

artist named<br />

Andreas Schmid<br />

had just arrived<br />

from China<br />

and wanted to<br />

present some<br />

of the fabulous<br />

new friends he<br />

made there. He<br />

went to nonprofit<br />

spaces like Künstlerhaus Bethanien, but kept<br />

getting turned down due to the political undertones<br />

of showing Chinese contemporary art. He landed<br />

at HKW, and they gave him the open ear. The show<br />

ended up being the first ever Chinese contemporary<br />

art exhibition outside of the country, yet came<br />

together without help from the Chinese government.<br />

Twenty years later, Andreas Schmid returns with<br />

new show Die 8 der Wege, currently on view at the<br />

Uferhallen in Wedding.<br />

It acts like a second chapter to its massive<br />

predecessor, and is equally massive in its own<br />

right. Schmid and co-curator Thomas Eller use 23<br />

different artistic positions to pick up where the last<br />

show left off, to present their attempt to answer the<br />

question, “What is ‘Modern Chinese’?” The show’s<br />

starting point was a Chinese biennale in 2008, a<br />

watershed moment in China that acted as a driving<br />

force pushing the art to ‘go West’. Both Schmid<br />

and Eller have spent extensive time in China over<br />

the last years – Schmid in particular has travelled<br />

between Germany and China since the early 1980s,<br />

arriving just in time to witness firsthand the development<br />

of chinese contemporary art right at the point<br />

of the aftermath of the cultural revolution in the late<br />

Three-day free-for-all<br />

1970s.<br />

Along with<br />

Shanghai-based<br />

curator Guo<br />

Xiaoyan, the two<br />

worked together in<br />

the quest to define<br />

a cultural context,<br />

working out differences<br />

between<br />

western and Asian<br />

art, and dissecting<br />

ancient Chinese<br />

social philosophy,<br />

such as ideas on<br />

what ‘revolution’<br />

means in Chinese<br />

culture, and how<br />

chinese definitions<br />

of concepts<br />

such as ‘freedom’<br />

contrast to that of<br />

the western world.<br />

What is interesting<br />

about the show is<br />

the blatant onesidedness<br />

of only<br />

showing Chinese art in this dialogue between East<br />

and West. Yet the objectivity prevails through the<br />

balancing of the curators.<br />

Will this show be remembered in Berlin, a place<br />

currently in such need of non-Western art influence?<br />

The thing which seems to carry it is the<br />

reputation of the curators, yet the artwork – from<br />

dazzling light work by Li Hui to a subversive “North<br />

Korean Film Festival” by Utopia Group – really<br />

does hold its own. The chance to experience this<br />

fascinating dimension within the contemporary<br />

art world is well worth the trip to Wedding. Also<br />

in support of the show is an amazing multimedia<br />

website (die8derwege.info) offering background<br />

and lots of interviews – make sure to check it out<br />

before you go. FM<br />

Gallery Weekend<br />

<strong>May</strong> 2-4 | various<br />

locations, full<br />

programme at www.<br />

gallery-weekendberlin.de<br />

DIE 8 DER WEGE<br />

Through Jul 13 |<br />

Uferhallen, Uferstr.<br />

8, Wedding, U-Bhf<br />

Pankstr., Mon-Sat<br />

13-20, Sun 11-18<br />

Gallery Weekend celebrates its first decade of<br />

existence with this year's 72-hour, city-wide orgy of<br />

consecutive art parties and exhibition vernissages. For<br />

every one of the 50 officially participating galleries,<br />

bargain for another three unofficial freeloader galleries<br />

to host events nearby, resulting in an inharnessable<br />

smorgasbord of hundreds of events that attract more<br />

and more visitors each year. Sure, some of the participating<br />

exhibitions are on view anyway during the weeks<br />

prior or post. However, the weekend festival features<br />

special talks and parties, like a brunch at Berlinische<br />

Galerie on Saturday morning and a discussion later<br />

that day at Me Collectors Room with salient Italian art<br />

collector Patrizia Sandretto. Our personal favourite for<br />

the weekend is the Blackmarket<br />

show happening <strong>May</strong> 2-3 at<br />

L17 (Lehrter Str. 17, Moabit),<br />

featuring over 64 artists including<br />

Römer + Römer (photo). If<br />

ever there was a time to binge<br />

on arty-farty schmooze cake,<br />

it's now. Did we mention the<br />

entire weekend is free? CM<br />

46 • may <strong>2014</strong>


The language school directory<br />

Find the perfect school for you to learn German easily in any part of town.<br />

✓<br />

✓<br />

✓<br />

ESL PROLOG – Berlin<br />

German courses + 16 other languages<br />

Exam Centre telc, Cambridge ESOL<br />

Teacher Training<br />

Berlin<br />

ESL PROLOG<br />

...die Sprachenschule<br />

seit 1986<br />

www.prolog-berlin.com<br />

Hauptstr. 23/24<br />

10827 Berlin-Schöneberg (U7 Kleistpark)<br />

781 10 76<br />

where<br />

interesting<br />

people meet<br />

gls campus<br />

kastanienallee 82 . p-berg<br />

www.gls-berlin.de<br />

Language School<br />

TestDaF-Zentrum<br />

Where it’s fun to learn German.<br />

Great German teachers<br />

Join anytime<br />

Exams and certificates<br />

• In the middle of Berlin-Neukölln<br />

4 weeks<br />

Deutsch<br />

188€<br />

die<br />

deutSCHule<br />

Karl-Marx-Straße 107<br />

12043 Berlin-Neukölln<br />

Voice +49 30 6808 5223<br />

www.die-deutschule.de<br />

SPRACHwerk<br />

die Sprachschule im Fachwerkhof<br />

Improve your German!<br />

Competent German teachers<br />

+ small groups + friendly<br />

atmosphere<br />

Now located near<br />

Potsdamer Platz<br />

Potsdamer Str. 98a,<br />

10785 Berlin<br />

030 2300 5570<br />

www.ifs-deutsch.de<br />

“Learn German through<br />

English”<br />

• Bilingual Teaching Method<br />

• Comparative Approach<br />

• Individual Lessons<br />

• Intensive Group Course<br />

• Accent Reduction<br />

Solmsstraße 30 10961<br />

Tel: (030) 44 73 1949<br />

www.sprachwerk-berlin.de<br />

Want to sublet your flat?<br />

We’ll help you!<br />

• professional service<br />

• entirely free of charge<br />

• direct contact with potential tenants<br />

Furnished or unfurnished, all districts,<br />

all sizes, by the month or longer.<br />

Please register your flat online:<br />

www.exberlinerflatrentals.com<br />

Tel: 0049 30 47372964,<br />

Max-Beer-Str. 48, 10119 Berlin<br />

Office hours: 10.00 to 14.00<br />

47


Where to go in Mitte<br />

8<br />

1. HASHI KITCHEN offers authentic Japanese<br />

tapas inspired by traditional Japanese<br />

family-style sharing with an open kitchen for<br />

you to enjoy the chef’s performance. Hashi<br />

also offers a wide selection of Japanese<br />

spirits, including schochu. Rosenthaler Str.<br />

63, Tel 030 6796 1459, Mon-Sat 12-24, Sun<br />

18-24, www.hashi-kitchen.de<br />

10<br />

7<br />

2<br />

5<br />

3<br />

6<br />

1<br />

4<br />

12<br />

9<br />

11<br />

2. KONK The largest selection of Berlin-based<br />

designer fashion including labels Anntian, Boessert<br />

Schorn, Hanna Pordzik, Isabell de Hillerin, Hui<br />

Hui, Kiesel, Mikenke, Naoko Ogawa, Nico Sutor,<br />

Penelope‘s Sphere & Thone Negrón. Support your<br />

local designers & look fab! Kleine Hamburger<br />

Str. 15, Tel 030 2809 7839, Mon-Fri 12-19,<br />

Sat 12-18, www.konk-berlin.de<br />

3. Fräulein burger’s handcrafted<br />

burgers are lovingly made with 100% organic ingredients<br />

which are sourced locally. The organic<br />

meat is freshly minced several times a day and<br />

gives the burgers an incomparably juicy taste.<br />

They also offer delicious vegan and vegetarian<br />

options! Koppenplatz 1, Tel 030 4672 0908,<br />

Tue-Sun 12-22, www.fraeuleinburger.de<br />

4. Kaffee Burger This charming<br />

old-school pub-club has been hosting poetry<br />

readings, songwriters & indie talent for years.<br />

After 11, the main room morphs into an<br />

all-night dancefloor. Home of the legendary<br />

Russendisko. Torstr. 58-60, Tel 030 2804<br />

6495, Mon-Sat from 22, Sun from 19,<br />

www.kaffeeburger.de<br />

5. Fire Bar After reunification, Berlin<br />

exploded with underground bars. In Fire Bar<br />

you can still feel the spirit of the Berlin underground.<br />

Cheap drinks, sofas, funky lights: the<br />

fire is always burnin’ in this cosy cellar bar.<br />

Krausnickstr. 5, Tel 030 2838 5119,<br />

Mon-Sun from 20, www.fire-club.de<br />

6. BAGEL COMPANY The best bagels in<br />

town! Their motto is fresh, natural and delicious<br />

- or bagelicious! Fresh ingredients, creatively<br />

prepared, offering a nice alternative to fast food.<br />

Satisfy that bagel craving at any of their 5 locations<br />

in Mitte. Rosenthaler Str. 69, Tel 030<br />

4069 0001, Mon-Sun 8-19:30, Sat 7:30-20,<br />

Sun 7:30-19, www.bagel-company.com<br />

7. ROLAND WEISS, Laywer Employment<br />

law problems spoiling your appetite? Roland<br />

Weiss (German attorney at law) has advised<br />

German & international clients on employment<br />

law for more than ten years. He speaks German,<br />

English, Swedish & French. Tucholskystr.<br />

18-20, Tel 030 3406 0390, roland.weiss@<br />

weisslegal.de, www.weisslegal.de<br />

8. Sauerkraut Donald Duck meets Hansel<br />

and Gretel – in a cosy, wood-panelled restaurant.<br />

German and American food cultures clash<br />

head-on with a menu of meaty delights. Seven<br />

kinds of homemade Wurst, creative burgers &<br />

original tapas. Daily lunch specials for €7.50.<br />

Weinbergsweg 25, Tel 030 6640 8355, Mon-Fri<br />

8-1, Sat-Sun 9-1, www.restaurant-sauerkraut.de<br />

9. The Chelsea Bar On Torstraße, the<br />

new heartbeat of the city, The Chelsea Bar is a<br />

comfy Manhattan style bar that not only serves a<br />

wide variety of wines, beers, long drinks & cocktails,<br />

but also features DJs spinning everything<br />

from indie, electro & any alternative music on a<br />

near nightly basis. Torstr. 59, Mon-Sun from<br />

21, www.facebook.com/thechelseabarberlin<br />

10. Lei e Lui Certified all-organic food at the<br />

lovingly decorated Lei e Lui. A variety of tasty,<br />

creative Mediterranean-Oriental specialities<br />

to choose from. Regular specialties, fresh vegan<br />

vegetable cream soups, curry & couscous,<br />

pasta, risotti & home-made cakes & desserts.<br />

Wilsnacker Str. 61, Tel 030 3020 8890, Wed-<br />

Sat 17-24, Sun 16-23, www.lei-e-lui.de<br />

11. KILKENNY IRISH PUB Lively pub in<br />

Berlin’s Mitte where natives & tourists drink<br />

& party. Live music 2 to 3 nights a week &<br />

international sports on big screens. Great<br />

food, large selections of beers and spirits.<br />

Easy 24h access to public transport. Enjoy<br />

the sun terrace. S-Bhf Hackescher Markt,<br />

Tel 030 2832 084, Mon-Sun from 12, www.<br />

kilkenny-pub.de<br />

12. Dolores What more can we say?<br />

Dolores has unquestionably the best burritos &<br />

quesadillas in Berlin. Recommended by Time<br />

Out, New York Times, Lonely Planet. Voted #1<br />

value for your money by Exberliner readers, you<br />

know it’s the place to eat. Rosa-Luxemburg-<br />

Str.7, Tel 030 2809 9597, Mon-Sat 11:30-22,<br />

Sun 13-22, www.dolores-berlin.de<br />

48 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Where to go in Prenzlauer Berg<br />

8<br />

6<br />

4<br />

1. Memory It’s easy to see why Kylie Minogue<br />

shops here: a haven for vintage lovers,<br />

the small boutique offers an extensive range of<br />

1950s to 1970s treasures from handbags and<br />

suitcases to jewellery and evening dresses… at<br />

affordable prices! Schwedter Str. 2, Tel 0160<br />

6501 4348, Mon-Sat 14-19<br />

3<br />

1<br />

5<br />

7<br />

2<br />

2. GODSHOT simply plays in another league:<br />

the coffee is excellent, the staff is friendly, and<br />

above all they know their stuff. Take your time,<br />

enjoy the casual, laid-back atmosphere of a<br />

great neighbourhood and one of their delicious<br />

cakes. Immanuelkirchstr. 32, Tel 0179 5112<br />

643, Mon-Fri 8-18, Sat 9-18, Sun 13-18,<br />

www.godshot.de<br />

5. LPG BIOMARKT supplies you with<br />

organic meats, cheeses & even cosmetics. Fill<br />

your basket with fresh bread and treat yourself<br />

to a selection of sweet and savoury goods.<br />

Kollwitzstr. 17, Tel 030 322 971 400, Mon-<br />

Sat 9-21, bakery from 7, www.lpg-biomarkt.de<br />

3. ENGELBERG has exactly the thing to<br />

satisfy Southern German comfort food cravings.<br />

Besides the rotating weekly menu, there’s<br />

Alpine cheese, sausage from a small southern<br />

butcher, delicatessen breakfast, cake, bread,<br />

wine and Likör galore. Oderberger Str. 21, Tel<br />

030 4403 0637, Tue-Sat 10-22, Sun 10-20,<br />

www.engelberg-berlin.de<br />

4. NALU DINER From the Homeland of the<br />

Freefill, USA breakfast & comfort food & a great<br />

cheeseburger & tasty lunch & dinner specials.<br />

For dessert there’s homemade pie, malted milkshakes<br />

& rootbeer floats. All served by friendly<br />

servers in their friendly dining room! Dunckerstr.<br />

80a, Tel 030 8975 8632, Mon 9-16, Tue-Sun<br />

9-22, www.nalu-diner.com<br />

6. VEGANZ Prenzlauer Berg’s vegan supermarket<br />

offers a range of exclusively vegan<br />

products, from fruit, vegetables and sweets<br />

to toiletries and cosmetics, as well as vegan<br />

alternatives to meat and dairy. Love being<br />

vegan with Veganz! Schivelbeiner Str. 34,<br />

Mon-Sat 8-21, www.veganz.de, www.facebook.<br />

com/veganz<br />

7. LEIBHAFTIG Crafted beer & Bavarian<br />

tapas! Experience the real German taste of<br />

homemade beer and South German food<br />

in a familiar atmosphere: small, honest &<br />

delicious – just leibhaftig! Metzer Str. 30,<br />

Tel 030 5481 5039, Mon-Sat 18-24, www.<br />

leibhaftig.com<br />

8. LABYRINTH KINDERMUSEUM The<br />

city makers are here! In "Platz da! Kinder<br />

machen Stadt", the new exhibition at the<br />

Labyrinth Kindermuseum, children take on<br />

the job of urban planners, architects and road<br />

builders. Whether it is about the conversion<br />

and colouring of the city scenery, planning<br />

office, construction site or backyard: kids<br />

can develop new creative ideas for their city<br />

everywhere! Exhibition in English & German.<br />

Osloer Str. 12, Tel 030 800 931 150, www.<br />

labyrinth-kindermuseum.de<br />

SUBLET YOUR BERLIN FLAT! Exberliner Flat Rentals has helped Berliners find suitable,<br />

reliable subletters for their flats for more than ten years. Exberliner’s inhouse agency specialises in<br />

furnished flats in central Berlin for stays between 1 and 12 months or longer. Spare yourself the<br />

hassle and list your flat on our website free-of-charge. Tel 030 4737 2964, Mon-Fri 10-14,<br />

www.exberlinerflatrentals.com<br />

To advertise on this page email ads@exberliner.com<br />

49


Where to go in Friedrichshain<br />

i M azing<br />

C O M P U T E R S Y S T E M S<br />

1. iMazing Looking for Apple products? This<br />

shop is iMazing. Friendly and well-trained staff<br />

are ready to assist you with all your Apple equipment<br />

needs and IT services. Whether you’d like<br />

to buy or have a warranty repair, they are ready<br />

to help quickly and efficiently. Gürtelstr. 42, Tel<br />

030 2005 3660, Mon-Fri 10-13 & 14-19, Sat<br />

12-16, www.imazing.de<br />

formbund®<br />

8<br />

1<br />

6<br />

3<br />

5<br />

7<br />

2. Monster Ronson’s Ichiban<br />

Karaoke is the world’s craziest karaoke<br />

club. Make out on their super dark dance floor,<br />

get naked in the private karaoke boxes & sing<br />

your favourite songs. Warschauer Str. 34,<br />

Tel 030 8975 1327, Mon-Sun from 19, www.<br />

karaokemonster.de<br />

2<br />

4<br />

5. Hops & Barley Serving home-brewed<br />

Pilsner and dark beer, this is the place to go<br />

for a real pub feeling in Friedrichshain. There<br />

are also cider and wheat beers on tap. Part<br />

brewery, part bar, the interior is beautifully<br />

lined with antique tiles. A great crowd and<br />

friendly staff. Wühlischstr. 22-23, Mon-Sun<br />

17-2, www.hopsandbarley-berlin.de<br />

3. NO HABLO ESPANOL Delicious, freshly<br />

made San Francisco style quesadillas and<br />

burritos served by a collection of fun loving international<br />

people. Every Wednesday challenge<br />

the NHE team in a game of rock paper scissors<br />

and win a half-price meal. Kopernikusstr. 22,<br />

Mon-Sun from 12, www.nohabloespanol.de<br />

4. CHORASCO STEAKHOUSE Friedrichshain’s<br />

sizzling new steakhouse offers the finest<br />

juicy, grilled steaks from Argentina. Come here<br />

for the business lunch and don’t miss their<br />

monthly special offers! Modersohnstr. 58,<br />

Tel 030 2757 4530, Mon-Sun 12-23, www.<br />

chorasco-steakhaus.de<br />

6. VEGANZ Check out their newest and biggest<br />

location just off Warschauer Brücke! The<br />

720sqm vegan paradise over 2 floors includes<br />

a supermarket with a range of exclusively vegan<br />

products, a café, bistro, bakery, restaurant<br />

and vegan shoe shop. Love being vegan with<br />

Veganz! Warschauer Str. 33, Mon-Sat 8-23,<br />

www.veganz.de, www.facebook.com/veganz<br />

7. SCHILLERBURGER The legacy<br />

continues from Neukölln to Kreuzberg & now<br />

finally Friedrichshain. Voted one of the Top 10<br />

burgers in Berlin with veggie, vegan, classic<br />

& cheese burgers with all the trimmings. “The<br />

wise man makes provision for the future.”<br />

- Friedrich Schiller Wühlischstr. 41/42,<br />

Tel 030 2977 909, Mon-Sun 11:30-1, www.<br />

schillerburger.com<br />

8. PEGASUS SPRACHSCHULE Learn<br />

German or Turkish in small groups. Pegasus<br />

Sprachschule provide a number of different<br />

options – from a traditional classroom<br />

environment to a cooking course with native<br />

speakers and fellow language school students.<br />

At Pegasus Hostel they provide rooms<br />

and insider information on Berlin in a great<br />

location at a great price. Straße der Pariser<br />

Kommune 35, Tel 030 2977 3650,<br />

www.pegasus-sprachschule-berlin.de<br />

SUBLET YOUR BERLIN FLAT! Exberliner Flat Rentals has helped Berliners find suitable,<br />

reliable subletters for their flats for more than ten years. Exberliner’s inhouse agency specialises in<br />

furnished flats in central Berlin for stays between 1 and 12 months or longer. Spare yourself the<br />

hassle and list your flat on our website free-of-charge. Tel 030 4737 2964, Mon-Fri 10-14,<br />

www.exberlinerflatrentals.com<br />

50 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Where to go in Neukölln<br />

1 6<br />

12<br />

4<br />

10<br />

1. HEIDELBEERZEITEN’s international<br />

team of Thomas Ewert & other young, professional<br />

hairdressers offers exceptional high<br />

quality service – 1 hour per session guaranteed.<br />

Make sure to book your appointment a week in<br />

advance & leave with the perfect hairstyle.<br />

Hobrechtstr. 19, Tel 030 6290 0188, Tue-Fri<br />

10-21, Sat 10-18, www.heidelbeerzeiten.de<br />

7<br />

9<br />

11<br />

2<br />

5<br />

8<br />

3<br />

13<br />

2. PAZZI X PIZZA Offers an amazing selection<br />

of pizzas & creative topping combinations<br />

including seasonal varieties with pumpkin<br />

or porcini. Innovative antipasti presentation,<br />

salads, tasty frappés & a charming atmosphere.<br />

Slices from only €2! Herrfurthstr. 8, Tel 030<br />

5587 4306, Mon-Sun 11:30-24<br />

3. UNTERTITEL Don’t miss Lasagna Tuesdays<br />

and all-you-can-eat Fridays in this casual Italian<br />

bar/restaurant offering high quality food & wine.<br />

Monthly exhibitions by Berlin based artists, silent<br />

film with live music, flea markets & so much<br />

more! Kienitzer Str. 22, Tel 0174 905 8591<br />

Mon-Thu/Sat 16-24, Fri 16-24, www.untertitelnk.<br />

com, www.facebook.com/untertitel.nk<br />

4. Rollberg kino With 5 screens,<br />

Babylon Kreuzberg’s bigger but lesser known<br />

sister boasts one of the largest original language<br />

movie selections in Berlin. Located on the U8<br />

near Hermannplatz (Boddinstraße) in the Kindl<br />

Boulevard shopping centre. Rollbergstr. 70,<br />

Tel 030 6270 4645, www.yorck.de<br />

5. SCHILLERBAR serves fantastic breakfast<br />

into the afternoon and great cocktails at night.<br />

Enjoy the authentic red paint on the outside<br />

wall meant to threaten the bar upon opening,<br />

left there, and affectionately responded to with<br />

hearts stating “Schiller loves you anyway” (in<br />

German of course). Herrfurthstr. 7, Tel 0172<br />

9824 427, Mon-Sun 9-2, www.schillerbar.com<br />

6. Blattgold Your local, friendly florist.<br />

Creating individualised, hand-picked flower &<br />

plant bouquets for every occasion with love,<br />

passion & special care. Valuing organic, seasonal<br />

& fair trade, specialising in events, home/ business<br />

arrangements & consulting. Weserstr. 5,<br />

Tel 030 9562 5893, Tue-Fri 10-18, Sat 10-16,<br />

www.blattgold-blumen.de<br />

7. AVIATRIX Who said that Berlin’s free spirit<br />

is dead? Right by Tempelhofer Feld, this cosy<br />

art space & café keeps the untamed creativity<br />

of Berlin alive. Delicious coffee & vegan-friendly<br />

delicacies, art & design pieces, homemade children’s<br />

clothes, exhibitions & live music Fridays<br />

at 18. Herrfurthstr. 13, Wed-Thu 12-19, Fri<br />

12-22, Sat-Sun 11-20, www.aviatrixatelier.de<br />

8. mama Kalo Enjoy the best of both German<br />

& French cuisine at this cosy gem in the<br />

Schillerkiez. Everything is homemade, from the<br />

Flammkuchen and Spätzle to the quiche, soups,<br />

salads and desserts. Freshly baked Kuchen,<br />

anyone? Herrfurthstr. 5, Tel 030 6796 2701,<br />

Mon-Tue/Thu 12-22, Fri 12-23, Sat 15-23,<br />

Sun 15-22<br />

9. Gelateria Mos Eisley Delicious<br />

gelato, fruity sorbets, freshly brewed coffee and a<br />

wide variety of cakes & cookies.Vegan ice cream<br />

flavours & cakes. The perfect stop on your way to<br />

Tempelhofer Feld, open all year. Life is short, eat<br />

dessert first! Herrfurthplatz 6, Tel 030 6449<br />

8900, Mon-Sun from 13, www.facebook.com/<br />

GelateriaMosEisley<br />

10. CAFÉ PÊLE-MÊLE Enjoy homemade<br />

cakes, coffee specialties, salads, soups & much<br />

more. Breakfast available all day long, brunch<br />

buffet every Sunday. Tasty smoothies & fresh<br />

shakes, beer & wine. 100% vegan. Free wi-fi.<br />

Bring this in & get 2 for 1 drinks (excluding alcohol).<br />

Innstr. 26, Tel 030 3646 7523, Mon-Fri<br />

10-19, Sat-Sun 10-20, www.pele-mele-berlin.de<br />

11. LA PECORA NERA Experience the<br />

original Venetian aperitif tradition in this cosy<br />

neighbourhood osteria. Enjoy an Aperol Spritz<br />

during daily happy hour 16-18 & try the appetiser<br />

platter with North Italian cheeses & cold<br />

cuts. For dinner, polenta & fresh pasta await<br />

you! Herrfurthplatz 6, Tel 030 2501 3346,<br />

Tue-Sun from 18, www.pecoraberlin.de<br />

12. Barettino Eat spaghetti with your<br />

hands... oi, oi, oi! Wake up on a church bench...<br />

Hallelujah! Italian coffee! Or enjoy the first<br />

sunrays with Italian delicacies… Panino with<br />

Coppa... Subito! Reuterstr. 59, Mon-Fri 8-19,<br />

Sat-Sun 10-19, www.barettino.com<br />

13. ROSE OF NO MAN’S LAND Berlin’s<br />

finest traditional tattooing. 4 resident tattoo<br />

artists: Fabian Nitz, Swen Losinsky, Mauro Quaresima,<br />

& Steffi Böcker with guest artists from<br />

all over the world. Comfortable wooden interior<br />

with a classic feel & regular walk-ins. Prints,<br />

t-shirts, tote bags and one of kind antique<br />

hand-painted irons. Berlin, Traditional, Tattoo,<br />

Neukölln. Silbersteinstr. 10, Tel 030 7024<br />

0908, Mon-Fri 13-19, Sat 11-17,<br />

www.roseofnomansland.de<br />

To advertise on this page email ads@exberliner.com<br />

51


Where to go in Kreuzberg<br />

5<br />

9 1<br />

4<br />

1. JIVAMUKTI YOGA The official outpost of<br />

NYC’s best-known yoga centre offers the opposite<br />

of “fast-food Western yoga”. Sounds too hippy?<br />

Don’t worry: Yoga here is a pleasure. Trendy<br />

setting, classy equipment, English speaking staff<br />

& 2 loft studios add to the relaxing, luxurious<br />

atmosphere. 4 English classes. Oranienstr. 25,<br />

www.jivamuktiberlin.de<br />

6<br />

6<br />

6<br />

10<br />

2<br />

1<br />

3<br />

7<br />

6<br />

8<br />

2. CafÉ Morgenland’s weekend and<br />

holiday brunch serves a great buffet complete<br />

with gourmet cheese, fresh fruit & veg, crêpes &<br />

other vegetarian dishes, cold cuts, shrimp cocktails<br />

& more. Menu from €5, happy hour €3.50<br />

after 20:00. Reservations suggested. Skalitzer<br />

Str. 35, Tel 030 6113 291, Mon-Fri 9-1, Sat-<br />

Sun from 10, www.morgenland-berlin.de<br />

8<br />

3. Tiki Heart Café & Shop Looking for<br />

a weird, wonderful Hawaiian-Kreuzberger atmosphere?<br />

Then this is the best place to be. Open<br />

for diner-style breakfast, lunch and cocktails.<br />

Kick back amongst punk rock Schnickschnack,<br />

crazy clothing and footwear. Aloha & rock ‘n’<br />

roll! Wiener Str. 20, Tel 030 6107 4701,<br />

Mon-Sun from 10, www.tikiheart.de<br />

4. ROSA CALETA Without a doubt Berlin’s<br />

finest Jamaican food. Located conveniently on<br />

the U1 at Görlitzer Bahnhof. Live music, art exhibitions,<br />

catering and intimate dining atmosphere<br />

with creative dishes with a European touch. Great<br />

homemade cake selection. Muskauer Str. 9,<br />

Tel 030 6953 7859, Tue-Sat 18-23:30, Sun 14-<br />

1, kitchen until 23:30, www.rosacaleta.com<br />

5. 3 SCHWESTERN Located in a former<br />

hospital turned art centre, this restaurant café<br />

with big windows overlooking a lovely garden<br />

serves fresh, seasonal food at reasonable<br />

prices. Breakfast on weekends/holidays. Live<br />

music and parties start after dessert. Mariannenplatz<br />

2 (Bethanien), Tel 030 600 318 600,<br />

Mon-Sun from 11, www.3schwestern-berlin.de<br />

6. Hebbel am Ufer Berlin’s most diverse<br />

theatre, showing a broad-based programme of<br />

dance, performance, theatre, music, visual art &<br />

theoretical debates. Regular productions by national<br />

& international artists in its venues: HAU1,<br />

2 & 3. HAU1, Stresemannstr. 29, HAU2 &<br />

WAU, Hallesches Ufer 32, HAU3, Tempelhofer Ufer<br />

10, Tel 030 2590 0427, www.hebbel-am-ufer.de<br />

7. BASTARD From Bastard with love: whether<br />

it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner, this restaurant is<br />

not just for those who were born out of wedlock.<br />

Choose from the changing seasonal menu<br />

created with love for fresh ingredients and fine<br />

food. Our tip: try the homemade stone-oven<br />

bread! Reichenberger Str. 122, Tel 030 5482<br />

1866, Mon-Sun 9-17, www.bastard-berlin.de<br />

8. CAFÉ MATILDA serves breakfast and<br />

sandwiches all day long in the cosiest atmosphere<br />

around, making you feel like you’re in your own<br />

living room. Sit back and relax on comfy couches<br />

on Kino Mondays and don’t miss Bingo on Thursdays!<br />

Graefestr. 12, Tel 030 8179 7288,<br />

Mon-Sun 9-2<br />

9. Santa Maria serves authentic Mexican<br />

street food on Oranienstraße, with a bar<br />

offering a full range of mezcales, tequilas and<br />

cocktails. Enjoy favourites like chilaquiles,<br />

tacos de carnitas plus the biggest, tastiest<br />

burritos in town. Oranienstr. 170, Mon-Sun<br />

from 12, www.santaberlin.com<br />

10. LPG BIOMARKT supplies you with<br />

organic meats, cheeses & even cosmetics. Fill<br />

your basket with fresh bread and treat yourself to<br />

a selection of sweet and savoury goods.<br />

Reichenberger Str. 37, Tel 030 3253<br />

7309, Mon-Sat 8-21, bakery from 7, www.<br />

lpg-biomarkt.de<br />

52 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Where to go in City West<br />

5<br />

9<br />

13<br />

1<br />

7<br />

4<br />

11<br />

6<br />

10<br />

1. FUTOMANIA Supporting sleepers with<br />

traditional tatami & futon-style beds since 1986.<br />

Natural & organic bedding made to order in their<br />

in-house workshop with solid birch, cherry &<br />

oak wood bases. New beds, cribs & more. Plus<br />

meditation & shiatsu equipment. Richard-<br />

Wagner-Str. 51, Tel 030 6184 649, Mon-Fri<br />

11-19, Sat 11-16, www.futomania.de<br />

14<br />

12<br />

2<br />

8<br />

3<br />

2. Fahrradklinik Schöneberg<br />

Whether your two-wheeled steed was kidnapped<br />

by nasty robbers and you need a new one or your<br />

trusty old bike is sick, in the Fahrradklinik you’ll<br />

receive expert care from Berlin’s best bicycle<br />

doctors! Grunewaldstr. 86, Tel 030 7809 7842,<br />

www.fahrradklinik-schoeneberg.de<br />

3. IYENGAR YOGA ZENTRUM BERLIN<br />

Harmonise your body & mind in our bright, beautiful<br />

yoga center. Iyengar certified, native speaking<br />

English and German teachers offer rewarding,<br />

intelligent classes to stretch and elevate the whole<br />

self. All levels welcome! Free first class with this ad!<br />

Hochkirchstr. 9/2, Tel 030 6162 6676, www.<br />

iyengar-yoga-zentrum-berlin.de<br />

4. IRISH HARP PUB An Irish haven just<br />

1min off Kurfürstendamm. Great food, Irish<br />

and German beers. Live music Fridays and<br />

Saturdays, darts, smokers’ lounge, international<br />

sports on big screens. Don’t miss the<br />

pub quiz on Thursdays. Cosy sun terrace.<br />

Giesebrechtstr. 15, Tel 030 2232 8735,<br />

Mon-Sun from 10, www.harp-pub.de<br />

5. Habitare With over 30 years on<br />

Savignyplatz, Habitare has become a real institution.<br />

If you’re searching for timeless modern<br />

pieces and high-quality home furniture, this is<br />

the best among the many design and furniture<br />

shops in the area. Great service too!<br />

Savignyplatz 7-8, Tel 030 3186 4711, Mon-<br />

Fri 10-20, Sat 10-18, www.habitare.de<br />

6. Dolores Goes West The place<br />

that revolutionised Berlin fast food with<br />

awesome California-style burritos 7 years ago<br />

has a second store on Wittenbergplatz, across<br />

from KaDeWe. This location serves their best<br />

classics and several great new spicy combos.<br />

Bayreuther Str. 36, Mon-Sun 11-22, www.<br />

dolores-berlin.de<br />

7. Café im Literaturhaus Enjoy a<br />

coffee in one of Berlin’s nicest cafés, the elegant<br />

and much-loved Literaturhaus. The staff are<br />

extraordinarily courteous and the atmosphere<br />

pleasant. A perfect stop on a stroll along<br />

Ku’damm. Drop by and enjoy the unique setting.<br />

Fasanenstr. 23, Tel 030 8825 414, Mon-Sun<br />

9:30-1, www.literaturhaus-berlin.de<br />

8. Computer Service Julien<br />

Kwan Julien Kwan’s elegant store for Apple<br />

computers and other high-tech goodies is the<br />

place to go for those who want more than<br />

just shop-and-go. Personalised service makes<br />

browsing the latest technology a pleasure.<br />

Vorbergstr. 2, Tel 030 6170 0510, Mon-Fri<br />

10-19, Sat 12-16, www.deinmac.de<br />

9. MAMMA MONTI Italian cuisine offering<br />

delicious seasonal, vegetarian and vegan<br />

dishes. All meals are made with the freshest<br />

ingredients and are carefully selected. Daily<br />

rotating menu, two-course lunch for €8.50 and<br />

homemade cake. Buon Appetito! Carmerstr.<br />

11, Tel 030 8733 5522, Mon-Sat 11-22,<br />

www.mamma-monti.com<br />

10. KUMPELNEST 3000 The legendary<br />

bar that made the Berlin night scene what it is<br />

today. This brothel-turned-bar 25 years ago was<br />

Bono’s hangout during his visits to West Berlin.<br />

Hasn’t lost its authenticity and wild side over<br />

the years, hipsters beware! Lützowstr. 23, Tel<br />

030 2616 918, Mon-Fri 19–5, Sat-Sun from 19,<br />

www.kumpelnest3000.com<br />

11. HAMBURGER MARY’S Serving<br />

up the best American-style burgers this side<br />

of the Atlantic. Full menu of half-pounders,<br />

sandwiches & tasty cocktails. “Dining with the<br />

Divas” drag show Fridays & Saturdays at 20!<br />

Lietzenburger Str. 15, Tel 030 2100 2895,<br />

Mon-Fri 7-11, from 18, Sat-Sun 7:30-12, from<br />

18, www.hamburgermarys.com/berlin<br />

12. BELMÉR Mediterranean food culture<br />

meets creative cuisine – high quality, carefully<br />

selected and beautifully presented. Don’t miss<br />

the brunch buffet every Sunday from 10-15:00<br />

with Mediterranean delights and live piano!<br />

Belziger Str. 34, Tel 030 8999 6735,<br />

Mon-Sat from 11:30, Sun from 10, www.<br />

belmer-restaurant.de<br />

13. SCHWARZES CAFÉ Since the 1970s,<br />

Schwarzes Café on Savignyplatz has been<br />

a cult favourite among artists, anarchists,<br />

foreigners and Charlottenburgers. It’s open<br />

24/7 and they have English menus and serve<br />

organic meat. Kantstr. 148, Tel 030 3138<br />

038, Mon-Sun all day, www.schwarzescafeberlin.de<br />

14. Winterfeld Select Italian food: pizza,<br />

delicious pasta and fresh salads are their<br />

specialty. The salumeria offers a wide variety of<br />

home-made antipasti as well as a broad selection<br />

of fine wines. We highly recommend their<br />

breakfast Monday to Saturday! Winterfeldtstr.<br />

58, Tel 030 2607 5547, Mon-Fri 10-24, Sat<br />

9-24, Sun 9:30-23, www.winterfeld-berlin.de<br />

To advertise on this page email ads@exberliner.com<br />

53


www.exberliner.com<br />

U1 cover 126.indd 2<br />

<strong>Issue</strong> 126 • €2.90 • April <strong>2014</strong><br />

JOON-HO BONG: “This train, this engine, this system gradually goes<br />

extinct. The eternal thing is nature.” (p.30)<br />

F.I.N.D. FESTIVAL: “In a sense, Santa Teresa is the dark Jerusalem of our<br />

modern world.” (p.34)<br />

SCOTT STAPP: “I had to make Jesus my rock star.” (p.38)<br />

3/24/14 7:44 PM<br />

classifieds<br />

Private classifieds: FREE online, 5 euros/month for print: max. 250 characters.<br />

Commercial classifieds (teaching, freelancers, services, courses, employment<br />

offered, etc): 15 euros + 19% Mwst (VAT) for online, 15 euros + 19% Mwst (VAT)<br />

for print and 25 euros + 19% Mwst (VAT) for both – max. 250 characters.<br />

Payment options: Direct debit (Bankeinzug) / PayPal<br />

E-mail: classi@exberliner.com // Phone: 030 4737 2966 // Fax: 030 4737 2963<br />

Post: <strong>EXBERLINER</strong>, Max-Beer-Str. 48, 10119 Berlin<br />

Submit your ads online at<br />

www.exberliner.com/classifieds<br />

JUNE issue submission deadline<br />

is midnight may 15<br />

Exberliner reserves the right to reject and/or edit classified ads<br />

Jobs Offered<br />

Builder Tradesmen<br />

Established Berlin building firm<br />

looking for all trades & labourers.<br />

No cowboys! Must be selfemployed<br />

legal subcontractors<br />

with own tools & transport. We are<br />

based in Köpenick & specialise in<br />

Rohbau & general building. Email<br />

CV to smeedbau@gmx.de<br />

Customer Care<br />

Customer Support Representatives<br />

(m/f) Czech, Danish, Dutch,<br />

Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish Customer<br />

Support (Inbound) Are you<br />

passionate about helping customers<br />

on the phone, via email and<br />

chat? You now have the chance<br />

to come and join our international<br />

team of Customer Support<br />

Representatives in our in-house<br />

Customer Service Center in the<br />

heart of Berlin. Are you social,<br />

open minded, flexible and have<br />

a good sense of humour? Then<br />

we are looking for you! We offer a<br />

competitive salary, working hours<br />

Berlin Glas e.V.<br />

www.berlinglas.org<br />

info@berlinglas.org<br />

from Monday-Friday between 8am<br />

and 7pm, part or full time positions,<br />

regular company events,<br />

free public transportation, cocktail<br />

evenings, free drinks during working<br />

hours and career development<br />

opportunities within a dynamic<br />

and international company. Check<br />

out our video “A Working Day At<br />

Vistaprint” on YouTube.com. We<br />

are looking forward to your application<br />

via our career site: careers.vistaprint.com<br />

Vistaprint<br />

Deutschland GmbH, Nadine Paul,<br />

Salzufer 6, 10587 Berlin, Tel.:<br />

0049 3088 89028, BerlinJobs@<br />

vistaprint.com<br />

ComedySportz Auditions!<br />

<strong>May</strong> 25; 14:00- 16:00. Location<br />

tba. Short-form comedy improvisation,<br />

played like a sport, in<br />

English. Must have improv and/or<br />

performing experience, be available<br />

for rehearsals and shows, able<br />

to make a long-term commitment<br />

to the fun. Become a part of CSz<br />

Berlin (est. 2004), and the English<br />

Comedy Scene in Berlin! Submit<br />

EXPERIENCE<br />

GLASSBLOWING<br />

• classes • workshops •<br />

• public demonstrations •<br />

• visiting artists •<br />

CV: info@comedysportz.de. Check<br />

us out: www.comedysportz.de<br />

Sales Intern<br />

Are you great at communicating<br />

and your language skills (English,<br />

Portuguese or German) get away<br />

as native? Help us establish a<br />

strong foothold in the respective<br />

market and win new partners<br />

for our customer retention programme<br />

bonusbox. We offer a fun<br />

work environment, a great salary<br />

package and a potential for future<br />

employment! We would love<br />

to get to know you - send us your<br />

application to jobs@bonusbox.me.<br />

Host for Boat Party<br />

Due to popular demand we are<br />

re-launching Language Nights on<br />

Eastern Comfort and are currently<br />

looking for someone who can<br />

host this popular event. Please<br />

send an email to lounge@eastern-comfort.com<br />

and we can<br />

forward more details!<br />

Extras Casting Call<br />

We are seeking 500 AFRICANS,<br />

ASIANS, HISPANICS, ARABS, LATIN<br />

AMERICANS, INDIANS, AFRO-<br />

AMERICANS & TURKS (Men/<br />

women, any age) as extras for two<br />

big, international FEATURE MOV-<br />

IES in Berlin. Find infos & sign<br />

up: WWW.FILMGESICHTER.DE or<br />

Casting (for free): Every Wednesday,<br />

3-6pm, Agentur Filmgesichter,<br />

Thomasiusstr. 2, 10557<br />

Berlin-Tiergarten<br />

Norwegian Native Speakers<br />

Telephone-Studio in Berlin-<br />

Schöneberg is looking for Norwegian<br />

and Dutch Native Speakers<br />

(freelance work) Function: Conducting<br />

reliable telephone interviews<br />

(no sales or promotional<br />

work, only opinion research interviews)<br />

Your profile: communicative<br />

competence, pleasant telephonevoice,<br />

at least 18 years old, outgoing,<br />

friendly, polite, computer<br />

literate and reliable.<br />

Good knowledge of German or<br />

English is an advantage, being<br />

bilingual would be perfect.<br />

We’re offering you a varied job in<br />

the context of interesting Business-to-Business<br />

and Household-<br />

Projects conducted for one of the<br />

leading Market Research Institutes,<br />

(starting immediately) in<br />

an international team: extensive<br />

trainings, attractive payment, and<br />

flexible working hours.<br />

Interested? Please apply from<br />

Monday to Friday from 11am to<br />

2pm via the following toll-free<br />

number: 0800 867 25 00 or<br />

send us an email to info@trendtest.de<br />

You´ll find further information<br />

on our homepage www.<br />

trendtest.de or www.ipsos.de<br />

Experienced Editor, Writer<br />

Looking for professional to proofread,<br />

rewrite a manuscript (200<br />

pages) to be published with OUP.<br />

A blend of journalistic and academic<br />

writing in social sciences/<br />

cultural studies to be completed<br />

this Fall. Send CV, editing sample<br />

to m.herschler@gmx.de<br />

Health & Fitness<br />

Yoga in English, Kreuzberg<br />

Yoga in English, in a beautiful,<br />

spacious studio in Kreuzberg.<br />

Mondays 6:15pm for all levels,<br />

€8. 3 classes €21. Tuesdays<br />

8:15pm: Dynamic Flow,€10. At<br />

Osho Studio, Schlesisches Str.<br />

38, 10997. Everything provided,<br />

everyone welcome!<br />

www.facebook.com/pages/Yogain-English-Mondays-in-Kreuzberg/139778686051746<br />

Therapy-in-Berlin<br />

Psychotherapist, originally from<br />

NYC, offers psychotherapy,<br />

counselling and coaching for<br />

individuals, couples and families<br />

in English and German.<br />

Subscribe<br />

to Berlin!<br />

Get exberliner Magazine<br />

delivered to your doorstep<br />

every month and receive<br />

a €15 voucher to a selected<br />

Berlin restaurant. Sign up at<br />

www.exberliner.com/subscribe<br />

one year<br />

(11 issues)<br />

for €29*<br />

only!<br />

faMily secRets<br />

Rainer Höß, Rudi-Marek Dutschke and<br />

Jakob Grotewohl on growing up with<br />

the burden of history<br />

NucleaRfRee<br />

from thriving single<br />

mothers to queer<br />

threesomes, meet<br />

a new breed<br />

of parents<br />

it’s a faMily<br />

BusiNess<br />

Noodle slinging, funeral<br />

planning and tightrope<br />

walking with mum and dad<br />

rant<br />

Get those kids<br />

out of my<br />

Schillerkiez!<br />

My auscHwitz faMily<br />

the grandson of death camp<br />

commandant Rudolf Höß breaks<br />

his family’s silence<br />

100% made in Berlin.<br />

Printed on recycled<br />

paper.<br />

What’s on? • Art • Fashion • Film • Food • Music • Nightlife • Stage<br />

*For delivery in Germany<br />

54 • may <strong>2014</strong>


Tel: 0175 165 7450, email:<br />

contact@therapy-in-berlin.com,<br />

www.therapy-in-berlin.com<br />

Jungian Psychoanalysis<br />

Native English speaker, analystin-training,<br />

now accepting new<br />

clients for psychoanalysis and<br />

counselling. Please contact me<br />

for a free initial consultation.<br />

David M. Schmid: 0152 3183<br />

8978 / davidmarcusschmid@<br />

yahoo.ca / www.jungian-psychoanalysis.com<br />

Your Personal Trainer<br />

The magic happens outside your<br />

comfort zone! Our Personal Trainers<br />

help you to live a healthier<br />

life, feel stronger and look better.<br />

With a personalised programme<br />

you are able to achieve your<br />

goals in an easy and professional<br />

way. Let’s together prepare<br />

you for the summer and get the<br />

shape you’ve always wanted.<br />

www.yourpersonaltrainer.de<br />

TIMELESS TOUCH Massage<br />

Deep relaxation & authentic<br />

connexion in Xberg. Discover<br />

the pleasure of your body. Exquisitely<br />

sensual massages<br />

for M&W. You’ll leave the session<br />

feeling peaceful and renewed.€80-140<br />

sliding scale<br />

-20% for new clients moonietimelesstouch@gmail.com<br />

Music<br />

Spiritual enterprises<br />

Unknown Phone Happening Orchestra<br />

invites musicians and<br />

other artists – especially English-speaking<br />

writers – to create<br />

a neverending musical for<br />

planet Earth. 0160 107 9203<br />

Groups & Courses<br />

Move your Asana - Yoga<br />

Release-based yoga class with<br />

Diane Busuttil. Every Tuesday - 10<br />

till 11:30am, beginning 11 March<br />

<strong>2014</strong>. 8/12 euros per class. At<br />

Osho Studio - all levels welcome.<br />

Details: www.dianebusuttil.com.<br />

Please contact me with questions<br />

or concerns. Diane<br />

Women’s Healing Circle<br />

I am looking to ground an English-speaking<br />

women’s healing<br />

circle! Welcoming women with<br />

various healing gifts, e.g. Reiki,<br />

healing touch, chant, prayer or<br />

just a healing intention to come<br />

together in a loving and safe way.<br />

sarahershkowitz@gmail.com<br />

Art Classes in English<br />

Want to learn to paint and draw<br />

from a professional artist? These<br />

courses are for both beginners and<br />

higher-level students. Classes are<br />

taught in English and all materials<br />

are provided. Full-day courses<br />

in oil painting and drawing also<br />

available. Go to website to book<br />

a position in one of our courses.<br />

www.berlinartclass.com<br />

Languages<br />

Experienced German tutor<br />

Private tuition in German for adults<br />

by retired Goethe Institut teacher<br />

with more than 30 years’ experience<br />

in teaching German as a foreign<br />

language. Address: Near Prager<br />

Platz, U9 Güntzelstraße. Contact:<br />

dorothee.knight@gmail.com<br />

Intensiv-German Workshop<br />

17.5.+ 14.6 Intensiv-German with<br />

Theater Games 11-14:00 - k77<br />

studio Ihr könnt schon ein bisschen<br />

Deutsch (A2) und kommt<br />

einfach zu wenig zum Sprechen,<br />

weil alle immer Englisch sprechen?<br />

Dann ist das der richtige<br />

Workshop für euch. n.selchow@<br />

web.de<br />

Jobs Wanted<br />

Wedding Photographer<br />

Australian Portrait and Wedding<br />

photographer based in Berlin.<br />

Affordable packages for artistic Portraits<br />

and Weddings. Portrait packages<br />

from €300 Wedding packages<br />

from €1800 www.libbyedwards.<br />

com.au Discount offered for those<br />

who mention this ad<br />

Internships<br />

Internship<br />

...in Localization Engineering at<br />

Milengo to learn about many different<br />

aspects of localizing large-scale<br />

projects for international clients. Attractive<br />

compensation package for<br />

a trainee position. More details +<br />

applications: www.goo.gl/xYkgQ3<br />

Services<br />

Sunshine Cleaning<br />

Hate cleaning? Don’t worry, we<br />

love it! Sunshine Cleaning provides<br />

professional, trustworthy &<br />

reliable cleaning services throughout<br />

Berlin. Mention code XB for<br />

€11 off your first clean. http://<br />

sunshine-cleaning.org Satisfaction<br />

Guaranteed Tel: 015776124395<br />

AHA.<br />

DEUTSCH<br />

LERNEN!<br />

goethe.de/berlin<br />

Sprache. Kultur. Deutschland.<br />

55


Want to<br />

sublet<br />

your flat?<br />

maria vaorin<br />

We'll help you!<br />

• professional<br />

service<br />

• entirely free of<br />

charge<br />

• direct contact with<br />

potential tenants<br />

Furnished or unfurnished,<br />

all districts, all sizes, by<br />

the month or longer.<br />

Please register your flat online:<br />

www.exberlinerflatrentals.com<br />

Tel: 0049 30 47372964<br />

Max-Beer-Str. 48, 10119 Berlin<br />

Office hours: 10.00 to 14.00<br />

amok mama<br />

by JACINTA NANDI<br />

Working mum guilt<br />

Attitudes towards working<br />

parents, particularly<br />

mothers, vary quite a lot<br />

between East and West<br />

Germany. East Germans<br />

have this fairly relaxed but<br />

also kinda stern attitude<br />

to mums working – just<br />

do it, basically. My East<br />

German mum friends<br />

don’t give me any commiserations<br />

for missing<br />

out on Sports Day or<br />

having to send Ryan into<br />

Hort on Christmas Eve.<br />

“Tschja, Jacinta,” they say<br />

nonchalantly, “that’s how it is sometimes.”<br />

But they also don’t disapprove of the fact<br />

that he started kindergarten when he was just<br />

18 months old. “Good!” my friend Jana said<br />

when I told her I’d found him a Kita spot.<br />

“Best place for him!”<br />

Westies, though, go in for that whole<br />

mother and baby bonding stuff – they can get<br />

a bit sniffy if you tell them your kid started<br />

Kita before his second birthday.<br />

“You should’ve waited until he turned two,<br />

Jacinta!” said my friend Silke, for example.<br />

“Yeah, but I wanted to get back to work,”<br />

I protested half-heartedly. It was a bit of an<br />

excuse, to be honest – in actual fact I sent<br />

Ryan to nursery first and found a job later.<br />

“Oh, come off it,” she snapped angrily. “It’s<br />

not like you were on the board at Siemens or<br />

anything.”<br />

Then there’s the Berlin attitude. Now,<br />

while I don’t wanna join in with all the<br />

Prenzlauer Berg latte machiatto mama-bashing<br />

– it’s boring at best and misogynistic at<br />

worst – the truth is, I suspect that Berlin is<br />

the only place in the world where self-expression<br />

and relaxation are so firmly established<br />

as desirable and necessary and good that even<br />

the mothers of very young children actually<br />

complain about not having enough “Zeit<br />

für sich”. It’s totally socially acceptable for a<br />

Berlin mum to drop a kid off at Kita and then<br />

go to the sauna or even a fucking art gallery<br />

or something. I really love this, but I could<br />

never enjoy myself when it was me doing it.<br />

A couple of weeks after Ryan had started<br />

nursery, two German friends persuaded me to<br />

go to a Thermenbad with them. I sat there in<br />

the Jacuzzi and felt miserable.<br />

“I can’t relax,” I said.<br />

They looked at me blankly. “What’s<br />

wrong?”<br />

“I’m on Hartz-IV and I’m in a swimming<br />

pool during the day and my son’s in nursery. I<br />

feel like a terrible person!”<br />

by amok mama<br />

My German friends<br />

looked at me, confused and<br />

concerned.<br />

“Happy kids have happy<br />

parents,” one said, “and<br />

happy parents have happy<br />

kids.”<br />

I nodded meekly. It was<br />

my most miserable experience<br />

in a Jacuzzi ever. I just<br />

felt like such a loser, and it<br />

was such a relief when, a<br />

couple of weeks later, I got<br />

a job teaching English to<br />

kindergarten kids.<br />

So, those are the main<br />

German attitudes I’ve encountered. The British<br />

attitude, however, seems to me a magnificent<br />

balancing act of hate: they despise mothers<br />

who work and mothers who don’t. Mothers<br />

who work are evil, skinny bitches whose children<br />

are all delinquents who steal milk and sniff<br />

glue. Mums on the dole, however, are lazy, fat,<br />

slovenly slappers whose kids are all delinquents<br />

who steal milk and sniff glue. You might think<br />

the British would have a tiny bit of respect for<br />

those women who stay at home and look after<br />

their kids but don’t get state benefits, whose<br />

husbands earn enough to keep them on one<br />

wage? You’d be wrong. They think they’re total<br />

losers. Sometimes, when listening to my relatives<br />

speak, I think they’d literally prefer it if no<br />

more babies were ever born in England. Or at<br />

least not to mothers.<br />

“If we had affordable nursery schools in<br />

England,” I said to my niece last time I was in<br />

the UK, when she was complaining about single<br />

mums getting flats off of the government,<br />

“then single mums could afford to work. Then<br />

they wouldn’t need to get housing benefits or<br />

welfare. That’s how they do it in Berlin. The<br />

nursery schools are affordable, working-class<br />

people can afford them.”<br />

She looked at me and her eyes glittered as I<br />

watched my words being digested. She opened<br />

her mouth to say something. Then she shut it<br />

again. Then she opened it again.<br />

“You know something,” she said. “That’s a<br />

really good idea.” ■<br />

marta dominguez<br />

“I’m on Hartz-IV and<br />

I’m in a swimming<br />

pool during the<br />

day and my son’s in<br />

nursery. I feel like a<br />

terrible person!”<br />

56 • july/august 201356


from our readers<br />

Our April family issue (#126) features a<br />

rundown of alternative schools, including<br />

Waldorf.<br />

Fun and games?!<br />

In your last issue, you wrote<br />

about Waldorf schools as<br />

“fun and games”. You could<br />

have added that the inventor,<br />

Rudolf Steiner, wasn’t exactly<br />

a “philosopher”, but rather an<br />

esotericist. His philosophy of<br />

education is based on the idea<br />

that people develop in sevenyear<br />

periods that correspond<br />

to seven planets. Scientific,<br />

right? Steiner postulated that<br />

all people are divided into<br />

“four temperaments” (fire,<br />

earth, air and water), and while<br />

it is a subject of debate just<br />

how racist he was, he argued<br />

that darker-skinned people<br />

were generally of inferior<br />

temperaments. It’s no wonder that the schools<br />

based on his ideas are almost exclusively white.<br />

His ideas are kept alive by a rather mysterious<br />

cult, the Anthroposophists, and the schools benefit<br />

from an exception in German law: While all<br />

other private schools are required to have teachers<br />

with a scientific education, Waldorf teachers<br />

haven’t necessarily gone to college. What they<br />

specialise in is things like “Eurythmy”, the dancing<br />

of letters which was so well parodied on The<br />

Simpsons. So while some people think Waldorf<br />

schools are good at teaching kids artistic creativity,<br />

parents should read up before trusting their<br />

kids to esotericists. – John Riceburg<br />

Two months after our contentious<br />

“Screw the BVG!” rant (issue #125,<br />

TO THE EDITOR<br />

March 2013), readers<br />

are still riled up.<br />

Think the BVG is<br />

bad? Try London!<br />

Twenty-four hours ago I<br />

was enjoying a nice last<br />

lunch on Weinbergsweg at<br />

the end of my most recent<br />

visit to Berlin – a great six<br />

days of culture and food<br />

going to new and old parts<br />

of the city I have known<br />

since I started visiting in<br />

1994. During that time, I<br />

have seen Berlin’s transport<br />

system go through<br />

a massive reconstruction<br />

and transformation, which I can see is<br />

still going on… not to the pleasure of some<br />

of your readers, judging by the letters page in<br />

your current edition. As a Londoner who was<br />

partly driven to leave that city because of the<br />

dirty, unreliable and expensive public transport<br />

system, six days using the BVG was close to<br />

heaven by comparison – frequent and late-running<br />

services, clean stations and trains, and no<br />

constant ticket barriers to get in and out. As I<br />

took the very slow and packed train home from<br />

Gatwick Airport last night, I was also reminded<br />

how good DB is in comparison to our fractured<br />

and mostly privatised railway network. So, dear<br />

Exberliner readers, while I am sure the BVG is<br />

far from perfect and can always be improved<br />

(can’t everything?), I am already looking for-<br />

ward to my next opportunity to ride those S- and<br />

U-Bahn lines again… – Clive Gross<br />

Exberliner to publish in German?! Even<br />

after we revealed our April 1 “Exberliner<br />

goes deutsch” blog post as an April Fools’<br />

joke, some still bought in.<br />

Don’t go German!<br />

What a disappointment! That’s a step behind<br />

into isolation and exclusion. That a huge part of<br />

the young Berlin population doesn’t speak German<br />

is, maybe unfortunately, a fact. If you made<br />

this decision for economical reasons that would<br />

be maybe understandable, even though disappointing.<br />

If you did it because you seriously think<br />

that the German community has been feeling<br />

“excluded”, well, you’re contributing to cut off the<br />

rest of the expat community of this city. – Stefan<br />

WRITE TO US AND WIN<br />

Tickets to edge of<br />

tomorrow!<br />

Did we strike a nerve? Tell us what you<br />

think, hate or love about this issue and get<br />

the chance to win one of 3 pairs of tickets<br />

to EDGE OF TOMORROW, playing at Cinestar<br />

Original at Potsdamer Platz on <strong>May</strong><br />

29. Send your letter to editor@exberliner.<br />

com by noon on Monday, <strong>May</strong> 19.<br />

For terms and conditions, see www.exberliner.com/terms.<br />

56 • february <strong>2014</strong><br />

Foto: Hans Richter, Vormittagsspuk © Hans Richter Estate<br />

10am–7pm Wed to Mon, Tue closed,<br />

from 20 <strong>May</strong>: Daily 10am–8pm

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!