Exberliner Issue 171 May 2018

1968-2018
Berliners
look back
POLITICS REPORTAGE ZEITGEIST ART MUSIC FILM STAGE
DON’T WORK,
MAKE MONEY
From sugarbaby millenials to old school
Lebenskünstler, from bitcoin speculators
to Instagram influencers - Meet the Berliners
who thrive without a proper job
171
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CONTENTS
EXBERLINER 171 - MAY 2018
1968-2018
06
Mrs. Rudi Dutschke
The widow of Berlin’s most iconic
revolutionary talks about his politics,
their beginnings and taking care
of his legacy
08
My May 1968
Three 1968ers look back
at the events in Berlin
50 years ago
Don’t Work, Make Money
12
After Tacheles
Mitte’s famed alternative space
closed six years ago. Where are the
protagonists now?
16
The Berlin Bitcoin Bros
Once the domain of anarchists and
dark-webbers, bitcoin has gone
mainstream
19
The sugarbabes
Millennials in Berlin provide the
v“girlfriend experience” for cash
22
How to be a Berlinfluencer
Making a living with Instagram,
Youtube and blogs – does it work
for hip Berliners?
Regulars
03
Konrad Werner
Rising inequality
04
Best of Berlin
A retro listening bar, a virtual art gallery
and chocolate gone Bezirk
48
Berlin bites
Three new brunch spots
and real baguettes
50
Save Berlin
Dan Borden on what the city is
doing to improve cycling conditions
51
The Gay Berliner
Walter Crasshole
explains Xposed
51
Comic
Instabunnies
52
Letters to the editor
Readers take offense
to our trailer
and our last issue
What’s On
24
Volksbühne the movie and
two very German exhibitions
Film 26
Music 30
Stage 35
Art 38
42
Events calendar
44
The Berlin Guide
PERFORMANCES
ZUM
SPIELEN
NICHTS
Foto: »Monster« von DeLaVallet Bidiefono, © Christophe Pean
GEHT
MEHR
MAY
9–13
SOPHIENSAELE.COM
1
DESIGN Jan Grygoriew | jangry.com

BERLINS ONLY OPEN AIR-CINEMA SHOWING MOVIES EXCLUSIVELY IN ORIGINAL VERSIONS
PROGRAM MAY
25 years of Freiluftkino Kreuzberg! To
celebrate, we’re screening the coolest
film from 1994, the year we started out:
FRI 4.5. 9:15 PULP FICTION (1994) Engl.OV
The best thing is: it’s on us. To go into the
draw for free tickets, visit our website.
SAT 5.5. 9:15 THE SQUARE English,Swed./German subtitles
SUN 6.5. 9:15 ZWEI HERREN IM ANZUG Germ./Engl.sbtls
MON 7.5. 9:30 LUCKY Engl./Germ.sbtls
TUE 8.5. 9:30 BLACK PANTHER Engl./Germ.sbtls
WED 9.5. 9:30 THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE
EBBING, MISSOURI Engl./Germ.sbtls
THU 10.5. 9:30 SHAPE OF WATER Engl./Germ.sbtls
FRI 11.5. 9:30 AUS DEM NICHTS In the Fade Germ./Engl.sbtls
SAT 12.5. 8:30 EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2018:
OUR ANNUAL CELEBRATION OF EUROPE’S
FINEST AND TRASHY MUSIC. Admission free!
SUN 13.5. 9:30 THE DEATH OF STALIN Engl./Germ.sbtls
MON 14.5. 9:30 CASTING Germ./Engl.sbtls
TUE 15.5. 9:30 GOD‘S OWN COUNTRY Engl./Germ.sbtls
WED 16.5. 9:30 DAS SCHWEIGENDE KLASSENZIMMER
The Silent Revolution Germ./Engl.sbtls
THU 17.5. 9:30 I, TONYA Engl./Germ.sbtls
FRI 18.5. 9:30 THE FLORIDA PROJECT Engl./Germ.sbtls
SAT 19.5. 9:30 PHANTOM THREAD Der seidene Faden
Engl./Germ.sbtls
SUN 20.5. 9:30 THE POST Die Verlegerin Engl./Germ.sbtls
MON 21.5. 9:30 CALL ME BY YOUR NAME Engl./Germ.sbtls
ADDRESS
The Freiluftkino Kreuzberg is located near Kottbusser Tor U-Bahn-station, in the courtyard of Kunstquartier Bethanien on Mariannenplatz
ENTRANCE FEE e 7,50 | with social pass (Berlinpass) e 5,00 | Surcharge for long fi lms e 1,00
ADVANCE SALE
Online tickets available at: www.freiluftkino-kreuzberg.de | The cinema box offi ce only sells tickets for the day’s screening, no advance sales.
BOX OFFICE OPENS AND ENTRANCE 30 min. before showtime
MULTI SHOW TICKETS
OPERATOR
CONTACT/GROUP DISCOUNTS
FOR SCHOOL CLASSES
at the cinema box offi ce and „Koka36“: 5 Shows e 30 | 10 Shows e 55 (Please note: not for groups!)
Piffl Medien GmbH An induction loop is provided for the benefit of hearing aid users.
kreuzberg@piffl medien.de
TUE 22.5. 9:30 THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
Engl./Germ.sbtls
WED 23.5. 9:30 UNA MUJER FANTÁSTICA A Fantastic
Woman/Eine fantastische Frau
Spanish /Engl.+Germ.sbtls
THU 24.5. 9:30 ANNE CLARK - I‘LL WALK OUT INTO
TOMORROW Engl./Germ.sbtls
FRI 25.5. 9:30 DARKEST HOUR
Die dunkelste Stunde Engl./Germ.sbtls
SAT 26.5. 9:30 3 TAGE IN QUIBERON
3 Days in Quiberon Germ./Engl.sbtls
SUN 27.5. 9:30 WONDER Wunder Engl./Germ.sbtls
MON 28.5. 9:30 HAPPY END Fren./Germ.sbtls
TUE 29.5. 9:30 Nelyubov LOVELESS Russian/Germ.sbtls
WED 30.5. 9:30 WILDES HERZ - FEINE SAHNE FISCHFILET
Germ./Engl.sbtls
THU 31.5. 9:30 THE BIG SICK Engl./Germ.sbtls
OUTLOOK PROGRAM JUNE
FRI 1.6. 9:30 LADY BIRD Engl./Germ.sbtls
SAT 2.6. 9:30 TRANSIT Germ./Engl.sbtls
WWW.FREILUFTKINO-BERLIN.DE
25 Years
Berlin

COLUMN— Political Notebook
Why are so many
German people so poor?
Konrad Werner explains German politics.
This month: rising inequality
Foto: Ludwig Binder/Stiftung Haus der Geschichte
Editor-in-chief
Nadja Vancauwenberghe
Deputy editor
Franziska Helms
Web editor
Walter Crasshole
Film
Paul O’Callaghan
Art director
Martin N. Hinze
Publishers
Maurice Frank
Nadja Vancauwenberghe
Ioana Veleanu
Editorial
Design
Music
Michael Hoh
Art
Anna Larkin
Stage
Daniel Mufson
Food
Françoise Poilâne
Graphic design
Dom Okah
This month’s contributors
Alison Bell, Francesca Elsey, Wladek Flakin, Ella Joyner,
Liam Kelly, Lily Kelting, Emma Lawson, Taylor Lindsay,
Emily May, David Mouriquand, Robert Rigney, Jane
Silver PhotograPhy: Anastasia Chistyakova,
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This is obvious but people keep forgetting:
Germany is awash with money.
The federal government commands
huge tax surpluses and has stopped taking
on new debt, while the health insurance
companies, both state and private, are making
huge profits. Germany has geared the EU
to function in its favour, which is why, unlike
virtually every other economy nearby, this
country is doing much better than can possibly
be expected after the world-changing
economic crisis in 2008.
It’s in this slightly crazy context that two
things happened last month.
One, 20,000 Berliners took to
the streets because people are
being priced out of the city, and
two, a new debate about Hartz
IV broke out.
Both of these things are
good. The first came after a
well-timed “Global Residential
Cities Index” showed that
in no other city in the world
were property prices rising
as fast as in Berlin – 20.5-percent rise in
2017. That’s out of control, and shows that
this city is sliding into London conditions:
luxury homes being left empty as speculative
investments; people on benefits getting
kicked out of their homes by landlords who
use any trick they can to raise the rent:
more homelessness and more middle class
people neurotically having to chase more
and more money.
Mayor Michael Müller claims that Berlin
is already taking all the legal measures it
can but the problem is that the rent cap that
the federal government got through is too
weak. That isn’t exactly the whole problem:
Müller’s SPD is the same one that presided
over the sale of Berlin’s public land over the
last decade, and the rules for building new
affordable social housing aren’t exactly being
imposed well. But at least we have a city government
talking about it (there’s talk of
an extra tax on land if nothing is built on it).
Müller, apparently growing into his role as
mild Merkel-irritant, was also the one who
in late March suggested that it was time to
ditch Hartz IV – the benefit that the longterm
unemployed get – and replace it with
a state-funded job. True to the
obfuscating nature of your average
centrist politician, Müller labelled
his idea a “basic income,”
which it definitely wasn’t – a
basic income is supposed to be
unconditional, whereas this is
just a new state job where you
have to do something fairly
boring for €1,500 a month. It
at least started a debate about
Hartz IV. Germany is in need of
any debate that is, at least tangentially, about
the fact that too many people are scrambling
for money while the economy is flooded with
it. Of course, that hasn’t stopped right-wing
parties like the FDP and the CSU from trying
to turn the debate into something about
refugees or Islam (they want to reduce Hartz
IV for immigrants).
There’s a deep anxiety spreading through
German life, an unnerving feeling that
everything is good but they’re likely to lose
it any second. Germany needs some radical
restructuring, or else the poverty and social
disconnect will get a lot worse yet. n
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BEST OF BERLIN— May 2018
BERLIN
BEST RETRO
LISTENING BAR
A
welcoming
dark haven on a residential street,
wine bar Rhinoçéros – named after its location
on Rhinowerstraße – has been drawing a loyal
collection of locals since it opened, replete with a
cosy fire, last November. The bar fuses Martina’s and
co-owner and husband Bénédict’s interests: wine
and jazz. So far, so French: Bénédict’s youth was
spent in the wine-abundant Rhône valley, but the
couple are particularly enthusiastic about showcasing
German wines. A white Scheurebe tasted by
Exberliner is a perfect accompaniment to lengthening
spring days. Don’t set your heart on it, though,
because the wine list is in constant flux. A glass is
€5-10 and for an extra €4-16 you get a plate of cheese
or meat arranged as perfectly as a French still life.
Rhinoçéros’ soundtrack displays the couple’s passion
for jazz; records ranging from stalwarts such as John
Coltrane to more obscure musicians are played on
the beautiful 1970s soundsystem. On Wednesdays
and Thursdays the volume gets turned up for special
listening sessions. They reveal the real inspiration for
Rhinoçéros: not the French wine bar, but the Japanese
kissa – small jazz cafés that function as listening
rooms, which were established in the 1950s but are
now nearly extinct. The menu pays tribute to their
spirit with Japanese whiskies such as the €7 Suntory
Hibiki. Rhinoçéros may not serve your usual glass of
Pinot Grigio, but offers excellent alternatives for a
summer nightcap. — EL
SOPHISTICATED HANGOUT
Rhinower Str. 3, Prenzlauer Berg, Wed-Sat 18-late, check
Instagram for upcoming listening sessions
Anastasia Chistyakova
VIRTUAL REALITY
BEST GOGGLE ART
Can you think of any truly revolutionary invention coming out of Berlin –
apart from döner? Right. Neither can we. So it’s all the more exciting that
we have the world’s first virtual reality gallery with an actual physical space:
Synthesis Gallery. Recently opened by Giorgio Vitale on Köpenicker Straße, it
aims to snatch VR from the corporate world and claim it for the higher purpose of
art. If you’re more of an app than a painting person anyway, you can buy the apps
(read: artwork) on show there, grab yourself a basic pair of VR goggles and take the
art home with you. The opening exhibition “Same but Different” by Swiss artist
Marc Lee consists of different virtual reality apps portraying cities morphing into
generic non-places – rather fitting social commentary for gentrification-resistant
Berlin. With the new medium, Vitale brings a first taste of the future of digital art
here – and there’s no doubt it’s an immersive Erfahrung. The current space is a
little underwhelming, but after its inaugural exhibition and aside from a collaborative
project with Galerie Mitte, Synthesis Gallery will be on hiatus until after the
summer, when Vitale plans to move into a more permanent space here in Berlin.
Either way, who needs an impressive space when the goggles come on? — FE
Köpenicker Str. 95, Mitte, Tue-Sun 11-19, check website synthesis.gallery
for upcoming exhibitions
4 EXBERLINER 171

BEST OF BERLIN— May 2018
VOLKSBÜHNE
Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
Paul Rossaint
BEST KIEZ-KISSED
CHOCOLATE
Ever wondered what your neighbourhood would
taste like if it were a chocolate flavour? 49-yearold
Berlin-born novelist and chocoholic Tanja
Dünckers is here to answer that question for you:
stemming from her synesthetic imagination, each of
her 15 original Preussisch süß concoctions epitomises
one of Berlin’s idiosyncratic districts: a lavender bar
to reflect the Wilmersdorf widows, white chocolate
with roses as a homage to Schöneberg’s gay community,
and a dark chocolate Tempelhof containing
raisins, referencing the 1948/49 airlift's Rosinenbomber.
“You’ve got to embrace the clichés!” Tanja
jokes. Some of the more far-fetched recipes could
really only spring from a novelist’s mind: Charlottenburg’s
roasted onions and pistachio (red and
green for 1968) and “edible paper” for Friedenau (a
nod to former resident Kurt Tucholsky). Though
the kid-friendly milk chocolate Prenzlauer Berg bar
with vanilla and toasted almonds is an unsurprising
bestseller, some flavours may pose an existential
challenge to parochial residents unwilling to betray
their Kiez for the sake of flavour; we weren’t fans of
Freidrichshain’s particularly pungent blend of sour
cherries, pink pepper and nana mint oil. The original
collection is produced by artisanal chocolatier Christoph
Wohlfarth who uses only ethically sourced,
organic Criollo, Trinitario and Arriba Nacional cocoa
beans from the Peruvian rainforest (which explains
the €3.95 price tag for 50g). If your hood hasn’t yet
been “chocolatised”, fear not: Dünckers is working
on more districts to be ready by Autumn 2018,
including, for example, Hohenschönhausen (here’s
hoping no asbestos)! — EM
Susanne Kennedy
Women in Trouble
05.05.18
06.05.18
29.05.18
30.05.18
Susanne Kennedy
Die Selbstmord-
Schwestern
08.05.18
09.05.18
Available from preussisch-suess.de and selected shops
including Wohlfarth Schokolade, Choriner Straße 37,
Prenzlauer Berg
SWEET TREAT
Sarah Eick
5
www.volksbuehne.berlin

1968 - 2018
“They would call
people like Rudi
‘terrorists’”
Gretchen Dutschke on the day they shot
Rudi, the man behind the 1968 icon and how
she thinks he is still being misportrayed.
By Robert Rigney
Karolina Spolniewski
Rudi Dutschke was already one of the most charismatic leaders
of the Berlin student movement, when an almost successful
assassination attempt on April 11, 1968 catapulted him
to iconic status (10 years ago Berlin even named a street after him
which runs next to the headquarters of the conservative Springer
Verlag, the newspaper publisher held morally responsible for the
shooting at the time). A hero for some, he’s also still misrepresented
by many, says Gretchen Klotz (known as Gretchen Dutschke), his
American-born widow and the mother of his three children who
came back to Berlin nine years ago after many years in the US. Her
lifelong effort at righting the narrative about both her husband and
the student movement has taken the shape of two books and regular
tributes. We met the 78-year-old in her Friedrichshain apartment for
a chat about her latest book 1968, Worauf wir stolz sein dürfen (“1968,
What we Can be Proud of”) and her memories of Rudi.
In 1996 you already told your story of Rudi Dutschke in Wir hatten ein
barbarisch schönes Leben. Why a new book now? It’s about how the
anti-authoritarian movement has changed Germany. Up until recently
the student movement has either been forgotten or demonised. Three
years ago, Deutsches Historisches Museum had an exhibition on the RAF
[terrorist cell Rote Armee Fraktion]. In the brochure, they had a picture
of Rudi, and the way it was presented, it implied that he was a terrorist!
I spoke to one of the organisers and I said that I was the wife of Rudi
Dutschke, and I found this very upsetting. And he said he did too and
he encouraged me to complain to the museum. The next day I got an
answer and they said they would change it. They threw that brochure
out and made a new one where Rudi wasn’t shown to be a terrorist.
Having Rudi portrayed that way must have conjured up some bad memories
from the 1960s when he was already called a terrorist, right? Some
people were violently opposed to students like him... Absolutely, and it
was encouraged by the Springer press. There was a very strong antistudent
sentiment, fostered and sustained by their publications. They
would call left-leaning students “terrorists” and even “Nazis”, which
was completely ridiculous, of course.
What was society like back then? Nazi. It had only been 19 years since
the war had ended, and people hadn’t changed. They had no reason
to do so. But of course at the same time there were all these young
folks coming to Berlin because they heard about the student movement.
There were clashes and a lot of aggression. Rudi would be
attacked. Once he was in a taxi and a whole bunch of people tried
to corner him. And then we just had people throw shit in the hall or
1942 Born in Oak Park, Illinois.
1964 Meets Rudi at a bar in Charlottenburg.
1968 Rudi is shot down on Ku’damm, the family
leaves Berlin for England, then Denmark.
1979 Rudi dies aged 39 in Arhus, Denmark, from the
injuries sustained in the shooting.
1996 Publishes Wir hatten ein barbarisch schönes Leben
2009 Returns to Berlin.
2018 Publishes 1968, Worauf wir stolz sein dürfen.
scrawl “Death to Rudi” on the walls. Things like that would happen
all the time, even before Rudi’s picture was all over the news.
And you blame the Springer press for adding fuel to the fire? The guy who
shot him said he had read [Springer tabloid] B.Z. That’s where he got
the idea to do it.
When one thinks of German terrorists, the RAF come to mind. What did
Rudi think of them? He actually knew some of those people. He talked
to Ulrike Meinhof and Horst Mahler before they went underground,
trying to convince them not to use violence, that it was a really a big
mistake which would destroy the movement. He was right, of course,
but they didn’t listen to him. Later, when they were in jail, he still
tried to make them acknowledge that they had made a mistake. After
all, they still had an influence on people who were joining the RAF
then. Rudi said they were so wrapped up in their own thoughts that
they were incapable of listening to anyone with a different point of
view. He was very sad about that.
What do you remember from the day that Rudi was shot? Rudi had a cold
so he went to get nose drops, but he also had to go to the SDS [Socialist
German Student League] house to pick up some papers or bring
some papers there. So he left to do both of those things. I had a baby
that was only a few months old, so I waited for him at home. At some
6
EXBERLINER 171

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
point I got a strange phone call from someone
saying that Rudi was dead. I thought it
was a joke and didn’t believe it. Then Rudi’s
friend Gaston [Chilean writer Gaston Salvatore]
came by. There was another phone call
about Rudi being dead and Gaston said he
thought it might be true. He called the police
and they confirmed it. By then I was screaming,
completely beside myself. Gaston called
the morgue and found out that Rudi wasn’t
dead, but that he was in hospital.
So you went to the hospital to see him. Gaston
took me. There were already hundreds of
people there. When we got in, the doctor told
us he had to operate to remove the bullets
from Rudi. He had two in his head and one
in his shoulder. He didn’t know how bad the
brain damage was and if Rudi would survive
the operation. All we could do was sit there
and wait. At one point, I had to go home
because the baby needed to be nursed. After
many hours, the doctors came and told us
the operation was done, but they still didn’t
know how he might be affected because he
was unconscious. Of course he got better, but
never entirely recovered as you know.
Can you tell us about how you and Rudi first
met? You had come to Germany to study philosophy,
right? Yes, my plan was to go get a
graduate degree in philosophy and I came to
Germany in 1964 to learn German. I first met
Rudi at a Kneipe on Steinplatz, where many
Gammler (the German equivalent of beatniks)
and Marxists and all kinds of artists used to
get together. The bar had beer tables outside
and there were so many young people there,
it was hard to find a place to sit. When I did
find an empty space, it happened to be next to
Rudi. He had a huge pile of books in front of
him, and I think I must have asked him about
them. He was studying sociology at Freie Universität
and told me he was a revolutionary. It
was pretty much love at first sight.
As someone coming from a conservative family
in suburban Illinois – how did it feel to meet
a self-dubbed “revolutionary”? Well, I could
have said that it was all too crazy for me, but
it was really rather exciting. It is true that
my own upbringing was extremely conservative
and religious. But I actually started
being a beatnik in high school. I remember
this article in Life Magazine about beatniks
and the girls in the photos wearing black
tights. I got myself a pair, and it caused a
scandal at home. My mother wouldn’t let
me go to church that day – for fear of what
people might think! When I got to college, I
involved myself with the student movement
there and took part in demonstrations, that
was in ‘62 and ‘63. So I understood right
away what Rudi was all about, and it wasn’t
all news to me.
What were your first impressions of Berlin back
then? That it was really poor. I lived in a warscarred
building in Spichernstraße, Wilmersdorf,
where the top floor didn’t exist; it
had been bombed away. It looked pretty bad.
The Wall hadn’t been there that long, and I
remember it being quite scary to be at the
frontline of the Cold War. At the same time
I was just really curious. I went over to East
Berlin and saw how bleak it was. Very, very
grey. And black, too, from the bombs and
fires, I guess. Demographically speaking, the
city was a pretty old one, and although young
men from West Germany
were coming
to Berlin to evade
military service,
overall there were
more young people
leaving. There
weren’t many job
opportunities, and
compared to now
there were also very
few children here.
What did Rudi’s political involvement look like
at that point in 1964? He was part of a small
group called Subversive Aktion and they
had a small magazine, Anschlag where they
would publish their theoretical ideas on
Marxism and socialism. They were also big
into the Frankfurt School – Horckheimer,
Marcuse, Adorno. Rudi was in favour of
democratic communism and criticising
what was being practiced by authoritarian
regimes like the GDR.
“We had people
throwing shit in
the hall and scrawl
‘Death to Rudi’ on
the walls.”
Was that why he left East Germany? He was a
refugee. He had fled the GDR because his
religious background meant that he wasn’t
allowed to study there. You see, he had
belonged to the church and a Christian youth
group. His religious upbringing also informed
his political perspective. I think he liked the
idea of combining Christianity and socialism.
I don’t think the press at that time mentioned
that at all. Anyway, the guy who shot Rudi
was a member of a neo-Nazi group which
supplied the weapon. The Stasi knew they
were handing out guns but didn’t prevent it.
He was also part of the Socialist German Students’
Union and organising demonstrations.
Yes, it was the idea for a demonstration that
brought him in touch with the SDS. In 1964,
Congo’s prime minister Moise Tschombé, the
guy who had murdered Patrice Lumumba, the
Congolese independence leader, was due to
come to Berlin, and Rudi wanted to organise
a protest during the visit. You see, Lumumba
was socialist and wanted to make changes in
his country, especially against the colonial
powers that were still influential there. So
Rudi went to the African students association
and the SDS and asked them if they were interested.
And that demonstration marked the
beginning of the German student movement
everyone now associates with 1968.
And do you remember that demonstration?
At the time, I was visiting home in the US,
but I remember Rudi being angry because
the police didn’t allow them to demonstrate
in front of Rathaus Schöneberg, where
Tschombé was expected. His idea was to
march at the back of
the demonstration on
its permitted route
and then turn around
and walk towards the
Rathaus anyway. He was
hoping that everyone
would follow him, and
they did. There were
only a couple of police
in the back and they
couldn’t stop them.
When they saw that
Rudi was the ringleader, they tried to catch
him. But he was a really good athlete and he
ran. They didn’t get him.
What were his strengths as a leader? His
strength was that he had no fear. He was very
strong. He could also talk loud so that people
could hear him. I think that people were very
impressed by him when they heard him talk.
How would you describe the man you were married
to? Was he any different in private from the
public persona? Not really. Rudi was someone
who fundamentally cared about people,
couldn’t bear to see suffering and never
held a grudge. He even ended up exchanging
letters with Josef Bachmann, the man who
had shot him! He was hoping to help him
see how he had been the object of Springer
propaganda and become more aware of his
own position [Bachmann committed suicide
in his cell in 1970]. Other than that, Rudi was
a good father. He would spend a lot of time
with his children. He loved to play football
with them. And he helped in the house. I’m
a lousy chef, so his cooking skills were especially
appreciated!
What do you think really drove him?
I think that it was probably his religious
background. Jesus’ message was to love your
neighbour. And if you love your neighbour
you cannot see suffering without doing something
about it. That’s what Rudi lived by. n
MAY 2018
7

1968 - 2018
DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
My May 1968
Three protagonists look back at
the unrest in Berlin 50 years ago.
By Wladek Flakin and Ella Joyner
It all started in the suburbs of Paris and rolled through Germany's unis, and
hit Berlin hard as the gunshot that met student leader Rudi Dutschke's head
in April 1968. Here too, students craved a new societal order – and fought
on campus and in the streets to get it. We asked three historical witnesses to
shed their own light on the events that changed Germany.
From FU 1968 to FU 2018
Winfried Fluck
In 1968 the Freie Universität Berlin (FU) was a hotbed for the anti-authoritarian
youth movement. Winfried Fluck, now Professor and Chair of American
Studies at FU’s John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies,
bore witness as a student representative whose loyalty was divided between
his role as an assistant professor and SPD activist.
Ludwig Binder/Stiftung Haus der Geschichte
I started my studies at Universität Berlin in 1963 when I was
18. Because of the draft exclusion in West Berlin, it was a very
attractive place for critical young intellectuals who didn’t want
anything to do with the military. I was active in the Social Democratic
Party. I was from a working-class family and I knew university was a
privilege. I wasn’t an unfettered radical though. As a member of the SPD, you
were considered to be on the right in that climate.
From 1965 on we lived in a permanent state of political activism. Constant
demonstrations against the university administration, against the Berlin Senate,
especially after the murder of [FU student] Benno Ohnesorg. We created
a counter-university, the Kritische Universität, where FU students held their
own seminars. I have very strong memories of all the lectures in the Henry
Ford Building. A high point was when Herbert Marcuse came to speak there!
The movement was against the mandarins that ruled over the university. For
my post war generation, they were the embodiment of the type of authoritarian
character that we loathed. One example was Ernst Fraenkel, the founder of
the John F. Kennedy Institute. He was a German Jew who'd fled to the US in
the 1930s, and now taught politicl science and constitutional law at FU. When
students started criticising his seminar in the university newspaper, this
person who deserved our respect and admiration just exploded. Confronted
“We created the
'Critical University'
where FU students
held their own
seminars.”
8
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DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
with our democratic ideals, he just couldn’t cope and refused
to continue his seminar. He retired soon after and died five
months later. So in a way he was one of the victims of the
whole movement. At one point my Doktormutter [doctoral
supervisor] refused to speak to me for three months because
I had voted along student lines and not with professors as a
representative in the university governing body. Although I
was her assistant! [Laughs]
In May 1968 my wife and I were still in Berlin taking part in
numerous demonstrations. However, that is the point when
the Extra-parliamentary Opposition (APO) and the radicalisation
began, which we thought was wrong. So we were happy
to be able to get away to the States in August 1968. When
I returned in 1970, everything had become very politicised.
There were various factions competing against each other,
fighting each other: the Albanian Maoists, the Trotskyists, the
Chinese Maoists. In my view, it became more and more irrational.
I increasingly distanced myself. It was endless fights
among sectarian groups over leadership. In 1970, my professor
told me she would offer me an assistantship. Then I got a
telephone call: ‘This is Genosse [Comrade] Paul. We hear you
are up for an assistantship. Would you be willing to present
yourself to the student body?’ He invited me to a meeting on
a Sunday night in a huge downtown Berlin apartment. It was
arranged like a tribunal. There were four ‘comrades’ sitting
in the front of the room. They interviewed the candidates for
the research positions two at a time. The only question they
were asked was, ‘In case of controversy between students
and professors, who would you vote with?’ Of course both
of them knew what they had to say. The first one said, ‘Of
course with the students.’ But then he had second thoughts,
and added something like, ‘Well, it would depend on the
topic.’ That was the end of him. The other guy got the job.
When I refused to take part in this tribunal, comrade Paul
said ‘Then you’re not getting the job.’ [Luckily for Fluck it
turned out his employment offer was connected to a special
grant and was therefore exempt from the student veto over
academic appointments. He could take up the job.]
Looking back and despite the radical turn it later took, I
believe that the student movement helped make the German
university become a democratic place. Today’s students
are still active in their own way: their political engagement
has mostly shifted from class conflict to diversity issues.
More importantly, the 1968 movement played a huge role in
democratising Germany. When I grew up, Germany was still
an authoritarian country in many ways. The next generation
threw this overboard. I’d grown up as a German ashamed of
Germany. When abroad and asked where I was from, I’d just
say I was “European”. When I see the path of development
Germany has since taken, I am mainly proud. — EJ
From Marxist to feminist
Frigga Haug
Born in 1937, Haug had already been an active Marxist
militant for years when the 1968 student movement broke
in Berlin. Converted to feminism after she experienced the
‘trap’ of motherhood in a small town near Cologne, she ran
back to Berlin and would soon dedicate her energy to the
socialist women’s movement. At 80, Haug is one of Germany’s
foremost feminist intellectuals and regularly speaks
at conferences.
I was in the SDS [Socialist German Student
League] and co-founded the Marxist
magazine Das Argument in 1959 [she’s
still an editor for the publication to this
day]. We covered all the topics of the time, which also
became the questions of the 1968 movement: sexuality,
author-ity and family, education, Poland, the war in
Algeria, fascism, antisemitism, etc. At first, we thought
the 1968ers’ demeanour wasn’t genuine politics – it
was more like a disruption. We were working on analyses
of capitalist society, but more and more people
started going to big assemblies where everyone yelled
over each other and whoever had charisma could take
over. We were completely overwhelmed by the movement,
but were also part of it. Das Argument became
the mouthpiece of the 1968 movement. The print run
jumped from 700 to 18,000.
I was a Marxist before I was a feminist. But it was
women from the SDS who were at the frontlines of
the women's revolt. Media made it look like women
in the SDS were limited to typing flyers and making
coffee. That’s a total myth – I was in the SDS from the
beginning and I never typed a flyer or made coffee.
That said, women and women’s issues were never
recognised as such in the movement and there was a
grand total of seven women in SDS at the time. That’s
when I joined the Action Committee for the Liberation
of Women, which was
just forming, in January or
February 1968.
“The men in the
‘68 movement
tolerated us...
but the women’s
movement was
often called ‘petty
bourgeois’ and
'marginal'.”
Women take action
We questioned all the morals
of the petty bourgeois:
prudery, pettiness and
taboos. We talked about the
power of mass media. Axel
Springer, the king of the Bild
newspaper, was our enemy
number one. We studied how
the press creates submissive
citizens. We believed that
the situation of women was
primarily a result of deficiencies
in education, and we wanted to counter that with
a a “political literacy” campaign. Our slogan from the
socialist Frauenbund (women’s league) was: “Everyone
should know everything!” I would say that men in the
1968 movement tolerated us but didn’t actively support
the women’s organisation. The women’s movement
was often called “petty bourgeois” or “marginal” and
not taken seriously.
In Das Argument we had been studying Marx’s
Grundrisse and Das Kapital, and I took that with me
into the Action Committee. One wing of the movement
wanted to organise a kindergarten teachers’
strike. They believed that from an early age children
were raised to be authoritarian personalities, so they
needed an alternative perspective and way of life. But
I had just escaped from a year trapped at home with
a baby – I didn’t just want to talk about mothers and
children. I wanted to study the big picture: How do
women end up in a situation where, as soon as they
MAY 2018
9

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
have kids, they end up isolated in the home – no matter what
they did until that point. We had to do something against
that. Public behaviour back in the Adenauer era was defined
by cold prudery. Women didn’t even go to cafés by themselves
and they were under strict moral control. All of this
was swept away by a wave of liberality. The 1968ers started
moving into WGs (shared flats), which would have been
inconceivable before 1968.
The women in the movement weren’t all students. Many
were from around the university, like secretaries and booksellers.
We organised educational groups of 12 women each.
The idea was for them to study for a year and become politicised
until they knew enough to intervene in society. These
groups were to found more new groups, until the whole city
would be full of women’s education groups and form a full
movement. The meetings of the women's movement were
cultural events. We spent many hours reading, discussing,
doing theatre, but also cooking or skiing together. We began
a completely different way of life than that of an isolated
housewife. One of my groups focused on helping girls from
the Hauptschule get their diplomas, instead of just becoming
hairdressers or marrying. This education group, the S9, still
meets up almost 60 years later.
We didn't just go to May 1 (International Worker’s Day).
We also demonstrated on March 8 (International Women's
Day) with slogans like: “Nursery, home and stove – that's not
worth a whole life!” and “My belly belongs to me!” We were
fighting against a law that made abortion a crime. That was
the beginning of the women’s movement in Germany. It’s
hard to imagine the desperation girls experienced when they
got pregnant out of wedlock back then – tragedies that we
now only know from literature.
The Berlin unrest
West Berlin became a centre of massive demonstrations,
and young people from many countries joined in. The thing
that had really politicised all of us, both genders, and led to a
break with the normality of bourgeois life, was the murder of
Benno Ohnesorg [on June 2, 1967]. It was a time of intense
student protests against the American war in Vietnam. This
shocked the people of Berlin, who until then had seen the
Americans as their defenders against communism. Berlin
was a fenced-in city, and the West Berlin middle class used to
hate long haired students. “Go over to the other side!” they
Ludwig Binder/Stiftung Haus der Geschichte
would yell. Ohnesorg was at the anti-Shah protest – it was his
first – and he was shot by the police. He was from the protestant
student group and he didn’t have long hair. He didn’t
conform to the cliché of a dangerous rebel. And the shock
woke a lot of people up. That was an incisive experience for
many people: the state just shot a student.
In November 1967, we founded the “Critical University”.
Thousands of FU students went on strike because we didn’t
want to study under former fascists, and we organised our
studies ourselves. On Easter Sunday, 1968, we marched to the
Springer skyscraper, the home of newspaper king Axel Cäsar
Springer, to protest against the lying and manipulative reporting.
Newspapers were burned and the situation became
more radical and violent. The highpoint was the battle at
Tegeler Weg, a street fight with the police in November 1968.
So what did 1968 leave behind? It got rid of the suits and
the formal collars and all the old manners and conventions.
Now you can go to university in the clothes you want. After
1968, women could take a microphone and speak in a public
square. Until then we never thought a news presenter could
be a woman – because news is “objective” and therefore the
domain of men.
So many rules of bourgeois life were toppled by this
enormous protest. Possibilities and freedoms for women
expanded enormously. Recently on the train I heard some
women my age talking about their relief that we have so
many more freedoms now. “That was a gift of the 1968ers”,
they said, which surprised me, because I am used to 1968ers
being hated and feared. — WF
From revolution
to insurance
Michael Prütz
Born 1952, Prütz has been selling insurance from his office in
Graefestraße in Kreuzberg for more than 30 years. He’s also a
life-long revolutionary. He was an organiser of the Revolutionary
May Day demonstration in Kreuzberg for four years running
(2013-16), and collected funds for Kurdish militia YPG.
For Prütz it all started in February 1968 when he went to his
first demonstration at age 15.
At my protestant school in Zehlendorf, boys
were expelled for having long hair. That’s what
West Berlin used to be like, but the protests
started around 1966. A few of the older boys at
my high school had contact to progressive students. We gathered
all our courage and went to watch them hand out flyers
on Ku’damm. The West Berliners didn’t like them. “You should
be gassed!” was a common saying. But I was impressed by the
students’ courage and decided I wanted to join.
Although my parents forbade it, I went to the demonstration
against the Vietnam War after the “Vietnam Congress”
in February 1968. I was present at the “Easter Riots” after
the assassination attempt on Rudi Dutschke. And I was particularly
excited about May 1. That was the first independent
leftist demonstration in West Berlin since the construction
of the Wall [in 1961]. We didn’t know what to expect as we
headed to Karl-Marx-Platz in Neukölln. It was absolutely
packed with people – even the bourgeois press talked about
30,000 or 40,000 people. I even saw my grandfather, who
10
EXBERLINER 171

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
“Remaining radical
for all these years
is not easy. But I'm
not alone, there are
more Genossen
out there.”
had been a communist in the 1930s. He had a twinkle in his
eye when he waved at me. There hadn’t been a demonstration
like that in Neukölln for decades.
After 1968 we had so much optimism. We were totally
convinced that we would topple capitalism. Around 1970,
we of the Fourth International wrote a document about
European perspectives for the next five years. We were absolutely
certain that socialist revolution would be achieved
by 1975.
So what happened? Most of the 1968ers have moved into
the left-bourgeois camp. They joined the Social Democrats or
the Greens and did their “long march” through the political
establishment. Like my old friend Harald Wolf (Berlin’s
economics minister from 2002 to 2011, Die Linke). We’ve
known each other since 1977 and lived together in a revolutionary
WG in Gneisenaustraße – it used to be a real salon
for socialists from all over! I had convinced Harald to join
the PDS [now: Die Linke], and I guess I didn’t notice how he
turned into a neoliberal moderniser. I really could never have
imagined that. I guess it’s pretty symbolic of a whole generation
of people who have made a career working in state
positions. Now the left is so cowardly, always trying to ride
the coattails of some bureaucrats. But I’m not interested in
capitulating and parroting neoliberal bullshit. I’m too old to
benefit from that. I was in the Green Party briefly, 1986-87,
but I soon got the feeling that there was no room there for
class politics. I joined the PDS in 1990. I left again in 2001
when they formed the “red-red” Berlin government together
with the SPD and implemented the biggest cuts in the history
of the city: privatising public housing, cutting wages in the
public sector, etc. They completely ruined the city – that was
done by Die Linke, not the CDU. I prefer selling insurance.
From the beginning our customers were autonomists, so we
never wore suits and ties.
As an organiser of the Revolutionary May Day demonstration
from 2013 to 2016, I had to go to the planning meetings
with the police – that means three or four meetings, two
hours each, with 15 high-level Berlin police, but they were
okay, decent people. That’s the closest I got to stepping over
to the other side of the frontline! Remaining radical for all
these years is not easy. But I’m not alone, there are more
Genossen out there.
The weird thing is that there are more reasons to rebel
today than back in 1968. Back then, there was a functioning
social welfare system, and there was almost no unemployment.
I used to work the night shift as an unskilled labourer
at a Springer printing plant, making the equivalent of €40 an
hour. Now, under neoliberalism, young people suffer from
constant precariousness.
Back in 1968, when you met someone on the street, the
very first thing you would ask is: “What are you doing politically?
Where are you organised?” It seems like young people
aren't as interested in organising long term. They do show a
lot of solidarity though. —WF
TIP
The 1968ers
An exhibition of photography by
Ludwig Binder und Jim Rakete
From the June 1967 mass protest against the Iranian Shah
to the Rudi Dutschke assassination attempt the following
year, from student meetings on the FU campus to the
Tegeler Weg street battle, this exhibition at the Kulturbraurei
chronicles the 1968 student unrest in West Berlin as captured
through the lenses of Ludwig Binder and Jim Rakete.
The 60 black-and-white photographs that have the great
poignancy of showing 'revolution' in action, aka strange,
brave, bygone times when the fight for a better future, for
equality, or against war, wasn't fought in the anonymity of
social media, but on the streets and in auditoriums and in
the face of ruthless societal and police repression.
Museum in der Kulturbrauerei, Prenzlauer Berg,
through October 7
Il barbiere di
Siviglia
Gioachino Rossini
Buy your
tickets
now!
mai 4./21.
all performances with english surtitles!
0049 030 47 99 74 00
11

LEBENSKÜNSTLER
Life after Tacheles:
What’s become of
the artist squatters?
It was an artists’ utopia, a cultural
institution, a tourist magnet: after
over two decades on Oranienburger
Straße, Tacheles was shut
down, the artists kicked out. Five
and a half years on, Taylor Lindsay
tracked down the original clique to
find out what came next.
If you walked down Mitte’s Oranienburger Straße at any
point between 1990 and 2012, you would have likely
noticed a commanding, if dishevelled, structure located
just a short distance from the synagogue. Up until five
years ago, the second-most visited art attraction in Berlin
wasn’t the East Side Gallery or Museum Island, it was this
five-storey building: aka Kunsthaus Tacheles. Taken over by
artists after the Wall fell in 1990, the building was transformed
into a creative commune. It was quintessential post-
Wende Berlin: upon their occupancy, the artists launched a
legal battle for the property and rescued it from demolition,
maintaining a presence for 22 years.
At its peak, Kunsthaus Tacheles had a theatre, a bar, an
event space, studios and nearly 100 creators from over 30 different
countries all under one roof. There was no censorship,
no middleman at the market. The doors to the house were
open 24/7, and artists sold work right out of their studios.
Everyone from critics to tourists, to students, to other artists
wandered in and out of Tacheles, named after the Yiddish
word meaning “straight-talk”. Some say the Kunsthaus
became kitschy in its final years, producing “artsy” works deliberately
catering to the tourist palate. Still, it was the only
place of its kind.
But it didn’t last. The temporary lease, under which they
paid a symbolic 50 cents per year, came to an end in 2008.
For three more years the artists were once more illegally
squatting, peacefully pushing back against investors, opposition
and the city of Berlin (under Mayor Klaus Wowereit).
Their lack of menace didn’t mitigate their determination
– they stayed in the building, even as their electricity was
abruptly cut off and different investors approached artists individually,
offering them money to leave. Except for the café
on the ground floor, most held out. Finally, city officials came
and forced the last of them to vacate on September 4, 2012.
Thousands mourned and protested; the city had stamped
out a crucial subculture and with it, a quintessential spirit. Or
did they? Five years later, don’t look for Tacheles in the bereft
building on Oranienburger Straße, now marooned on the edge
Linda Cerna
of a vast desert of a development site. If you want a glimpse of the spirit today,
look at the Tacheles Berliners who wouldn’t be subdued.
A new Tacheles in Lichtenberg?
Txus Parras, now 55, was one of the earliest internationals to arrive at Tacheles.
At 26 he was travelling the world as an event technician, but he admits
he always wanted to be an artist. Touring with a punk band called “Pogo”
took him from Spain to Poland, and from Poland to Berlin. The first place he
found was Tacheles. “And I never went back to Spain,” he says, grinning at the
memory. He settled in and started creating.
Looking at his work now, it’s hard to imagine a version of himself that
wasn’t making art. For one thing, he’s covered in it: buttons on his hats,
rings on his fingers, lime green pants stamped with political slogans, and his
accordion at hand. He designs psychedelic patterns for clothing, sculptures
made from discarded doll parts, posters in at least three different languages,
and tourist favourites like zines and painted records. The latter he sells at the
East Side Gallery, which is where we first met him. When Tacheles comes up,
he describes it like he was just there hours before. “It was free, it was open,
there was this great feeling. We had the philosophy there that everyone is an
artist. Everyone is an artist,” he insists with a guttural voice, talking with his
hands. “And now we want to make a new artist meeting place, something with
the spirit of Tacheles.”
This “new place” is actually a thing, and the “we” he alludes to includes four
other Tacheles originals: Tim Roeloffs, Peter Rampazo, Lucas Böttcher and
his father Jürgen Böttcher. Named Kulturbotschaft Lichtenberg, the project
began in February this year with a flurry of excitement as German newspapers
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DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
Tacheles in 12 dates
1907 Construction of the 9000sqm building,
designed to be a department store 1909 - 1914
Department store operated by Wolf Wertheim,
auctioned off just before WWI 1928 Building
owned by AEG and used as a product showroom
for electrical goods 1930s Used by Nazi officials
1941 Used to hold French prisoners of war 1948
Taken by the GDR, used for multiple short-term
businesses 1980 Doomed for demolition thanks
to zero renovations 1990 Two months before
demolition, the first Tacheles artists occupy the
building and push for a re-examination of the space
1992 Building examined and deemed liveable (and
a historic landmark) 2012 Artists forced to leave,
building empty. Surrounding stores begin to close
2016 Bank, city and investors announce commercial
intentions, try to invite big name artists to
the space for their own project. Ai Weiwei refuses
2018 TBD
initially dubbed it “New Tacheles”. There are some major
differences though: the building’s address, Herzbergstraße 53,
puts it right on the edge of the city, and the rent is €10,000 a
month. But the founders moved fast, filling the three spacious
floors with work spanning decades – from 86-year-old Jürgen
Böttcher’s oil canvases dating back to the 1970s to new works
from street artists who Parras met weeks earlier. Paintings,
collage and silk screened shirts line almost every surface that
isn’t a footpath in the artists’ studios. There’s a common area
where the founders and a growing group of almost 60 people
meet and cook together. Everything is peppered with colour.
Fully peopled, it might look something like Tacheles. As for the
rent, they’re making it work, one scrappy manoeuvre at a time;
selling art, hosting events, or making deals with wholesalers,
swapping designs for funds.
“Nobody is Tacheles more than us,” Parras says proudly of
the project. “But it’s not a new Tacheles. We’re just incorporating
the old philosophy of Tacheles; we want to keep the spirit
that made it a social, cultural place, not just a functional one.”
Is this all because he misses the original Tacheles? Partly.
“Nobody wanted to go,” he says of the September eviction.
“But actually, I didn’t really leave till December,” he grins.
“They had to keep coming back for me.”
Tacheles may be gone
but at Kulturbotschaft Lichtenberg
Txus Parras (pic), Tim Roeloffs & co
are training a new generation of
artists in their philosophy.
Lessons from the Tacheles elders
While Parras is the project’s biggest proselytiser, Tim Roeloffs is at its core, though he credits
the others for bringing the Lichtenberg building to life. When Roeloffs got to Tacheles in 1992,
he wasn’t technically an artist either, coming instead from a family of Dutch farmers. His story
is one of Berlin’s most famous: discovered by Donatella Versace at Tacheles in 2007, rocketed to
fame, harangued by real estate sharks since 2011, and recently evicted from his home.
“It’s been a crazy time,” Roeloffs explains. “First I was kicked out of Tacheles. Then, this
year, I got kicked out of my private working space. Then I got kicked out of the next place I
went to work. And then I was kicked out of my home. But, somehow, I’m the happiest man in
the world with this place,” he gestures around the Lichtenberg hub.
Like Parras, Roeloffs conjures up fervour and flavour when he talks about the old days at
Tacheles, beer in hand, gluing together newspapers into canvas material
as he speaks. “It was more than a workplace. You had input and output
and exchange. I didn’t come from the art world; I learned in squats, and
Tacheles was like my university.”
At “Tacheles Academy,” the new programme run by Parras and Roeloffs,
a growing group of 20-somethings learn how to use scrap material and
second-hand supplies to make art for sale. They show up to the Kulturbotschaft
when they want, learn from the Tacheles elders, and spend
much of their time out selling art on the street. “Everyone can do it this
way,” says Roeloffs, who can build €200 wooden frames from roadside
supplies. “You’re not ‘allowed’ to do this, in some people’s minds. Everyone’s
in love with the idea of the starving, poor unknown artist. But
if I make something today, I want to sell it tomorrow. Wanting to make
money doesn’t make me less of an artist.” But these are just five of the
Tacheles old guard. Where are the others?
German Palomeque
The unofficial boss
If Parras, Roeloffs and the Böttchers were the old “spirit” of Tacheles, a
different group of people were more like the bones, the skeletal system
that gave it a distinct – and perhaps controversial – shape in the last
decade. This was a small body of five, handling operations, admin, tax,
PR and politics, all the while artists themselves. Martin Reiter and Linda
Cerna were at the helm of the group.
It’s no secret that Reiter wasn’t always popular with the Tacheles folk.
But he’s unfazed by this today. “My position, if you want it in those terms,
was to play the role of the boss,” he says slowly. “The boss gets involved
with the politics, the market… when things get difficult, everyone needs to
be able to point to ‘the fucked-up boss.’”
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DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
There was no ‘spirit’ of
Tacheles at the time. Everyone
is making up their own
reality of ‘What Tacheles Was.’
It became a myth.
When he came to Tacheles in 1993, it was by invitation. At age 27
he was already recognised in Austria for his paintings, sculptures, and
specialty in robotics. He arrived to a slew of internal problems. “All
the Western guys were there for the house and the money, at first,”
he remembers. Later, sub-groups formed. “The groups weren’t so
much divided by house, downstairs, and yard, but rather: the guys
who just wanted to make money, the guys who fucked up because
they drank too much and thought that made them artists, the touristic-art
guys, the pragmatic and open-minded artists, and the crooks.
The worst were the people who said, ‘I am the Tacheles.’ I never said
that, because no one person could say that and it be true.”
He went to the courts to battle for Tacheles several times: first in
the 1990s for the 10-year lease, and again from 2008 to 2012 trying to
get a new contract. “We won that first battle: we kept the building.
But it was only a 10-year contract. In a speech to the others I said
that we cannot take this 10-year contract, because in 2008 they will
definitely throw us out. But the group didn’t follow that idea, so in
the end we signed the contract. I wanted to keep going until we were
the owners of the house.”
Unlike the Lichtenberg fellows, Reiter dismisses the idea of a
“spirit of Tacheles” existing as such. “These are buzzwords, there
was no ‘spirit’ of Tacheles at the time. Everyone is now doing what
people do with religion. They’re making their up own reality of ‘What
Tacheles Was’, because it’s in the past. It became myth. The facts are:
we squatted a house, we painted pictures, and we got famous because
a small group of people fucked with the economy, the bank and the
politicians of Germany. If we hadn’t done that, nobody would give a
shit about Tacheles.”
But he clearly does, despite the edge in his tone. After the dust
settled, he set up and started managing The Tacheles Archives in the
basement of a small building in Potsdam. Its drawers are overflowing
with artefacts, filled with meticulously filed photos, flyers and
catalogues. Paintings hang on every wall and stacks of files cover the
floor, like a messy bedroom where he can remember “exactly where
everything is.” This is what’s left of much of the art of Tacheles itself:
about 250 works the artists left behind. When he’s not maintaining
the archives, organising small exhibitions, or making a living teaching
robotics, he meets and collaborates with artists from the old days.
One of them is Linda Cerna.
Anastasia Chistyakova
The organisational team had to contend with complex internal
politics at the time. This included enforcing the “rent” system: artists
paid about €200 a month for the electricity, gas, water, and a smattering
of tax necessities. There was more than a little pushback. “We
wanted to be as democratic as possible when it came to the art, the
projects we could make happen. But we couldn’t be democratic about
deciding whether we pay for electricity or not. It’s not just about
making art and welcoming people, it’s about cleaning the toilet and
keeping the power on too.”
And then there was the outer, PR layer: “We contacted politicians
and asked for support. We took all the legal steps we could to save
the house, knowing that in the end the only way to save Tacheles was
if the city of Berlin really wanted to save it. In the end, they decided
not to,” says Cerna, telling us of a particularly embarrassing incident
in which artists sent a set of symbolic keys to the mayor when it
became clear they would be evicted in September, along with an open
letter that said: “The house is yours now, we hope you keep it an art
place for the city.” Two days later, Wowereit had given the keys to an
investor, apparently not knowing that it was a symbolic gesture – the
investors’ hired hands went to the building while it was dark and
tried all the doors with the keys.
Post-eviction, Cerna kept working with the artists both in Berlin
and abroad; she helped set up the archives with Reiter, and she was
invited to the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum in Naples to do
a Tacheles-themed exhibition. She now organises communication
for art fairs, including Berliner Liste. She’s disconcerted by the
city’s unwillingness to save the living landmark. “It wasn’t the cost,
because we financed it ourselves. If you look at it objectively, the
project was something the city should have been proud of, it was
special; people don’t come here to visit the shopping malls. It was a
big loss for Berlin.”
Exporting the myth
Of course, the gentrification of the last decade only fanned the
flames of that loss. Some artists left the city after their studio space
idyll was gone. Barbara Fragogna, also a member of the organisation
team, returned to Italy after the eviction. Like Cerna, she too witnessed
the final five years, coming to Berlin in pursuit of an artistic
career and moving into a small flat just down the street from Tacheles.
At the time, no one was doing the tedious work she eventually
After the eviction from the iconic
location on Oranienburger Straße,
Martin & Linda moved art and artefacts
to a Potsdam basement.
Housekeeping in a squat
Cerna came in 2008, as the 10-year lease was running out and the
artists were trying to find a new way to secure the house, buffeted at
every turn by Mayor Wowereit’s unwillingness to help and investors
clamouring to turn Tacheles into a brand for new real estate. A Freie
Universität graduate, she wanted to get into cultural management
and thought an internship would be the best route. “I wanted to go
somewhere that interested me, that I cared about. So, I went straight
to Tacheles. I found Martin and asked for a chance. He just said ‘Well,
you can try!’” When Cerna successfully organised the massive archive
into an in-house retrospective exhibition in a matter of weeks, she
was there to stay.
14
EXBERLINER 171

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
took over: running and structuring a programme for the frequentlyused
400sqm gallery and accompanying catalogues. Independently,
she kickstarted exchanges with artists from Italy. She now employs
the organisational flair she brought to Tacheles in her Turin-based
Fusion Art Gallery.
At the mention of another similar project in Berlin, Barbara laughs
kindly. “Maybe if Martin and Linda were doing it, I’d come back for
that. A big organisation like that can only thrive if you have a lucky
cosmic moment, the perfect combination of people… We used to say,
we would vote for Linda for queen of the universe.”
But she remembers the tension, too. “We could have been evicted at
any moment. Everything felt precarious. Once, we were suddenly occupied
by security men from the bank,” she says, recounting the time
a group of hired vandals broke into painter Alexandr Rodin’s fifth-floor
studio. “They were all dressed in black. I could see one of them had a
swastika tattoo. They squatted his studio and destroyed some work. It
felt like living with a parasite.” It took two months of back and forth
in the courts (costs shouldered in part by Martin Reiter) to get a legal
order forcing them out.
“Sometimes we wondered if we should just close it ourselves,” she
sighs. “It’s so psychologically and physically tiring, to work in a place
where you invest all your time and energy and you don’t know when
it’s going to end. During the last days we were planning to improve
the house and solve the structural problems – but we needed more
finances. I think if we’d been permitted to keep the building, we would
have found a way. Even though we lost the property in the end, it’s
impressive how far we got.”
What about the others?
For the artists who aren’t founding a new art centre or hanging out with
the organisational team, there is no single trajectory that accounts for
the last five years. Some started galleries that quickly closed. Some are
still in Berlin selling art or drugs. At least three committed suicide after
the eviction. Some even attempted, unsuccessfully, to create a “New
Tacheles” in Marzahn in 2013.
And some are still arguably thriving, filling the gap left by Tacheles
with their own thrifty solutions to support their creative careers.
Experimental musician and painter Kurihara Takuya remembers it all:
the stressful last days, the loss of electricity, the dissent within the house.
He kept to himself and “stayed out of the politics,” continuing to put on
experimental music shows with friends on Monday nights in the building’s
event space. “I was offered money by the lawyers from the bank’s
side to leave, but I kept turning it down – I wanted to keep my studio.”
When Tacheles closed, he moved his art into his 20sqm apartment
in Neukölln where he still lives today. Pieces are lined up against
the walls about a foot deep into the room where he sleeps. He can’t
afford to create and sell full time, so he supplements his income by
washing dishes nine hours a week at a restaurant and selling his work
on Sundays at Mauerpark.
“Tacheles helped with my future. I have connections to galleries and
clients who visited me back then. Being there forever wouldn’t have
been ideal for me anyway. I wanted to take the next step as an artist,
stage proper exhibitions, go other places. When it closed, it sucked: I
lost the place my income was coming from. But it turned out okay –
better, even. There was no option to go back anyway.” He motions to
his current surroundings. “We all had to go forward.”
It seems, then, that Martin Reiter’s statement was true: the spirit of
Tacheles could be a “myth” in the sense that anyone could make what
they wanted of it later. But those who are actually making something
of it now – recording history, teaching young Berliners, organising festivals,
building Italian galleries, or just simply creating – are using that
myth for something. This seems fair. They are, after all, its authors. n
German photographer Petrov Ahner
on his Tacheles years
“I ran into Tacheles by chance in the winter of 2009.
I’d just arrived in Berlin after 15 years in Paris, I didn’t
know anyone here. As I was walking down the street, I
saw this place that looked so different from anything
I’d ever encountered. It startled me. When I saw all
the tourists just walking in and taking pictures, I put
my own camera away. I went inside not knowing what
to expect. The space was dirty, dodgy-smelling, a
little cold in the winter, but the atmosphere was so
vibrant. French, Spanish, German and English could
be heard everywhere. I talked to Martin and Linda and
proposed a photography project to them. They gave
me the freedom to do it, to do whatever I wanted. So
I started by hanging out there and taking pictures,
becoming the “official Tacheles photographer” – whatever
that means. I ended up spending most of my days
there until the eviction in 2012. The door was always
open and you could hang out there any time, even if
you didn’t have money. There was so much exchange
going on between artists and Barbara really pushed me
to get a better angle on my photography – it was wonderful.
It was a unique place in a unique time. Tacheles
couldn’t be recreated now. It has become a symbol for
all the alternative art spaces that have been driven out
of the city centre by gentrification.” -TL
MAY 2018
15

CRYPTO MONEY
The Berlin
bitcoin bros
The city has long been a den for
cypherpunks, crypto-anarchists and
dark webbers. But now locals are
getting rich on the cryptocurrency
craze and Berlin has become a serious
hub for the technology. How did
bitcoin become so mainstream?
By Liam Kelly
It’s been over four years since Bitcoin’s market value
jumped from €80 to about €647 and Exberliner published
its first piece about “Betting on bits”. At the moment, the
virtual currency is on its way down from €13,600 in December
to around €6,900 at time of press. But despite the drop,
readers who were inspired to quickly invest in this hypervolatile
nascent technology in 2014 would still have enjoyed a
pretty serious return in 2018.
Anyone with a network in the scene now finds their social
media feeds flooded with pictures of Lamborghinis, yachts,
and prototypical beach vacations all bought from the returns
made from betting on Bitcoin early. Those who are not part
of the community are still trying to understand the phenomenon
and whether they, too, should be jumping on the crypto
bandwagon. Basically, everyone wants to know how to turn
€80 into €13,600 for free and, well, fair enough.
A Kreuzberg pioneer's ideals
Sitting outside his bar in Kreuzberg, Room 77, Jörg Platzer
looks like a man who made a good investment for good reasons.
Everyone in his vicinity seems to be aware of this too:
people coming by pat him on the back or give him discreet
nods of recognition. He is greeted by friends in multiple
languages. This might not seem unusual for a bar owner, but
Room 77 has an added feature: it was the first brick and mortar
business in the world to accept Bitcoin as a means of payment.
In May 2011, when Platzer reportedly sold his first pint
in exchange for the pioneer cryptocurrency, Bitcoin was far
from big enterprise. He explains that he would have been
lucky to have one or two customers a month looking to try
it out. But the handful of enthusiasts who came to the bar in
2011 to spend their new internet money had found a home.
They would lug their laptops into the bar and manually type
in their Bitcoin wallet addresses, a cryptographically secure
chain of numbers and letters, and thereby join a movement
looking to overturn our current financial system.
Back in the day, the technology was simply another extension
of a grander ideology, explains Platzer. Posted on the
walls, next to the Bitcoin stickers, one finds quotes from
the likes of Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Aaron
Schwartz. There is even a printout of “Free Ross Ulbricht”,
the founder of the dark web marketplace, the Silk Road,
taped to the wall. Below a panel of spirits, a sign reads: “I
BELIEVE IN HONEST MONEY / GOLD, SILVER AND BIT-
COIN.” Platzer considers himself a crypto-anarchist, economist,
and ideological relative of the same utopian values
that the internet promised: “I was never part of any official
Cypherpunk group, but I was part of the movement,” he says
referring to the few people really interested in cryptography
and its technological applications during the 1990s.
The connection to the internet is critical because according
to many, blockchain technology which underpins Bitcoin could
birth a “web 3.0.” It’s still early days, but the hype is palpable.
If not yet opening up a new technological era, Bitcoin does
promise a correction to one of the internet’s original sins.
Platzer explains: “The first mistake we made was not to have
built money into the web. A means of payment. People needed
a way to monetize their content. The only problem was no one
invented the fucking digital cash to do it.”
From idealism to investment
While the logic seems oddly capitalistic, the alternative has
clearly been much worse. In the absence of a native currency
for the internet, banner ads, pop-ups, and click baits have
spawned. Without internet money, Platzer argues, companies
like Google and Amazon have a high incentive to collect
as much data as possible and turn that into money. In 2017,
Facebook alone made nearly $40 billion in advertising revenue.
Platzer is sure that “if sites had had a button to let you
send a micropayment, there would never have been all this
advertising and giving-up-my-credit-card-details shit.” In the
eyes of people like him, Bitcoin provided an anonymous way
of exchanging value on the internet. No one harvests any data;
everyone walks away with clean hands – that was the idea.
What the Bitcoin pioneer is presenting as internet idealism
has actually made him a lot of money. When asked if
he would divulge information on his returns since accepting
cryptocurrencies, Platzer responds abruptly: “Sorry,
that’s not possible. I’m sure your editor understands that
very well.” With a bit of simple arithmetic, however, we can
arrive at a general conclusion: when the bar began accepting
the virtual money, a Bitcoin was worth about €0.80, so
a €4.20 pint would have cost around 5.25 BTC. In 2012, the
price of Bitcoin rose to about €4.25 and that same beer would
have then cost something like 0.9 BTC. So, in the span of 12
months, Platzer enjoyed a fivefold increase in value on that
one beer sold in his bar. Skip ahead to December 2017, when
Bitcoin was worth €13,600 a pop, meaning the Bitcoin valueequivalent
of that same beer sold in 2011 (i.e. 5.25 BTC) was
now worth around €85,000.
As the price of Bitcoin climbed, speculators entered the
scene and the clientele at Room 77 changed. People were
now showing up with their smartphone-integrated Bitcoin
“wallets”, making transactions by conveniently swiping a
Anastasia Chistyakova
16 EXBERLINER 171

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
QR code. In 2011, when people showed up for the monthly
Bitcoin meet-up, they didn't see it as a means to make a living.
Now, the same meet-ups at the bar attract start-up recruiters,
libertarians and media representatives from notable German
newspapers. At the March gathering, there even was a guy
from Chad who explained that due to government-induced
inflation of the country’s currency, many of his friends and
family were turning to Bitcoin.
By now, institutional investors from J.P. Morgan and Goldman
Sachs to politicians like Angela Merkel are waking up to
this novel economic instrument – for very different reasons.
Due to the same privacy features lauded by Platzer, Bitcoin
was quickly adopted by the dark web. Things on offer at
places like the Silk Road and Hansa included computer parts,
cars, guns, knives, drugs and even people. In those spaces Bitcoin
was the sole means of payment.
Getting high on the gamble
Longtime Berliner Simon (name changed) works at a bar on
Lübbener Straße near Schlesisches Tor. Going by his job and
when speaking with him, you wouldn’t necessarily identify
this guy as a crypto day trader. He looks nothing like an
overnight millionaire. He is slim, wears skinny black jeans
and a black hoodie. And yet, in between guests arriving at the
bar, the twentysomething talks about the big “bounce” due to
happen in the next few weeks.
The plunge in price is bound to follow a big sell-off by a
“whale” (a trustee from Mt.Gox, the first Bitcoin exchange,
who is currently trying to pay off creditors and subsequently
liquidating swaths of the virtual currency), a shock regulation
passed by China, and just the general chaos of valuating something
that has never previously existed. This is what Simon
is talking about. “It is just like April last year,” he explains.
“Things were pretty boring, not much movement, Bitcoin kind
of dropped a bit. But it’ll go on a bull run before the summer.”
A “bull run” is old school stock market terminology for
a continuous price hike. It’s also the term that earned Bitcoin
prime television slots over the past few months. The opposite
is called a “bear market,” from which we are apparently slowly
emerging now. Both, ironically, come directly from the trading
institutions that Bitcoin was hoping to destroy.
“I’m bullish as long as it doesn’t dip below €6,000,” he says
looking up from his phone. But this recent obsession wasn’t
how Simon got hooked on trading. He explains that “at the
end of 2014, maybe early 2015, I was just buying stuff on the
dark web with Bitcoin. Mostly drugs for my friends. I just
thought it was cool to have this Bitcoin wallet and use this
new type of money.” Plus, Simon explains, it was only on the
dark web that one could buy 100 percent pure cut Colombian
cocaine. “I was basically just giving it away for free and telling
my friends that I bought it with Bitcoin. I was never dealing,”
he confirms. His early stage Bitcoin buying spree included
the purchase of counterfeit money for an art project. The
latter met its conclusion in 2015 after ten heavily armed
Bundespolizisten broke down Simon’s door at six o'clock in the
morning screaming, “Wo ist das Geld!? Wo ist es!?” In response
to which he sheepishly pointed to a paper-mâché mobile he’d
made from fake euro bills.
Apparently, servers for a major dark web marketplace in
Holland had been compromised by local authorities. Names,
addresses and purchasing histories had immediately become
available and with the help of foreign authorities relevant
individuals were arrested. But since the police couldn’t prove
that Simon had been using the money for anything other
than arts and crafts with his girlfriend, he only “spent like five
minutes in jail.” He was lucky not to have been caught actually
spending the counterfeits. But this event, the collapse of the
Silk Road and the arrest of darknet market operator Ross Ulbricht
spelled the end of Simon’s wanderings around the hidden
parts of the internet. As for cryptocurrencies, though, he
found yet another use for them: safe storage while traveling.
Changing bud for Bitcoin
A year after his run-in with the law, Simon and his girlfriend
took up work harvesting marijuana on a farm in Humboldt
County, California. “The work wasn’t too difficult and the pay
was pretty good,” he adds. It was, however, still very much
illegal in California to grow the plant in 2016 and thus the
couple’s paychecks were strictly in cash. “But you don’t really
want to be travelling with huge stacks of cash in your bag. It
just didn’t make sense. So we put it into Bitcoin.”
This process of moving money was performed via the
German online bank Fidor and their convenient relationship
with Bitcoin.de, the German Bitcoin exchange. Customers of
the bank can open an account at Bitcoin.de, transfer any Bitcoin
holdings from their personal wallets onto the exchange,
and then sell these holdings for euros or dollars using a Fidor
account. From there, it’s just like real money. Simon would
first exchange his cash into Bitcoin using localbitcoins.com,
a peer-to-peer exchange now illegal in Germany, and keep
them on his phone before changing them over to dollars
whenever the couple needed it.
This type of activity is exactly what Chancellor Merkel and
global regulators are looking to stamp out in 2018. While
comparatively lenient, Germany has strict anti-money laundering
(AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) laws to prevent
illegal money from moving hands. These kinds of global
regulations were also a major talking point at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this year. Joachim
Wuermeling, a member of the Bundesbank executive board,
told Reuters in January that “effective regulation of virtual
currencies would only be achievable through the greatest
possible international cooperation, because the regulatory
power of nation states is obviously limited.”
When they finally arrived at New York's JFK airport for
the flight back to Berlin, their plane was delayed nearly ten
hours. With the €647 the airline paid as compensation, Simon
bought Ripple, a cryptocurrency that acts like a share in “a
real-time settlement system and remittance network.” He
Anastasia Chistyakova
MAY 2018
17

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
was basically buying virtual stock in the next generation Moneygram
or Western Union. And in 2016, this was an excellent decision. He
recounts staking in Ripple when it was trading at less than half a cent
per unit. By January 2018, the same digital currency reached approximately
€2.50 a unit. This means that, simply by taking the gamble, Simon
turned his €647 into €323,500. Naturally, his interest was piqued
and he began further exploring the fast growing market. “And then
Monero started posting stuff about integrating into
dark web sites and so I bought some of that too
when it was like $11 or so,” he continues. Monero
is perhaps the leading privacy-centric cryptocurrency
and as such is becoming the new alternative
for dark webbers in 2018. Now trading at €184 per
coin, it has proven another excellent stroke of luck
for Simon.
When asked about paying taxes on his capital
gains here in Germany, Simon is quick to reply:
“Basically, if you hold a coin for more than a year,
you don’t need to pay taxes on it. So I just sort of
pull from the Bitcoin I had from when I started
and only take out little amounts to pay my rent or
whatever.” At the moment, Simon claims to be earning roughly €1600
per month, but “it’s obviously different if I catch a coin on a big run.”
So, why the bar gig? “It’s good to get out and socialize. I’m just reading
charts all day and following different threads. Even at the bar, I’m
still constantly checking my phone. I think I drive my girlfriend crazy.
We’ll be going to Asia for a while, which will be good,” he says. “Maybe
I’ll quit one day, but I like working some hours here and there.”
“The ideal of
freedom has
more or less
fallen by the
way. Nobody
gives a fuck.”
A sobering turn
While Simon contemplates what exactly to do with his new windfall,
others are repositioning entire companies to find the next Bitcoins,
Ripples, and Moneros. April saw the very first C³ Crypto Conference,
“Germany’s largest conference on cryptocurrency and blockchain,”
which allowed participants to get a better feel for how crypto startups
are trying to get their share of all this money. The Station, the
conference venue near Gleisdreieck, is done up in blue banners and a
striking amount of suits and start-up types pour through the venue’s
iron gates. A scene that would probably make cypherpunks, dark webbers,
and the 2011 anarchist folk cringe.
On day one of the two-day event, conference founder Dennis
Weidner talks about his marketing firm Paranoid Internet and why
people in Berlin suddenly are so stoked about Bitcoin. His company
currently represents several cryptocurrency ventures looking to generate
a native cryptocurrency, projects ranging from Holo (decentralised
data storage), to redBUX (a currency for virtual reality porn).
When these tokens are made, they are then put on sale, or “offered,”
at a discount for anyone to buy up with currencies like Bitcoin.
The business model is called ICO – short for initial coin offering
– and, according to Weidner, these discounted
tokens will draw colossal gains.
These ventures are basically trying to recreate
what Simon experienced with Ripple, but start
even earlier, when the virtual shares are worth
even less and the windfall could be even greater.
Weidner is there to translate the crypto jargon to
eager investors. He found a niche left open by the
early crypto-nerds who couldn’t get their point
across: “In 2015 and 2016, all these developers were
screaming ‘Check out this new technology!’ - but
no one understood what they were talking about.”
Berlin, he says, is an ideal base for what he does:
“When I want to know what’s going on in America,
I can find out right here in the city. It’s like a big think tank, everyone’s
exchanging ideas. It’s all about people.”
Despite the promise of fortunes, it's all highly tenuous. With billion
euro sums flying across the internet, a lot can go wrong. So while this
new funding model can be an excellent tool for attracting non-accredited
investors, many ICOs have been shut down for fraudulent behaviour
and down-right shadiness. Even ten years since Bitcoin’s inception,
cyber money is struggling with its identity. Buzzwords like ‘mass adoption,’
and ‘ecosystem,’ are repeated constantly at conferences like C³,
but back at Room 77 they ring superfluous to people like Platzer. He
still thinks there is something much more important at stake: “We
have reached everybody that we want to reach, but while everybody
went crazy about Bitcoin, the ideal of freedom has more or less fallen
by the way. Nobody gives a fuck. I could sometimes freak out about the
surveillance state my government has built with my tax money.”
Perhaps the future isn’t Bitcoin. Nonetheless, in the information
age, it is addressing some of the most fundamental issues facing our
society. Privacy, Big Data, all the Big Brothers: the internet seems to
have opened a massive can of worms. Bitcoin, for what it’s worth in
2018, allows us to inspect the depths of this can – even if its value
drops to zero tomorrow. n
June 8 – 10
Berlin
18
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WWW.TORSTRASSENFESTIVAL.DE #TSF18

CONFESSION
The sugar babes
Being a sugar baby may sound easy – you just have to
show up and look pretty – but in reality, it is a harsh,
competitive world of high expectations and hard work.
Yet many millennials across the world choose to make
a living by it. We spoke to two of them in Berlin. By Anna
Gyulai Gaál
When I first met Samira about
two years ago, I couldn’t help
but wonder about her Gucci and
Louis Vuitton bags, her diamond rings, and
her endless pairs of shoes worth a month’s
rent in Berlin. She was driving a Smart and
renting a beautiful two-room apartment on
Paul-Lincke-Ufer which she wasn’t sharing
with a fellow student. All of this while being
an ancient history student at the Freie
Universität? Samira had come from Tbilisi
one year earlier and her parents weren’t
wealthy. She didn’t have a side job. I wasn’t
left wondering about her glamerous lifestyle
for long though, as she turned out to be
disarmingly open about her source of ‘good
luck’. His name was John * , a wealthy German
businessman she’d met on an online platform
called Seeking Arrangement. She had
a sugar daddy.
“When I arrived in Berlin, I didn’t have
much money. My parents are very supportive
but I knew they couldn’t give me what
I needed for the life I wanted in Germany,”
Dom Okah
explains Samira, her big brown, Bambi-like
eyes screaming the kind of innocence immediately
disproved by her words. “I know
that I am kind of pretty, and I know that I have a brain. I once saw a documentary about sugar
babies and it kind of stuck with me. I was curious whether I could do it. So I signed up to
Seeking Arrangement and within a few days I had a full calendar.”
On sites like Seeking Arrangement, Sugar Daddy For Me and Sugar Daddy Meet, both parties
create a profile intended to appeal to the desired audience. The sugar daddies and mommas list
their annual income, their lifestyle and their marital status, while the “babies” promote their
own “assets”, all the while making their boundaries clear. The idea behind the growing community
of “sugaring” is that it’s based on mutual honesty and a clear transaction between two
people. “The good thing about it is that there are no surprises. Well, most of the time. Sometimes
it is surprising how anxious a man can be despite being successful and rich. It made me
feel very powerful actually,” Samira laughs. Her profile stated that sex wasn’t on the table and
that she was in it for the experience, gifts and some extra cash. She also listed her qualifications,
body measurements and wrote a short essay about her future plans signalling to daddies
that she was the girl to take to fancy dinners, banquets and on trips. “What surprised me the
most was probably the fact that there is a world like this in Berlin at all! I knew the bars, the
junkies, the struggling youth, and then I was suddenly invited to the crème de la crème. At the
MAY 2018
19

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
beginning I would go on all the dates just to
see what was out there, and then I started
selecting my daddies. Most of them were
usually in town for a few days in between
business trips. Sometimes they’d invite me to
accompany them abroad. Sometimes I would
go and sometimes I would turn it down because
I was in university. But somehow I felt
that a trip could bring the expectation of sex.
And I didn’t want to have sex with them!”
she says, adding that equating sugaring with
prostitution or even escorting is a “hurtful
misconception”. But it was a lot of work on
top of her MA studies.
“I always had to look nice. I had to remember
which client got me which perfume,
dress or accessories and wear those on our
dates. I went to the gym 4 times a week to
be in good shape, to the hairdresser, nail
salon, waxing… it is actually hard work!
I know it sounds lame, but it was tiring.”
Eventually, after eight months juggling six
to seven guys, she reduced the number
of her daddies to three. “I could maintain
that easily and still earn about €2000 a
month from them, not including the gifts
and meals. These were all under 60, strong,
charismatic and attractive men. So yes,
I did sleep with them eventually…”
Samira had no intention of taking on
a new sugar daddy when she met John
on Seeking Arrangement. “He was very
persistent, so I gave in. And to be honest,
he did sweep me away on our first date. He
was amazing: polite, well-read and welltravelled,
he spoke many languages. The
next night he invited me to a big event in
Frankfurt and soon he insisted we meet
every night he was in town.” By the end of
that week John had made it clear that he
wanted a more serious commitment and
offered to rent an apartment for Samira
and cover all her expenses with an extra
allowance to boot. “All I had to do for it
was to be there whenever he was in Berlin,
travel with him when he wanted me. And,
of course, sex. I slept with him on my first
night and it was actually good.” Two weeks
later Samira moved out of her tiny room in
a flat share into her dream apartment. “He
made me promise that I’d stop seeing the
other guys, he made me delete my profile
and he would check on me all the time. But
it was okay. John was a very generous sugar
daddy. He supported my studies, and always
seemed proud to have me on his side. I
got to see and experience many things I
wouldn’t have without him!” So it went on
for five months: “I was kind of happy... until
I met Jakob!” What started as a spontaneous
flirt on a Berlin dancefloor turned into
the real thing. Faced with a choice between
her arrangement with John and life with
Jakob, she opted for the latter and broke
up with John, leaving behind the flat and
all the nice gifts. “I’d not expected John to
get so mad. He shouted he would kill that
boy and demanded that I leave the apartment
by the next day and wanted his money
back.” Samira and Jakob have been together
for almost two years now. She finished her
studies and they are planning to get married.
Jakob comes from a simple, Bavarian
family and cannot offer her the luxury the
sugaring did. “I wouldn’t exchange my current
happiness for anything money can buy.
That part of my life is over. I am happy now
and who knows – maybe one day I’ll be rich
myself,” she says, though the chances are
pretty slim, being a historian.
Samira has remained in touch with some
former sugar daddies like Peter, one of
the last three men she was dating before
she went exclusive with John. “I am actually
still friends with Samira. I cannot say I don’t
dream of dating her again, but since that is not
an option, we are just friends. We go out for
a coffee sometimes, but she has made it clear
that she wants no gifts or money from me anymore,”
explains the 45-year-old buinessman in
the most casual way. On the phone he doesn’t
sound like a super-rich executive responsible
for multi-million euro oil sales. “I don’t think
there is anything to be ashamed of in the world
of sugaring. We business people often don’t
have time and energy to date, to seduce, to
entertain, to deal with the emotional expectations
of our partners. For me, business is more
important. Sugaring is such a clear arrangement
and therefore I won’t disappoint or fail
anybody. I hurt many women in my youth just
because I wasn’t able to put them first. With all
the travelling and stress my job requires I often
just want to have a nice dinner or a date to an
event, someone who is pretty and intelligent
and can distract me from my everyday life. It
isn’t necessarily about sex! If I want sex, I can
get an A-list escort. I just expect my sugar baby
to be good company.”
Do such expectations go with our current
ideal of gender equality? Or do they just
perpetuate the centuries-old male-dominated
cultural and financial structures the #metoo
movement has been painstakingly trying to
shake? For Peter this is a clean cut case of contractual
business where both parties can meet
at eye level: “The girls sign up, they want money,
the men know what they get and what they
don’t. It’s business. And I am good at business
– terrible at love, but very good at business!”
Reflecting back on her experience, Samira sees
a certain degree of empowerment. “I certainly
don’t think I was a victim of anybody or that I
would have been sexually abused, ever! I actually
feel like I was the boss!”
“With all the
travelling and stress
my job requires,
I often just want to
have a nice dinner
with someone
who is pretty and
intelligent ...
It isn’t necessarily
about sex! If I want
sex, I can get an
A-list escort.”
EXBERLINER 171

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
Worldwide, 2.7 million sugar babies are registered
on Seeking Arrangement alone, 1.5 million of them
students. According to Let’s Talk Sugar (a forum
where ‘babies’ can discuss experiences and find tips) there
are “thousands of sugar babies in the sugar bowl”, i.e. about
8-12 sugar babies for each daddy, so competition is tough.
But a new industry is already catering to the community with
courses to learn how to make a profile stand out, and annual
Sugar Baby Summits in New York, Los Angeles and London
with courses, lectures and discussions.
Meanwhile, more and more wealthy gay men and older
women are joining the sugar bowl. Lucas, a 23-year-old
Berliner – blonde, tall, handsome and self-confident – dates
both. “But only over 45! They are more giving,” the fashion
student is quick to clarify. “I do some modelling and DJing,
but I don’t earn much. I like to party and I like nice things!
Lucas’ first sugar daddy was an accident. “I’d just met an
older guy on Grindr three or four years ago and he got me
nice things, he was really like a father to me but I didn’t like
fucking him.” When they broke up Lucas turned to platforms
like Gay Arrangement and Seeking Arrangement. “It
gives me the opportunity to set my own rules. I don’t have
to sleep with anyone if I don’t want to. And I don’t want to
most of the time. I also prefer cash instead of gifts, so I make
that clear, too,” says the cheerful Berliner. You can tell he
works out and has the cash to buy designer clothes. “I actually
made this coat myself!” he says proudly. “I started with
gay men only and then I realised that there are older women
looking for companionship, too. So I changed my status to
‘looking for both daddies and mommas.’” Lucas explains
that the latter are mostly rich widows or women who were
left by their husbands for a younger girl, or who are being
cheated on and ignored. “They’re lonely, they want someone
to compliment them, to pay them attention, to make them
feel that they matter!”
Lucas is glad to provide all the above, but not sex. “I do
sleep with girls, but I’ve never slept with any of my female
clients! With women, age matters more to me. So I accompany
them to the theatre and the opera, to dinner, to fashion
shows, to shopping, I even come over and just chat, but the
most I did was kissing one of the ladies, who asked me very
kindly to make her feel like a beautiful woman. I couldn’t say
no to that!” Lucas has two female and four male clients at the
moment. That means earning just enough for a cosy tworoom
Altbau flat in Kreuzberg, a wardrobe filled with designer
clothing, and eating out every single day. Not such a shabby
life for a student.
“Women give me all sorts of presents, even if I tell them
not to. They can’t get rid of the momma inside of them! Men
are different. They do what I tell them most of the time. I
thought that rich gay men would be very demanding and
controlling in a situation like this, but I totally feel like I am
the one controlling them, because I am young and in a good
shape and they want me so bad. One of my clients is a married
man. His wife has no idea that he is seeing boys. I know
I’m not even his only sugar baby! Another guy wants no sex
at all, he just wants to hold hands and go for walks. People’s
needs are so different and I am happy to please them.”
Does he sometimes miss a real, romantic relationship? “It
would just make life more complicated. This is simple and yet
fun. I am young, I am free, I live in an age where anything is
possible. Who knows, maybe I’ll find a guy who will kickstart
my career and help me launch my own line of clothing!” ■
EINFACH!
DEUTSCH
LERNEN.
goethe.de/berlin
MAY 2018
Sprache. Kultur. Deutschland.
21

DON’T WORK, MAKE MONEY
SOCIAL MEDIA
@awesomenberlin
How to be a
Berlinfluencer
Hip Berlin is the perfect subject for Instagrammers, bers and bloggers – but can they make any money with
Youtu-
it?
By Alison Bell
@delicieux_11
Social media has created a new class
of celebrities. Instagrammers such as
Kayla Itsines, Sophie Hannah Richardson,
Murad Osmann and even Marnie the
Dog are household names, showcasing their
enviable lifestyles to a huge online following.
Unsurprisingly, brands have caught on
to the potential of these social media stars.
With a strong following and high engagement
rate, many bloggers and social media
users – aka influencers – provide trusted
content to shape the opinions and purchasing
decisions of their loyal followers. Top
influencers such as Kim Kardashian are
rumoured to earn over €200,000 per post.
Clearly, “influencing” has the potential to be
a lucrative business.
In Berlin the graffiti-lined streets, achingly
hip people and perfectly-formed flatwhites
make for an Instagrammers dream.
But is it really possible to make it as an
influencer here?
Social school
One recent Saturday morning a small group
of aspiring self-publishers have headed to
Charlottenburg to find out how they can
make their fame and, hopefully, fortune on
social media at the Influencer Marketing
Academy. Today’s topic: “Influencer basics:
how to market oneself professionally, grow
and make a living from Insta & co.” Opened
in September, the Influencer Marketing
Academy was established by Sascha Schulz
and Niko Martzy in response to a growing
demand they had noticed for social media
and influencing expertise.
Their influencer courses are “for people
who are either already active in publishing
on social media and want to convert their
voluntary work into a business or people
who are about to start and want to get a bit
more background in perhaps how to create
photos or films for YouTube or how to set
up a media kit and contact a company in
order to receive a booking,” says Schulz. The
goal here is not to make people stars, but to
train them in how to make money with social
media publishing.
While one might expect the Academy to be
filled with scores of manicured Kim Kardashian
lookalikes posing for selfies, it’s not
entirely the case. Yes, the room is predominantly
young and female, but each of the
pupils brings more than model looks to the
table – they all have their own area of expertise
that they’re hoping will help them stand
out in the online world. There’s a Lufthansa
flight attendant who has created a platform
for vegan recipes and nutrition, a cosplay fan
who offers tutorial videos on make-up and
body paint, three young fitness bloggers and
a self-described business influencer. As we go
through the introductions, the modest, common
goal is to earn a bit of extra cash from
sharing the things they love.
Leading the course, Schulz starts by
setting some basics. On the whiteboard
he draws a pyramid. At the top are the big
earners, the two to three percent who can
make a full-time living as a self-publisher
or influencer. The rest can expect or hope
to earn some money but should hang on
to their day jobs. He suggests a monthly
sum of around €600-800 would be feasible
– hardly life-changing and, as he points
out, the trajectory from the bottom of the
pyramid to the top can take two to three
years, requiring some level of dedication
and a great deal of time. One way of making
money is product placement, with Schulz
pointing to tools for helping to monetise
posts, such as Berlin’s ReachHero, an online
marketplace bringing together brands and
influencers. While the average earning varies
enormously according to the platform
and number of followers, as a rough rule
of thumb, ReachHero’s founder and COO
Philipp John says influencers can earn
between €50 and €120 per one thousand
contacts on YouTube and between €5 and
€15 on Instagram. But Schulz is also keen to
stress that being paid to promote a product
is just one aspect of influencer marketing:
there are many possibilities for “increasing
social media value”, such as long copy
blogs, opinion shaping campaigns, such as
public health campaigns, and events.
To be considered for such paid campaigns
typically requires a following of at least 1000
followers or subscribers, depending on the
platform. But it’s not all about the biggest
channel. “Having a large number of followers
is not a sign of quality,” he says. “It can be the
same as printing a magazine with a circulation
of 100,000 and trashing 90 percent of the
print copies. Today it’s more about the degree
of involvement and credibility.” Smaller channels,
with between 1000 and 40,000 followers,
tend to have higher engagement rates (the
total amount of likes and comments). “For
companies to create impact, it’s best to build
networks of smaller, lesser known channels in
order to have the same reach, for less money
and with higher credibility.”
Blogging for fun and cash
One Berliner who fits this criteria is Mary
Scherpe, the brains behind food and fashion
blog Stil in Berlin. Founded in March 2006,
the blog started out as a side project to document
Berlin street-style “I studied art history
and Japanese studies, which is very theoretical
– you write papers and they’re read by
your professor and that’s more or less it. I
wanted to do something that had more to do
with the rest of the world,” explains Scherpe.
Today she has over 120,000 Facebook likes
and almost 38,000 Instagram followers
Content includes a mix of her own recommendations
for food, travel and shopping,
as well as the occasional guest contribution,
combined sponsored content, for example a
Tanqueray-sponsored post on twisted gin &
tonics, and on-site advertising.
It’s with some reluctance that Scherpe
describes herself as an influencer: “The term
‘influencer’ was just invented two or three
22
EXBERLINER 171

@waltercrasshole
”best franco-german culinary alliance“
The Exberliner
@mae
years ago. Influencers have a presence on Instagram
or Snapchat or whatever, but don’t necessarily publish
their own long-format content. However, I have
to market myself as this, because it’s what agencies
sell to brands, the whole influencer model.”
When she started back in 2006 the blog scene was
completely different: “The whole area of lifestyle
and fashion and food and consumerism wasn’t a
thing,” she says. “There was a blog in Helsinki back
then who did street style photos, there was one in
London and that was kind of it. I had an idea that it
would probably interest some people, but I wasn’t
entirely sure.”
For the thirtysomething German, the key is to
remain open and diverse while concentrating on your
own thing: “Obviously there are also a lot of projects
that aren’t necessarily visible on the blog, but did
come through the blog. It’s always a mix of things,”
she says. “You’ve got to find your niche in a way,
you’ve got to find a point of view that sets you apart
from the rest. At least that’s what I would hope that
people who want to earn money in this way would
do, because otherwise we’re just going to end up with
the copy of the copy of the copy. Since 2009 however,
the blog has been a full-time job.”
For her it’s crucial to remember that when you
make channels like Instagram or Facebook your main
publishers, that you’re always at the mercy of these
companies’ decisions: “That’s what is happening right
now, they are restricting the reach of people because
they obviously want to sell advertising,” she says. “My
main tip would be to keep that in mind. You shouldn’t
focus all your energy on one channel, but have a plan
B. And I think it’s always healthier, or business-wise
a better decision, to establish channels that you have
full control over so if anything should happen, you
can still find your audience – or vice versa.”
Super-sharer
Another money-making Berlinfluencer is Tulio
Edreira. The Brazilian native from Goiânia came to
to the city after a 13-year stint in São Paulo. Every
month an average of 55,000 people visit his website
Awesome Berlin to check out his tips on food, drinks
and nightlife. He has 44,000 followers on Instagram
(where Edreira’s photos of Berlin landmarks or
MAY 2018
I personally treat
my platform like
a“Tamagotchi”. I give
it some love every day!”
people hanging out in parks attract thousands of
likes), and 29,000 Facebook fans. Edreira first came
to Berlin to “live an adventure” and was inspired
to launch the site in 2014 by his friend Shoshannah
Hausmann’s site Awesome Amsterdam. During
the first year, he made no money with the site. But
with a background in business it didn’t take long for
Edreira to close his first contract: “In my second year
I was contacted by an agency to create a guide to
hidden Berlin for Wrangler,” he says. “Initially I felt
surprised that I got that kind of an opportunity so
early on. After my first face-to-face meeting with the
agency, I realised that what I had to offer was a great
match to their campaign.”
For him, enjoying what you do is a critical part of
success. “No matter what the trend is, stick to what
you enjoy doing,” he says. “People will get inspired
by you when you do it with pleasure. Plus, that in
itself is a good way to establish a long term self-satisfying
business model. Focus on what you truly like
and create continuous good content. Be consistent.
I personally treat my platform like a “Tamagotchi”. I
give it some love every day!”
With Stil in Berlin, Awesome Berlin and other
contemporaries already established, is there room
for another Berlinfluencer? Back at the academy,
Schulz explains that being an influencer isn’t necessarily
about trying to create something new. For him
it’s more a question of direction, rather than topic. In
this sense, and, judging by the hopefuls at the academy
today, there are surely still opportunities within
various fields - be it travel, food, business or lifestyle
- to earn some level of income from living an enviable,
photogenic Berlin lifestyle. But, if this writer’s
failed attempts to turn her dog (@jackiederhund, just
in case you’re wondering) into an Instagram sensation
have proved anything, racking up the likes and
followers can be an extremely time-consuming and
laborious process. While the real pros make it look
effortless, there have got to be easier ways to earn
some free money. ■
Mon - Fri
5 pm
Sat & Sun
noon
Kollwitzplatz/corner Knaackstraße 37
D-10435 Berlin (Prenzlauer Berg)
phone +49 (0)30 442 92 29
www.gugelhof.de
gugelhof@t-online.de
facebook.com/gugelhof
23

Interview
“Every stage seems to be so small
against the Volksbühne”
Director Adama Ulrich on Partisan, the film tribute to
Berlin’s most iconic theatre she co-authored. By Lily Kelting
No matter what your opinion of Frank Castorf,
Chris Dercon, repertory theatre, state subsidies,
neoliberalism, or the future of Europe, one thing
is for sure: the Castorf Volksbühne was a juggernaut. The
Berlinale documentary, Partisan, is a love poem to the
quarter century that was the Castorf Volksbühne: its
actors, directors, crew, the space itself and the aesthetic
language developed there. Filmmakers Lutz Pehnert,
Matthias Ehlert, and Adama Ulrich show that these
clichés of the Castorf era – the chaos, the screaming, the
“butchered” texts, videography, fights in rehearsal, the
nudity and fake blood – are all part of a unique theatrical
language developed on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. Ulrich
hopes they aren’t lost forever.
Why did you make this film? All three of us are big fans
of the Volksbühne. I went there for the first time in the
1980s before reunification, when directors like Heiner
Muller were there. What an interesting aesthetic! I had
never seen anything like it. It was amazing. This continued
with Frank Castorf, Rene Pollesch, Christoph
Marthaler. When we learned that this era would come
to an end, we decided to do this documentary about the
Volksbühne from 1992 to July 1, 2017, just to create a
document for people who didn't experience this period.
Why did you decide not to include the drama surrounding
Dercon's appointment? Dercon is gone now, right? Ha!
We're so happy that we didn’t put the focus on the political
decision and Chris Dercon. Otherwise our documentary
would already be history. We just thought—1992 to 2017,
25 years, it’s a good figure, a quarter century. It felt right.
But can you comment, personally? For me, it was a scandal
that somebody like (former senator for culture) Tim
Renner and also Klaus Wowereit and now Michael Müller
made the decision. Of course this is not just my opinion.
You could say “poor Dercon,” the poor but so vain Dercon,
who didn’t even know what the Volksbühne really was.
When he got a call from Renner offering him the position,
he just said, “yes, I can do that!” When he opened his Berlin
office in 2016 and realised (senator for culture) Klaus
Lederer didn't want him there, nor the people working in
the Volksbühne, nor the audience, that is when he should
have stopped and thought, “Well, maybe I'm not the right
person”. But it is primarily the fault of the politicians. It is
a big political scandal to destroy such a great theatre.
The film avoids sheer sycophancy and even shows the chaos,
the feuds and even Castorf's famous fits. Was it difficult to
keep a balance? We just showed it like it was. Of course,
the film is something like a declaration of love. But we
also wanted to show the problems. Twenty-five years
is a long time for one director who was responsible for
everything. So we tried not to just say, “everything was
so fantastic.” There were crises, like in 2008-2009 when
directors and actors left and nobody really knew what to
do. We were lucky to have all the archival materials.
Some say that the ongoing scandal will kill the Volksbühne.
Do you agree? No, I hope now it will all get better. Now
we can bring back some of the actors and directors from
before. It is very good that Dercon is going. Too late,
but okay.
But what about the quote from Die Welt read aloud at the
end of the documentary: “It is enough. Twenty five years is a
long time... Do we want to be told what the avant-garde is by
people who are so old that they snorted coke in the ruins of
the East after the fall of the Berlin Wall?” There was always
something new at the Volksbühne! There were so many
directors there, it was diverse. It was not “enough”. I put
this text in the documentary because it was very typical
of one side of the debate. But, no, I don’t agree with it. ■
24 EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON — Exhibitions
were conceived to help the needy help themselves. And the “virtuous”
history continues in many sobering ways – like the Nazis’ cynical
push to “save” for cars and vacations – branded as Kraft durch Freude
(“Strength through Joy”) – money that would eventually be funnelled
into war-machinery instead. Don’t get fooled by the jokey name –
this is serious stuff, and if you learn anything from what you’ve seen,
you’ll make sure to avoid the gift shop. Who would smash open one’s
Sparschwein for a €25-book on sparen? – Walter Crasshole
Through Sep 16
Oh Yeah! Popmusik in Deutschland
Museum for Communication, Mitte
Through Aug 26
Saving – History of a German virtue
DHM, Mitte
A whole exhibition on that most German of pastimes – saving –
sounds about as thrilling as a trip to the Bürgeramt. But with its selfironic
title, perfect packaging and fussy curatorial concept (fittingly
sponsored by Sparkasse!) this exhibition at the DHM should help any
foreign Berliner get a little closer to understanding Germany’s love
for thrift and its nagging efforts at imposing it upon others (e.g. the
financial austerity it demands of the Eurozone). A copy of B.Z. tabloid
emblazoned with a superhero eagle celebrating both Germany’s balanced
budget and international economic dominance (the former
being a condition for the latter) sets the tone. What follows is a
critical history of the roots of Germany scrimping, from the late 18th
century to today, through objects, texts and advertising (or propaganda).
We’re reminded how savings institutions like the Sparkassen
If you think German pop music is relegated to the sugary Ohrwürmer
of Helene Fischer or the insipid nursery school English of
Scooter: you're half right. Schlager is an undeniable part of German
pop, but not all of it. Exhibition Oh Yeah! Pop Music in Germany at
the Museum for Communication attempts to fill in the gap by presenting
a 90-year overview of Deutschpop, -punk, -rap, and more,
from 1925 through today. Visitors are even given a pair of sanitised
headphones to plug in at various stations. The real tour begins
after a barrage of music videos (Deichkind included), starting with
the mention of the invention of the gramophone here in Germany.
From there we get a taste of wild youth 'cliques' listening to “un-
German” jazz and swing in the times of Hitler, the influence of
American radio and Elvis on German youth, and the the suffocatingly
soporific Heimat music of the 1950s, designed to calm the spirits
of defeated and dispirited Germany after the war. Post-Beatles invasion,
the exhibition becomes a little too brisk. Ton Steine Scherben,
Einstürzende Neubauten and Rammstein are confined to one wall
on “radical music”. East and West German punk are presented
on the same footing, revolving around “fun punk” like Die Toten
Hosen (sorry, Berlin trailblazers Malaria! and Die Tödliche Doris).
Nena is squeezed in with Neue Deutsche Welle as if she was no
more than a radio curiosity. German hip hop, too, gets less attention
than it deserves. This show is perfect for out-of-town friends with
little-to-no knowledge of German Music. For something meatier,
head to the adjunct “Berlin.Pop.Women” series of concerts and
talks, making up for a noticeable lack of females in the exhibition.
Catch Gudrun Gut and Barbara Morgenstern on May 8. – WC
FESTIVAL
OF
NEW
DRAMA
2018
INTERNATIONAL KICK OFF
WITH GUEST PERFORMANCES FROM:
Royal District Theatre, Tiblisi, Georgia
OKT/Vilnius City Theatre, Lithuania
Nowy Teatr Warsaw, Poland
Radar Ost is part of the Autorentheatertage (1 – 23 June, 2018)
MAY 2018
25
All performances with English surtitles
For tickets and more information visit deutschestheater.de/en

WHAT’S ON — Film
Editor’s Choice
Extracting wisdom
from whimsy
Frivolous facades mask earnest intents in
three of this month’s releases. By Paul O’Callaghan
DON’T MISS
Pulp Fiction in the park
Freiluftkino Kreuzberg
launches its
25th season on
May 4 with a free
open-air screening
of Tarantino’s 1994
classic. Head to
freiluftkino-berlin.de
to apply for tickets
and to check out
the rest of this
month’s line-up.
The Past in the
Present - New Films
from Algeria
Arsenal Kino offers
a rare opportunity to
catch some of the
best Algerian films
of the past five years
on the big screen,
including Karim
Moussaoui’s Cannes
2017 hit Until
the Birds Return.
May 3-6
Anime Berlin Festival
The city’s biggest
anime showcase
returns to Babylon in
Mitte, with highlights
including anarchic
French-Japanese
festival circuit hit
Mutafukaz, and
harrowing postwar
tearjerker Giovanni’s
Island. May 10-20
Wes Anderson’s stop-motion
animation Isle of Dogs
envisions a dystopian
Japan in which the canines of fictional
Megasaki City have been banished to
nearby Trash Island by hound-hating
Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura).
When said mayor’s young ward Atari
(Koyu Rankin) attempts to rescue his
exiled pet, he must rely on the help
of a pack of mangy mutts to navigate
the wasteland. It’s a visually intricate
affair, albeit grungier than you might
expect – diseased animals, rotting
food and even a kidney transplant
are rendered in surprisingly graphic
fashion. And in terms of sound it’s
cacophonous, with a propulsive, Taiko
drum-heavy score, dogs voiced by Hollywood
stars, and Japanese dialogue
either filtered through an interpreter
or left unsubtitled. Consequently, Anderson
stands accused of othering his
Asian characters, but I take the more
generous view that his intent was to
make his own outsider perspective
explicit. Detractors have also been rattled
by the fact that a rebellion against
Kobayashi is led by Greta Gerwig’s
American exchange student, a white
saviour of sorts. But this heroic arc is
undercut by the way in which the plot
uncomfortably recalls the internment
of Japanese Americans in the US
during World War II. And underlying
it all is a surprisingly moving meditation
on self-determination, with alpha
dog Chief (Bryan Cranston) grappling
with his ‘wild’ nature. Certainly,
there’s more going on than it might
appear at first glance.
The same can also be said for
Faces Places (Visages Villages), the
delightful new documentary by and
about legendary French filmmaker
Agnès Varda and enigmatic street
artist JR. Visually, they make for
an unlikely duo – he a lithe, imageconscious
30-something, she a short,
amiable octogenarian – and the film
leans into this incongruity, envisaging
in a deadpan opening sequence what
it might have looked like if the pair
had met in a nightclub. The premise is
straightforward – this newly-formed
odd couple will tour rural France,
photograph regular folk, listen to their
life stories, and plaster their blown-up
visages across the sides of buildings.
Varda is clearly energised by the company
of her youthful partner, but the
nature of their undertaking naturally
encourages reflection and introspection.
Thus, she begins to ruminate on
her life’s work, her failing health and
key figures from her past, in a manner
that’s extremely moving to behold.
Jean-Luc Godard, Varda’s last living
nouvelle vague contemporary, looms
particularly large, with a final-act
visit to his home packing a devastating
emotional punch. Throughout,
the balance between playfulness and
poignancy is handled impeccably.
I Feel Pretty, the latest star vehicle
for controversial comedian Amy
Schumer, reaches for the heartstrings
with rather less elegance. Schumer
plays Renee, a woman held back in
every aspect of her life by deep-seated
insecurities about her appearance,
until a knock to the head convinces
her that she’s been magically granted
the body of her dreams. She’s thus propelled
on a madcap journey that forces
her to confront her obsession with
surface-level beauty. The film’s underlying
message, however, is undermined
by jokes that hinge around the conceit
that Renee’s newfound confidence is
somehow at odds with her (perfectly
healthy) body type. Still, it’s worth a
watch for a sublime supporting turn
by Michelle Williams as a heliumvoiced
beauty mogul. n
Starts May 10 Isle of Dogs HHHH D: Wes Anderson (US, Germany
2018) with Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin | Starts May 10 I Feel Pretty
HH D: Abby Kohn, Marc Silverstein (US 2018) with Amy Schumer,
Michelle Williams | Starts May 31 Faces Places (Visages Villages) HHHHH
D: Agnès Varda, JR (France 2017) documentary
26
EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON — Film
Starts May 3
7 Days in Entebbe
D: José Padilha (UK, US 2018)
with Rosamund Pike, Daniel Brühl
HH
Reviews
How do you make a dramatisation of the 1976
German-Palestinian hijacking of Air France Flight 139,
and the ensuing high-stakes hostage rescue mission,
spirit-sappingly boring? This is the question you’ll
likely be wrestling with after suffering through this
curiously inert thriller. The narrative burdens itself
with stilted situation room scenes (in which the unsubtly
lionised Israeli officials all inexplicably speak
English) and a deadweight subplot that seems to
exist solely so that a stunningly choreographed
dance sequence can bookend the action. By the
time the credits roll, the specifics will already be
fading from your memory. Only Rosamund Pike’s
valiant performance as a guilt-ridden German
left-wing radical comes close to elevating this
above made-for-TV territory. — David Mouriquand
Starts May 3
Only the Brave
(No Way Out)
D: Joseph Kosinski (US 2017)
with Josh Brolin, Miles Teller
HHH
In the Aisles (In den Gängen)
Following hot on the heels of Clint Eastwood’s
godawful 15:17 to Paris comes another rippedfrom-the-headlines
story of real-life American
heroism. However Only the Brave is something
of a pleasant surprise. It’s an unexpectedly
moving tribute to the forest firefighters who
died in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. The
cast is uniformly strong, with Josh Brolin and
Miles Teller giving impressive heft to occasionally
creaky dialogue. Working outside the sci-fi
genre for the first time, after Tron: Legacy and
Oblivion, director Joseph Kosinski falls a little
short when depicting human drama but brings
his A-game for the action sequences. The
scenes of raging fires in particular are visually
mesmerising, redeeming the clunkier aspects
of this conventional but extremely watchable
disaster biopic. — DM
Starts May 24
In the Aisles
(In den Gängen)
D: Thomas Stuber (Germany 2018)
with Sandra Hüller, Franz Rogowski
HH
Set in a sprawling suburban East German supermarket,
Thomas Stuber’s well-intentioned ensemble
dramedy attempts to weave an intricate web of
interpersonal intrigue and small-town realism, but
in doing so relies on sub-Hollywood clichés so tired
that its emotional core comes across as pre-packaged.
The film follows a budding romance between
Christian (Franz Rogowski) a quiet ex-con who joins
the store’s staff as a stocker, and Marion (Sandra
Hüller, brilliant as always) who works the sweets
aisle. The two talented leads do a stand-up job,
but as each beat becomes more predictable than
the last, the subtle depiction of the supermarket’s
bleak-yet-comforting mundanity begins to collapse
under the film’s mediocre storytelling. While there
are glimpses of true working-class struggle to be
gleaned from In the Aisles, we’ve seen drama play
out between shoppers in actual supermarkets that
was more riveting than this. — Cameron Cook
Starts May 24
The Happy Prince
D: Rupert Everett (Germany, Belgium,
UK, Italy 2018) with Rupert Everett, Colin Firth
HHHH
Written, directed and co-produced by Rupert
Everett, who also dons heavy prosthetics to play
a disgraced and destitute Oscar Wilde in his final
years, this heartfelt passion project boldly follows
the literary giant’s riches-to-rags plight as he’s
imprisoned for homosexuality and subsequently
bullied into exile on mainland Europe. His ill-fated
relationship with the flamboyant young Lord Alfred
Douglas (Colin Morgan), humiliating encounters
with British expats, and the forging of bonds
with fellow creatives are all dexterously intertwined
with the recitation of Wilde’s short story
“The Happy Prince” to two street boys in Paris.
Everett, whose own Hollywood career suffered
after he came out as gay, has a palpable affection
for his muse, and gracefully depicts the playwright
as equal parts tormented soul and incurable bon
vivant. Infused with empathy, the film emerges as
a moving, self-reflexive statement about queerness
in show business. — Yun-hua Chen
The Happy Prince
Lö grand
Bal
Almanya
57 JAHRE SCHEINEHE
– EIN SINGSPIEL
BY BY ÖDÖN NURKAN VON ERPULAT HORVÁTH
AND TUNÇAY DIRECTOR KULAOĞLU
DIRECTOR HAKAN NURKAN SAVAŞ MİCAN ERPULAT
PREMIERE
25/MAY
ADDITIONAL SHOW
27/MAY
ALL PLAYS WITH
ENGLISH SURTITLES
MAXIM GORKI THEATER
Am Festungsgraben 2, 10117 Berlin
Box Office: 0049 30/ 20 221 115
Tickets online: www.gorki.de

DON’T MISS
Tranny Fag
(Bixa Travesty)
Berlin Film Society
kicks off a summer
season of screenings
at Sisyphos with this
rousing portrait of
Brazilian trans hiphop
pioneer Linn da
Quebrada, winner of
the Teddy Award for
best LGBTQ doc at
this year’s Berlinale
May 17, 20:00
By-Products of Love
The Akademie der
Künste celebrates
the careers and
legacies of German
queer cinema pioneers
Elfi Mikesch,
Rosa von Praunheim
and Werner Schroeter
with an exhibition
and complementary
programme
of screenings, panel
discussions and
special events.
May 3-6
EXBlicks: Partisan
Check out Matthias
Ehlert, Lutz Pehnert
and Adama Ulrich’s
engrossing doc
about Berlin’s most
iconic theatre, the
Volksbühne, and the
25-year reign of
trailblazing artistic
director Frank Castorf.
May 28, 20:00,
Lichtblick Kino
Zentralflughafen THF isn’t the
Brazilian director’s first Berlin
film (in 2011 he already paid
tribute to his newfound Neukölln
Heimat with Sonnenallee), but his first
“classic documentary”, as he calls it.
This engrossing feature works both
as a tribute to the iconic airport, and
a document of everyday life in the
refugee camp inside it – with a result
that some have called too cheerful
to be accurate. Benefiting from the
buzz surrounding the transformation
of the old Nazi landmark into both
a hipster hangout and an emergency
refugee shelter, the film caught the
limelight at this year’s Berlinale and
again last month at Achtung Berlin.
Hitting cinemas May 24, THF is set
to find its audience among both concerned
citizens and Berlin lovers.
What drew you to Tempelhof
as a topic? It kind of started in
2014; I’m an architect and I’m
actually addicted to airports, I love
them [laughs]. The project was supposed
to be an installation about
the history of Berlin through the
documentation of three airports in
three different phases: Tempelhof,
because it was discontinued; Tegel,
because it was about to close; Berlin
Brandenburg… well you know,
WHAT’S ON — Film
“ I’m actually addicted
to airports”
Karim Aïnouz on how he changed his focus
from Berlin’s three airports to refugees.
By Francesca Elsey
that one that was supposed to open
in 2011, because it was the future.
What made you then focus solely
on Tempelhof instead? Whilst
we were waiting for permission to
shoot inside the [three] airports, I
started filming on Tempelhofer Feld.
In the meantime, Tegel didn’t end up
closing, and the people who had said
yes originally at Berlin Brandenburg
said no. Then one day [towards the
end of 2015] I ended up going into
the hangars because I heard refugees
were living there. It felt very precarious;
people had to take buses to go
to the toilet, and because it was an
emergency situation, the fate of the
shelter inside was literally decided
from one day to the next. I was really
taken by the situation inside for
two reasons; I found it quite ironic
that these buildings and tents, built
for military purposes, were housing
people that were fleeing war. Then
throughout the whole summer [of
2015], I got mad at the way the refugee
stories were told in the news – it
made you feel like you were watching
a sci-fi film where martians were attacking
the planet. The only images I
saw were people jumping from trains
and crossing on boats. There was no
images of the people actually living
here and nothing showing how they
were being hosted. So that was the
trigger for the film you saw… I left the
conceptual project behind and dove
into filming Tempelhof.
Was it easy to shoot inside?
Not at all. The German media had
been focusing on this picture from
above with the cabins, and consequently
neither the inhabitants,
nor the organisation taking care of
the camp, wanted cameras inside
anymore, which I could understand.
My initial feeling was, “I need to
document this, this is an important
moment in history”, but I had to wait
until July 2016, when I finally got a
permit to shoot for three hours at a
time inside — I guess the topic
wasn’t as hot anymore. I had
been going inside for six months,
so people trusted me.
What did you want to show?
It was important [for me to show]
that it was an emergency shelter that
became a home for people, so I wanted
to follow a whole cycle, whether
that be a year, or four seasons… we
ended up shooting until August 2017.
It was my first “classic” documentary,
so I didn’t really know where I was going,
but I just knew that it needed to
be done for a certain period of time so
that I could understand the process.
How did you go about choosing
your two protagonists, young
Syrian Ibrahim and Qutaiba,
the doctor/translator? I have to
say that, until December 2016, I was
still searching for my characters.
With the attack on the Christmas
market in Berlin in 2016, one of the
first suspects was a guy living in
Tempelhof. So the police went in
and there was a massive break-in
between December 19 and 21. But
I felt I knew these kids, it was just
so unlikely that one of them would
have done this. They were accusing
a guy from Pakistan and it felt like
racial profiling, because the Pakistanis
were among the most ‘lost’
there. That’s when it became clear
to me that the film should be about
a young Arab man, and that’s when
I started to follow Ibrahim. These
men are sort of the devils of contemporary
culture and I wanted to show
a different side. Check exberliner.com
for extended interview. n
28
EXBERLINER 171

Festival previews
WHAT’S ON — Film
May 2-7 various venues. Full programme
at visionaerfilmfestival.com
Watkins’ world
Acquaint yourself with the underseen
political docudramas
of Peter Watkins.
G-EAZY
09.05.18 · Columbiahalle
ELISA
10.05.18 · Frannz
BAXTER DURY
15.05.18 · Bi Nuu
ALEX VARGAS
16.05.18 · Bi Nuu
Fresh auteur
encounters
Julia
Visionär Film Festival scours the
globe for under-the-radar talent.
Returning for its second edition, the
Visionär Film Festival continues
to grow as a platform for emerging
auteurs. The six-day fest will showcase nine
debut and sophomore features in its competition
strand, with films from four continents
dealing with everything from immigration to
Samba dancing. Several standouts depict the
tribulations of young women. Elena Martin’s
Julia Ist deftly captures the anxieties and awkwardness
of cultural exchange, as a budding
architect from Barcelona navigates Berlin
as an Erasmus student. Meanwhile, Damien
Manivel’s The Park follows French teens on a
date; what starts off as a contemplative twohander
unexpectedly morphs into a trancelike
allegory about self-discovery, with shades
of Eric Rohmer. Alexandra Latishev Salazar’s
lean, hard-hitting Medea, about a student
concealing her pregnancy, is evocative and
subtly harrowing, with a compelling central
performance from Liliana Biamonte. The
icing on the cake is an homage to indie icon
Agnès Varda, whose 1962 classic Cléo from 5 to
7 opens the fest on 2 May. — DM
This month, Wolf Kino aims to bring
Berlin up to speed with an underappreciated
cinematic pioneer. Peter
Watkins has amassed a fiercely loyal following
with his formally daring docudramas,
but his work is rarely shown outside his
native Britain. Kicking off this welcome
retrospective are a pair of potent antiwar
polemics commissioned by the BBC.
Culloden (1964) is a bravura feature debut,
which imagines that a modern camera crew
was on hand to document the 1746 battle of
Culloden, in which thousands of Jacobite
soldiers were slaughtered. Meanwhile, The
War Game (1965) envisages the nightmarish
aftermath of a Soviet nuclear attack on British
soil. It’s so effective, the BBC deemed it
“too horrific for the medium of broadcasting”,
and shelved plans for transmission.
Happily, subsequent theatrical screenings
led to it winning an Oscar for best documentary
feature in 1966. Other highlights
include the depressingly relevant Punishment
Park (1970), in which an authoritarian US
government allows dissidents to be hunted
for sport; and Edvard Munch (1974), an
exquisite, epic biopic of the Norwegian Expressionist
artist. Watkins himself will be in
town for an English-language panel discussion
on May 5, while lectures and workshops
featuring Watkins scholars will provide
broader context. — PO’C
May 5-Jun 30 Wolf Kino. Full programme
at wolfberlin.org
Punishment Park
WE ARE SCIENTISTS
19.05.18 · Lido
UNKNOWN MORTAL
ORCHESTRA
19.05.18 · Kesselhaus
ANDY MCKEE
21.05.18 · Columbia Theater
THE DAMNED
23.05.18 · SO36
WINSTON SURFSHIRT
23.05.18 · Urban Spree
NATHAN GRAY
24.05.18 · Heimathafen Neukölln
SCARLXRD
27.05.18 · Columbia Theater
BABYLON CIRCUS
30.05.18 · Columbia Theater
ANDREA GIBSON
07.06.18 · Lido
HAIM
08.06.18 · Columbiahalle
KIEFER SUTHERLAND
12.06.18 · Columbia Theater
LEON BRIDGES
04.07.18 · Huxleys
D´ANGELO
11.07.18 · Columbiahalle
CAFÉ TACVBA
24.07.18 · Astra Kulturhaus
BAD RELIGION
31.07.18 · Columbiahalle
HILLTOP HOODS
15.08.18 · SO36
DE-PHAZZ
05.09.18 · Lido
JASON DERULO
23.10.18 · UFO im Velodrom
MAY 2018
WWW.TRINITYMUSIC.DE

WHAT’S ON — Music
Editor’s Choice
Battling for the
right reasons
The month, we take stock of the current state of hip hop in
Germany as well as on the other side of the pond.
By Michael Hoh
Aldo Gutierrez Chacon
MUSIC NEWS
Going south
Compiled by Rio
de Janeiro native
Ed Motta, the fifth
volume of Markus
Liesenfeld a.k.a. DJ
Supermarkt’s Too
Slow To Disco series
goes Brazil. Out on
City Slang, May 4
Geo experiments
After a pre-taster single,
“Tar”, in February,
Berlin experimental
sound artist Lucrecia
Dalt releases her geo
inspired album
Anticlines via Cargo
Records on May 4
Birthday bash
Pop the corks!
Chicks on Speed,
which today comprises
Alex Murray-
Leslie and Melissa
Logan, turned 20 last
year, and throw a
belated party at the
Volks-bühne on
May 10
Is German hip hop in trouble? If
you look at current mainstream
media stories revolving around
Kollegah and Farid Bang’s win at this
year’s Echo, which awards Germany’s
best-selling acts and albums,
and the associated accusations of
antisemitism, you might get that impression.
TV channel WDR recently
aired a documentary about the “dark
side of German rap”, examining antisemitic
tendencies in local scenes,
and even for Bild the whole ordeal
was welcoming front page fodder.
German mainstream hip hop has
certainly come a long way since Die
Fantastischen Vier first blurted out
their nonsensical “Die da?” rhymes
all over MTV in the early 1990s. And
with protagonists spewing misogynist,
homophobic and antisemitic
rhymes at their listeners, parts of the
genre truly took a turn to the dark
side, reinforcing outdated stereotypes
presented as battle rap under
the banner of artistic freedom. But
given that the self-proclaimed Anti-
Deutschrapper of Antilopen Gang
also reigned the charts with their
album Anarchie & Alltag, it seems
that not all hope is lost. Or take Berlin
rapper Ahzumjot, who will take
the stage at Lido this month. On his
latest album, he is more about Luft
& Liebe than on-the-ground insult
battle rap these days.
But what about the state of
hip hop in the United States?
In Germany, hip hop falls behind
rock, pop and Schlager on
the country’s “favourite genre”
list, but just looking at the last
Grammy Awards, hip hop clearly
spearheads mainstream music
culture across the pond. Seun
Kuti, who follows in the footsteps
of his father, afrobeat pioneer Fela
Kuti, taking the stage at Festsaal
Kreuzberg this month together
with Egypt 80 and his new album
Black Times, has his doubts about
the genre’s developments over the
years: “There’s no distinguishing
line between hip hop and pop,
between gangsta rap and Celine
Dion, with their autotune and all
that,” he said in an interview with
OkayAfrica. “I loved hip hop because
I thought it was the music
for change. The time for saying
something relevant is gone.”
That might ring true for the
mainstream-y bulk, but luckily
there’s more below the surface.
Take Big Freedia (pictured), for
instance, who made bounce
music, a highly energetic hip hop
subgenre, popular outside of the
New Orleans city proper via a
guest appearance on RuPaul’s 2013
single “Peanut Butter”. Cross the
Gulf of Mexico from New Orleans
in a straight line and you’ll eventually
hit Guatemala. There, Rebeca
Lane is one of the most outspoken
rappers against machismo and
misogyny. In the past, the sociology
graduate called out fellow MCs
for misogynist raps in her song
“Bandera Negra” and even offered
workshops before her concerts to
educate her audience about the
political climate in Guatemala –
talk about getting your money’s
worth. And here’s a tip for all your
clubbing needs: to dance away all
that battle anger, don’t hesitate
to check out Ratchet at St. Georg
with Caramel Mafia and Shug La
Sheedah - or Tasty at Schwuz with
performances by Prens Emrah and
Haidar Darwish, two of Berlin’s hip
hop parties approaching the genre
from a queer angle. n
Ahzumjot May 4, 20:00 Lido, Kreuzberg | Ratchet May 5, 23:30 St. Georg, Kreuzberg
| Rebeca Lane May 7, 20:00 Kantine am Berghain, Friedrichshain | Tasty
May 11, 23:00 Schwuz, Neukölln | Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 May 19, 20:00 Festsaal
Kreuzberg, Treptow | Big Freedia May 22, 21:00 Club Gretchen, Kreuzberg
30
EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON — Music
Quote
Tobias Bamborschke
/ Isolation Berlin
“In Berlin, not everyone you meet engages you in conversation
or is overly friendly. I’ve never been a very communicative person,
but here it often used to feel like I was invisible. It was
a very anonymous experience amongst this mass of people.
I went to the clubs, I really gave it a shot. But I just didn’t feel
comfortable in the party scene. Not being a fan of electronic music
didn’t help either. When you’re surrounded by party people and you
feel uncomfortable, you become this sad foreign body that everyone
finds almost revolting because you’re such a buzzkill. I had friends
who thrived exclusively within the party scene. I became estranged
from them because I didn’t fit in. All that can make you feel very lost
and isolated.
But how do you escape the city if you only have the money to buy
pasta and tomato sauce? If you can barely make it out of bed, how
are you supposed to find the energy to hitchhike to Italy? Sitting at
home, however, is the worst thing you can do. It’s better to just start
walking somewhere, aimlessly. To take the S-Bahn, get off and just
walk. It calms you down. I do it constantly. I have my regular routes,
but I also try to discover new places. I walk until I don’t feel like it
anymore, then I take a train home.
Of course, with our success, I’m recognised more often in
the streets these days, and that makes me almost laugh out
loud. Isolation Berlin, my ass.”
Isolation Berlin May 12, 20:00, Astra Kulturhaus, Friedrichshain
Noel Richter
CineStarCARD
BENEFIT # 2
EVERY
11 th TICKET
FOR FREE! *
Tips
Clubbing
Buttons Garden Opening Berliners tend to get a little
freaky when the sun finally emerges from behind the
clouds. About Blank is no different, celebrating with a
three-day garden opening. May 18, 23:59
Lazytapes Boasting anything but a lazy 4/4 beat, join
Peder Mannerfelt, Cera Khin and Ossia for all your experimental
dancing needs at Ohm. May 25, 23:30
Kasper Bjørke Whether it’s laid back ambient or deep
house, versatile Kasper Bjørke is a crowd pleaser. At Chalet
he will once again get behind the decks. May 26, 23:59
MAY 2018
Even more benefits:
Film of the Week from 5 €
Save at CineLady & Co.
Save on snacks and drinks
Get your free CineStarCARD:
at the box office, via CineStarApp
or at cinestar.de!
* Average turnover from 10 purchased tickets incl. snacks at a total value of 125 €.

WHAT’S ON — Music
DON’T MISS
The Monochrome Set
The decade sincethe
art-punk pioneers
regrouped in
2008 marks one of
their most prolific
periods yet. They
take the stage at
Monarch with
their 14th album
Maisieworld in tow.
May 5, 20:00
Oh Yeah! Berlin
Pop Women
Witness the mesmerising
sound experiments
of Gudrun
Gut and Joachim
Irmler at Museum für
Kommunikation. Also
performing: Barbara
Morgenstern.
May 8, 21:00
Exploded View
Frontwoman Anika
once contributed
vocals to Geoff
Barrow of Portis
head’s band
BEAK>. After a few
synthy solo releases,
you can see her
latest collaborative
project, Exploded
View, live at Roter
Salon. May 24,
20:00
Freak Heat Waves
With their latest
album Beyond XXXL,
Freak Heat Waves’
synth-laden postpunk
sound just
turned a little noisier.
Catch them live at
Internet Explorer.
May 27, 20:00
Interview
“Something has to change”
Rachael Wright
While preparing for imminent fatherhood,
Kele Okereke discovered his love for folk on
his third solo album Fatherland. By Michael Hoh
In 2010, many were caught by
surprise when Bloc Party frontman
Kele Okereke shared his
debut solo album The Boxer, swapping
distorted indie rock for electronic
dance music. After making a name
for himself as a DJ and releasing the
house-y follow-up Trick in 2014, Kele
changed gear again. He said goodbye
to clubbing and settled down in
South London with his partner and
newborn daughter Savannah. In the
process, he found a new outlet in
folk music. We talked to Kele about
writing his third solo record Fatherland
before his show at Silent Green
Kulturquartier on May 4.
You wrote Fatherland in 2016.
Why didn’t you release it then?
I went to Justin [Harris], Bloc Party’s
bass player’s studio in Portland. We
recorded it all in 10 days. Then, in
the process of mixing the record, the
world changed: I was heartbroken
when Britain decided to leave the
EU; when Trump was elected. There
was a sense of optimism fading. It
was weird for me then to promote
this album knowing that it’s speaking
about this tranquil phase whilst the
rest of the world is not tranquil at all.
I’ve never felt more frightened about
how things are than I do right now. It
feels slightly incongruous, this album.
But the beauty of music is that it’s forever.
It might be fun to rediscover this
album in 10, 20 years time. It might
make more sense.
So, your next album will be
straight-up political? Mixing music
and politics is a very difficult thing. I
don’t think many people do it well. It
takes a lot of skill to be able to write
about what is happening in the world.
I cringe a little when complex ideas
get reduced to soundbites. Over the
years, I have tried to write how I see
the world, and that’s the most important
thing. As long as you’re writing
from an authentic place, telling your
struggles, I think it’s worthwhile.
Is “Grounds for Resentment”–
a gay love song – still a taboo in
many places? We don’t exist in
an apolitical vacuum. Just because
I’m writing a song about same-sex
desire doesn’t make that any more
political than heterosexual pop stars
and how they see the world. There
might be a spotlight shone on me
because my view isn’t the dominant
mainstream view.
How did you make the transition
from house to folk? Making Trick, I
really immersed myself in club culture
and nightlife, staying out until five in
the morning. I knew when I finished
touring that record, I wanted to go
inwards to make something away
from the dance floor. Having spent
the lesser part of my teenage years
deriding folk music, I suddenly had a
real yearning to listen to singer-songwriter
music like Joni Mitchell, Elliott
Smith, Nick Drake; this incredibly
powerful music framed by a voice and
a story. Fatherland was a way for me to
confront some of the prejudices I had.
I couldn’t stand the music my parents
listened to, like Afrobeat, highlife, the
motown and soul they’d play in the
car, it was something I really tried to
move away from. Now it’s the music
I’m most excited to listen to.
Many of your lyrics deal with
turning points. Even though
Savannah hadn’t been born, I knew
that it was coming. When I think
of this album, it feels like saying
goodbye to a period in my life and
trying to prepare for what would
come next. That’s why there are
so many songs about relationships
ending, having to cut people out
of my life. As a lyricist, I’ve always
been fascinated by the point where
what is happening on the inside
overcomes what is happening on the
outside; when the body realises that
enough is enough, and something
has to change. n
Kele May 4, 20:00 Silent Green
Kulturquartier, Wedding
32 EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON — Music
Tips
Classical and Contemporary
Reddress Mixing violin and live electronics, the title is key
to this concert as you literally witness it from the pockets
and pouches of a red garment designed by Aamu
Song and worn by violinist Pekka Kuusisto at Pierre
Boulez Saal. May 29-Jun 1, 19:30
Lillenorge This three-day festival at Radialsystem V stages
multi-genre concerts from classical music to folk
with performers from Norway, South Korea and
Germany. May 25, 23:30
Philharmonika You’re neither a sailor nor into German
Volksmusik? Then the sound of an accordion is most
likely not part of your Spotify playlist. You can make up
for that at the Philharmonie. May 26, 18:00
Preview
All things A/V
From 4D live shows to whizzing drones,
MIRA and the BVMAs have your
audiovisual needs covered.
This year marks the second iteration of MIRA, the
Barcelona-originating digital arts festival spin-off at
Funkhaus Berlin. Aiming to uncover the latest tech
trends and developments on the digital culture front, the festival
presents an ambitious line-up packed into one single day.
Under the banner of “Emotions, Diversity and Social Change”,
the festival features electro and audio-visual-heavy live shows
by Aïsha Devi, Forest Swords, Laurel Halo, Yves Tumor and
more, in addition to a variety of DJ sets and performances in
the 4DSOUND-equipped MONOM space by Eomac, WaqWaq
Kingdom as well as installations by Thomas Ankersmit and
others. MIRA will be rounded off by a conference programme
focussing on “diversity and gender in music, digital art and
technology” with Berlin-based Lyra Pramuk and a lecture
by Shigeru Ishihara on the correlation between music
and instincts.
Taking over Club Gretchen and the former silent movie
theatre Delphi, the Berlin Music Video Awards similarly celebrate
the merging of audio with the visual. Held since 2013
and spread over four consecutive days, the BMVAs screen and
award the best out of 133 submissions in categories as disparate
as “most trashy” and “best VFX”. The award ceremony is
flanked by live shows and DJ sets, O-SHiN, Brunettes Shoot
Blondes and Jylda to name a few, as well as networking sessions
and, believe it or not, a drone operating workshop. If
drones are not up your alley, why not join the after party at
Toast Hawaii, hosted by the always glittering
Cherry-O-Kie karaoke group. — MH
MIRA Festival May 5, Funkhaus Berlin | Berlin Music Video
Awards May 23-26, Club Gretchen/Delphi, for full programming,
check mirafestivalberlin.com and berlinmva.com
MAY 2018
ALTERNATIVE MUSIC AND ART AFTER 1968
15.3.–6. 5.2018
www.adk.de/underground-improvisation
29.08.
In cooperation with
Funded by
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JOE PERRY, ALICE COOPER & JOHNNY DEPP
24.07.
02.07.
12.06.
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A PERFECT CIRCLE
NENA
MASSIVE ATTACK
NINE INCH NAILS
BILLY IDOL
AMY MACDONALD
JACK JOHNSON
JOAN BAEZ
STEEL PANTHER
13.08.
WWW.CITADEL-MUSIC-FESTIVAL.DE
29.07.
07.06.
22.06.
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SAVAS & SIDO
SANTANA
MILKY CHANCE
A-HA
FAT FREDDY´S DROP
Funded by
MICHAEL PATRICK KELLY
09.06.
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17.08.
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GIG
LISTINGS
April
YOUR GUIDE TO CONCERTS
AND EVENTS THIS MONTH
AND BEYOND.
präsentiert von
THE EARLY DAYS, BRIT POP & BEYOND 1980-2010
04.05.2018 | LIDO | British.Music.Club | King Kong Kicks | Karrera Klub DJs
22 JAHRE KARRERA KLUB
09.05.2018 | Bohnengold | Free Entry
DJs | Tim | Spencer | Christian & Herr Lhmnn
ISAAC GRACIE
08.05.2018 | BI NUU
CITY CALM DOWN
28.05.2018 | PRIVATCLUB
CAR SEAT HEADREST
31.05.2018 | FESTSAAL KREUZBERG
COURTNEY BARNETT
11.06.2018 | ASTRA KULTURHAUS
BURT BACHARACH
14.07.2018 | ADMIRALSPALAST
I HEART SHARKS
15.09.2018 | LIDO
Info & Tickets: www.karreraklub.de
THE BEACHES
22.05.2018 | MUSIK UND FRIEDEN
ROLLING BLACKOUTS
COASTAL FEVER
29.05.2018 | LIDO
Dylyn
20.05.18 Kantine am Berghain
And You Will Know Us
By The Trail Of Dead
11.06.18 Bi Nuu
Mystic Braves &
The Creation Factory
08.08.18 Musik & Frieden
S.Carey
21.09.18 Privatclub
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
29.10.18 Lido
Neko Case
01.11.18 Bi Nuu
Tunng
04.11.18 Lido
Plusmacher
10.11.18 Festsaal Kreuzberg
The War On Drugs
10.12.18 Verti Music Hall
Ariel Pink
06.08.18 Festsaal Kreuzberg
Scott Matthew
13.05.18 Heimathafen Neukölln
Nakhane
21.05.18 Kantine am Berghain
Johnny Marr
21.05.18 Festsaal Kreuzberg
Sam Vance-Law
26.10.18 Lido
TICKETS UND INFOS: SCHONEBERG.DE
TICKETS UND INFOS: SCHONEBERG.DE
JaPanese BreakfasT
09.05.18 Marie-Antoinette
Cavern of anti-Matter
suPPorT: ulrika sPacek
20.05.18 Volksbühne
frankie CosMos
suPPorT: The goon sax
22.05.18 Kantine am Berghain
PaLM
26.05.18 Urban Spree
Pere uBu
28.05.18 Frannz Club
sCreaMing feMaLes
29.05.18 Kantine am Berghain
haBiBi
30.05.18 Arkaoda
The sea & cake
31.05.18 Frannz Club
LoMa
18.06.18 Musik & Frieden
la luZ
02.10.18 Musik & Frieden
DaMien JUraDo
08.10.18 Heimathafen Neukölln
ryley Walker
06.11.18 Frannz Club
TICKETS & INFO: Puschen.neT
naP eyes
02.05.18 Monarch
kaTie von schleicher
07.05.18 Monarch
The Wave PicTures
15.05.18 Privatclub
suPerchunk
02.06.18 Quasimodo
PreoccuPaTions
07.06.18 Musik & Frieden
SchneidersLaden presents
damien dempsey - candice gordon - nina hynes - tau
richie heffernan - dee mulrooney - fontaines
john connors - mary kelly - a.s.fanning
eva garland - turloch o broin
steppenkind - pearly
& many more...
Berlin in English since 2002
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craw spectacle & carnival
22-24 june KultstätteKeller - Neukölln www.craw.space
SELAH SUE
Di. 05.06. Einlass 19:00 Festsaal Kreuzberg
Fritz präsentiert:
KATY PERRY
WITNESS: The Tour
Mi. 06.06. Einlass 18:00 Mercedes-Benz-Arena
Rolling Stone & Radio Eins präsentieren:
DAVID BYRNE
Mi. 27.06. Einlass 18:30 Tempodrom
intro & FluxFM präsentieren:
DIE ANTWOORD
support: Moonbootica
Di. 14.08. Einlass 17:00 Parkbühne Wuhlheide
DEATHPROD
Mi. 24.10. Einlass 20:00 Berghain
Infos unter www.mct-agentur.com
tickets > www.tickets.de und 030-6110 1313
SUPER
BOOTH
18
UMPF,
TAKA, TAKA,
BAM BAM BAM,
BRZZZ,
SCHIIEH,
RÖDDER,
MPFMPF, MPF,
PIIEP,
MÖÖP,
LABA,
PALAVA,
SCHINGE-
LINGELING!
03 - 05 MAI
FEZ BERLIN
Moby
Dick
based on the novel by
Herman Melville
Opening night 26 May
Direction: Jacob Höhne
Music: Andreas Spechtl
Puppetry: Das Helmi
with English surtitles
34 EXBERLINER 155
www.rambazamba-theater.de

WHAT’S ON — Stage
THEATER-
TREFFEN
MAY 4-21
Mittelreich, Judith Buss
A crumbling bastion
of the White Male?
The Berliner Festspiele continues its march
to a more diverse Theatertreffen. By Daniel Mufson
Editor’s Choice
It’s back – Berlin’s Theatertreffen,
the spring theatre festival
that’s been showcasing the 10
most “notable” productions per season
in the German-speaking world
since 1964. The festival’s stated mission
has not overtly changed over
the years, but it has made important
reforms in response to certain
criticisms, like adding a side-section
that highlighs new voices (The
Stückemarkt) to remedy an obvious
neglect of new plays in favour
of big stage classics. The festival
has also become more diverse: four
members of this year’s (admittedly
all-white) seven person jury are
women; four of the 10 productions
had a female director or playwright;
and, for the second year, it’s hosting
a festival within a festival under the
English motto “Shifting Perspectives,”
which seems to deliberately
counteract the historical whiteness
of Theatertreffen with two performances
from the Middle East, two
from Africa, one from Brazil, and
one from Singapore. And it just
so happens that three of the most
intriguing productions this year are
breaking that white male template.
Most salient of all is Mittelreich,
directed by Anta Helena Recke, a
German woman of colour. Mittelreich
was a musical stage adaptation
of a novel that traces a family
of Bavarian innkeepers through
several generations, originally
directed by Anna-Sophie Mahler
and invited to the Theatertreffen
two years ago. Recke has created an
exact copy of that production but
cast actors of colour to take all the
roles in an attempt to subvert the
normative gaze of white German
theatergoers. It’s a must-see if for
no other reason than to understand
the fervent critical controversy it
inspired at its Munich premiere
last October.
In Beute Frauen Krieg, director
Karin Henkel tells the story of the
Trojan War from the perspective
of women who suffer its consequences,
making use of contemporary
adaptations of Euripides’
The Trojan Women and Iphigenia at
Aulis. Different actresses take turns
at playing Helena and Iphigenia,
recalling a cascade of female tribulations
and casting accusations at
the men they blame for them. The
production’s highlight may well
be seeing its German actresses
deploy their techniques alongside
the dynamic Brit Kate Strong,
who started dancing with the likes
of William Forsythe and Johann
Kresnick but has for years been
rocking Germany’s spoken theatre
with her charisma – appearing in
multiple productions that have
been invited to the Theatertreffen.
(She performs in English in this bilingual
production). Finally, Nobel
prize-winner Elfriede Jelinek takes
aim at more than just the patriarchy
in Am Königsweg (The Royal
Road), directed here with a lively
touch by Falk Richter. Written
in the wake of Trump’s election,
the play is less an excoriation of
ignorant, crass authoritarians
(although that’s there) and more
an examination of the inability
of those who know better to stop
them, with Europe coming under
the microscope, too. Between
these three Theatertreffen plays
and the non-European offerings of
“Shifting Perspectives”, you might
finish the festival feeling pessimistic
about the white patriarchies
they critique in the world at large,
but optimistic that at least one
bastion of white patriarchy, the
Theatertreffen itself, seems to
be evolving, however slowly, into
something else. ■
Beute Frauen Krieg May 6,7,8 Rathenau Hallen | Mittelreich May 17, 18 (with
English surtitles) Deutsches Theater | Am Königsweg May 12, 13 (with English
surtitles) Haus der Berliner Festspiele
DON’T MISS
Am Königsweg
Diehard fans of
Elfriede Jelinek will
want to check out
this staging of her
new Trump-inspired
play at the Deutsches
Theater, directed
by Stephan Kimmig,
in order to compare
it to the Falk Richter
staging invited to
the Theatertreffen.
May 7, 13 (with
English surtitles)
The Players
The Sophiensaele is
hosting Haifa-born
choreographer Edan
Gorlicki’s exploration
of gambling and
showmanship, which
won the jury and audience
awards at the
6 tage frei festival
in Stuttgart.
May 9, 19:30
Potsdamer Tanztage
Potsdam’s international
dance festival
is in its 28th year,
offering dance and
musical performances
as well as
workshops ranging
in style from dance
acrobatics to
Bollywood.
May 29-Jun 10
MAY 2018 35

WHAT’S ON — Stage
DON’T MISS
Eddie Izzard
UK Labour party apparatchik,
writer, actor
and comedian
Eddie Izzard is bringing
his latest standup
to the Quatsch
Comedy Club,
performing it first
in German, and
then immediately
afterwards in
English. Show-off.
May 7-12, 14-20
The Encounter
Renowned British
theatre director
Simon McBurney is
staging himself at
the Schaubühne in a
solo work that makes
heavy use of audio
technology to tell
the true story of the
odd encounter of an
American photographer
and Brazil’s
Mayoruna tribe in
1969. May 17-20
(in English)
Loving the Alien
– The Musical
This glam rock musical
along the lines of
Rocky Horror Picture
Show follows the
exploits of glam rock
alien Ziggy’s younger
brother Iggy – and
was a big hit when it
premiered last July.
Now it’s back at
Monster Ronson’s
Ichiban Karaoke.
May 2-4 (in English)
Volker Hartmann
Interview
Society from
the passenger seat
Rimini Protokoll’s Helgard Haug discusses the
collective’s latest back-of-a-truck production
By Daniel Mufson
Berlin-based documentary
dramatists Rimini Protokoll
have been creating existential
exercises for the stage under the
collective name since 2000. Founded
by Germans Helgard Haug and Daniel
Wetzel along with the Swiss Stefan
Kaegi, they have a knack for putting
“real people” on stage to tell their own
stories. And while they’re no strangers
to traditional venues the world, or
rather Berlin, is also their stage, producing
urban tours delivered via headset
(Remote X) or packing the audience
onto the back of a moving truck with a
transparent wall (as in Cargo X, Truck
Tracks Ruhr, and now again in Do’s and
Don’ts: A journey through every trick in
the city.) Helgard Haug met with us
to discuss putting audiences back on
that truck, this time guided by children
explaining how Berlin is governed by
rules – and their limits.
What’s the fascination with this
truck? It’s our little mobile venue.
About 50 audience members sit in
three rows and look through the window.
Driving through a city, you see
in detail what its society is like. It’s a
perfect tool for examining its different
realities. Cargo X was about the lives
and perspectives of two Romanian logistics
truck drivers. For Truck Tracks
Ruhr, we invited 49 artists working in
seven different cities to create works
at different locations. And now we’re
looking at the “rules” of cities, from
the perspective of two kids.
What are the kids like?
The younger kid is 10 and she’s
fascinated by rules – even advising
the grown ups to stop when there is a
red light. We start the tour from her
perspective as she gets to know the
city and understand its rules: laws,
taboos, traditions. With her, we drive
up to a huge construction site and
imagine what would happen if this
area were sold to a private company
like Google or Microsoft in order to
create their smart cities with rules
that are totally determined by them
and not the state. Later, there’s a
17-year-old in a completely different
frame of mind. A very political guy,
he’s questioning those rules, remarking
how stupid they are. He considers
places that show where we might be
headed, like Bahnhof Südkreuz, which
has a very sophisticated surveillance
system. It was very touching to learn
how excluded he feels from the city,
which he sees as lacking free and
open space. The truck driver, the
third party in this piece, always finds
very clever solutions and knows how
he can stretch every rule in a way that
finally meets his demands.
Hanna Lippmann
What made you think of using
a 10-year-old’s points of view?
How much did you influence
what she says? We always think
about whose eyes or whose body we
are using to tell a story. There are always
fictional lines, and we work together
to condense and shape a narrative.
We look for certain types, in
this case a young person with strong
ideas about rules. But it’s still her
own story; her mother comes from
Argentina and so many of her stories
compare life there with Berlin.
But is she even familiar with the
parts of the city she’s guiding us
through? She lives in Kreuzberg, so
when we start at the HAU 1, we’re in
her neighbourhood. But then we go
to Hermannplatz; that’s a place she
wouldn’t go to on her own, because
she’s a little afraid of what she’s
observed there. But we insist on going
there and prompting her to actually get
off the truck. She wouldn’t naturally
do so and the contrast is interesting.
You said yourself that your authenticity
is “prearranged”; similarly,
you don’t fact-check your experts’
stories. Is faux authenticity your
aim? No, it’s not at all about fakery. It
is perhaps on the contrary, concerned
with personal truth, about a person’s
perception of themselves. Fact-checking
is something you must do if you
are a journalist, but as playwrights and
directors, we have a certain license to
play with truth and fiction.
DO’s & DON’Ts – A journey
through every trick in the city
May 3-5, 7-9, 11, 12, 14-17, 22, 23, 25,
26, 28-30 (German or German with
English translation), starts and
ends at HAU1
36
EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON — Stage
PALMYRA
by bertandnasi
Preview
I love you, you’re perfect, now change
Two stage adaptations struggle
to improve on their sources
Adapting films and books for the
stage is a bit like marrying someone
you see as a fixer-upper: you
love them so much, you just want to
prove how much better they’d be if they
were a little different. Not a great foundation
for a marriage, and maybe not for a
stage production, either. Films pose more
problems than books: Our familiarity with
successful movies makes it hard for stage
actors to make characters their own. And
then the nagging question: why adapt in
the first place?
Two works struggling to answer that
question right now are Kinder des Paradieses,
the Berliner Ensemble’s adaptation of
Marcel Carné’s 1945 French film classic,
and the Deutsches Theater Kammerspiele’s
staging of Medea. Stimmen, a novel
by Christa Wolf. Les Enfants du Paradis,
filmed in occupied France as World War
II came to a close, has undeniable appeal
to theatre folk: most of its characters
are stage performers, as its plot revolves
around three men – Baptiste, a mime;
Frédérick, an actor; and Pierre-François, a
crime boss – in love with Garance, whose
main activity seems to be dealing with her
suitors. The allure of the film’s milieu is
heightened by the story of its making –
produced under Nazi surveillance with a
gay director, a Jewish set designer and film
composer, and a lead actress romantically
involved with a German Luftwaffe officer.
Director Ola Mafaalani tries to stage both
stories, presenting long stretches of the
film broken up by scenes that detail the
off-screen drama of Arletty, the actress
whose love affair landed her in jail for collaboration.
But there’s too much material
here to treat it all equally: Mafaalani ends
up shortchanging Arletty’s story to recapitulate
most of the film, which doesn’t
benefit from recapitulation.
Director Tilmann Köhler has a slightly
easier task at the DT Kammerspiele.
Christa Wolf’s novel, based on the story
best known to us through Euripides’
play, is itself structured as a series of
first-person narratives presenting the
perspectives of different characters – a
series of monologues, in other words. In
that sense, the book was almost begging
to be staged, and the text undoubtedly
deserves high rank in the tradition of
reinterpreted Greek tragedies: Medea, as
Wolf reimagines her, was no perpetrator
of infanticide but was set up to appear as
such by a xenophobic Corinthian political
elite that panicked when Medea started
prying too deeply into its secrets. The
production benefits from Karoly Risz’s
beautifully simple set design of a shallow
pool of water taking up almost the entire
stage and casting shadows of ripples
against the back wall; the puppetry used
to represent the children is even more
affecting. Beyond Maren Eggert’s poised
Medea, however, the acting is surprisingly
uneven: Edgar Eckert’s Jason huffs and
puffs but doesn’t blow anything down,
and Helmut Mooshammer as one of
Creon’s soothsayers needs to find a facial
expression beyond raising an eyebrow
and bulging his eyes. But at least one can
see why the novel belongs on stage – as an
important addition to a dialogue with
our inherited Medeas. — DM
Kinder des Paradieses HH
May 20, 19:30 (with English surtitles)
Berliner Ensemble | Medea.Stimmen
HHH May 4, 11, 26, 20:00 (with
English surtitles) Deutsches Theater
MOUTHPIECE
by
Quote
Unquote
Collective
(Canada)
etb
International Performing Arts Center
Two German premieres of the
very best of the 2017 Edinburgh
Fringe Festival at ETB | IPAC
May | June, 2018
ETBERLIN.DE
Arno Declair
MAY 2018

WHAT’S ON — Art
Editor’s Choice
Between the storms
Three Berlin exhibitions chronicle the peril and prosperity
that befell the city during the interwar era. By Anna Larkin
George Grosz Schönheit, Dich Will Ich Preisen
ART NEWS
Growing the Gropius
Stephanie Rosenthal,
the Gropius Bau’s
new director, has
announced her
plans for a series
of “architectural interventions”
at the
museum, including
an expanded atrium,
new bookshop and
restaurant alongside
“innovative exhibition
formats”.
Free Hamburger
Since April 5 entry
to Berlin’s Hamburger
Bahnhof is
free of charge on
the first Thursday
of every month for
a whole four hours
(16-20). Sponsored
by Volkswagen, the
VOLKSWAGEN ART 4
ALL scheme will run
until April 2019.
New Humboldt head?
Scheduled to open in
2019, the Humboldt
Forum may have a
new Director. Nominated
by Culture
Minister Monika
Grütters, Berliner
Hartmut Dorgerloh
has been Director
of the Prussian
Palaces and Gardens
Foundation Berlin-
Brandenburg
since 2002.
After World War I, the Weimar
Republic publicly advocated
cultural liberalism in Germany,
but by 1933 artists and movements
such as abstract expressionism were
denounced by the ruling Nazi regime.
Berlin’s interwar period, 1918–1938,
was at once a cosmopolitan, creative
melee of artistic freedom and a time
of censorship and repression: abject
poverty for some and glamorous
excess for others. This month, three
exhibitions approach the city’s artistic
output over these 20 short years from
very different angles. The Bröhan
Museum’s ground floor is filled with
Art Deco and Art Nouveau room
sets, upstairs, however, is the exhibition
Berlin Realismus. Spanning from
1890 to the 1930s, it contains paintings,
drawings, prints, photographs,
collages and films all on the theme
of social critique. Staying true to the
Realist ideals, the works depict people
of all classes and address the hardships
brought about by the Industrial
Revolution: from Käthe Kollwitz’s
tragic 1922 Hunger poster of a barechested
woman in rags, hands clasped
to her upturned face with mouth open
in anguish at the skeletal and lifeless
child in her lap (see more of her
work at the Käthe Kollwitz Museum),
to Bruno Voigt’s Arbeitsbeginn, 1932,
depicting the backs of hunched men as
they defeatedly trudge into a factory,
and Bruno Bötger’s six pen drawings
of an industrial dispute turned bloody
street battle in Schöneberg’s Rote
Insel district in 1924. Representing
the excess and debauchery of the
period are George Grosz’s disapproving
Map “Ecco Homo” series from
1916-22. In stylised caricature, welldressed
gentlemen and prostitutes
gamble, fornicate and preen in front
of crowded dressing tables.
Drawn from the Berlinische
Gallerie’s permanent collection
is the exhibition Art in Berlin 1880-
1980, including over one hundred
works from the interwar period.
Illustrating the cosmopolitan nature
of the city’s artistic community at
that time are mid-1920s works such
as Hungarian constructivist Lajos
Ebneth’s paintings and Russian
avant-gardist El Lissitzky’s prints
and Proun Room installation. The
exhibition also highlights women artists
of the period, delving deep into
the stories of the likes of German
Dadaist Hannah Höch, whose 1932
Bauhaus exhibition was cancelled
and who was denounced as a “cultural
Bolshevist” in Wolfgang Wilrich’s
infamous 1937 Purging the Temple
of Art. German Jewish artist Anne
Ratkowski, a founding member of the
New Naturalists group, was banished
from public art activities in 1933.
At HKW is Neolithic Childhood.
Art in a False Present, c.1930, an
exhibition of works by avant-garde
artists in Berlin, Paris and Prague at
the time. The title is inspired by a
phrase used by German Jewish art
critic Carl Einstein (1885-1940), who
wrote about and exhibited many of
the artists included, such as Jean
(Hans) Arp. The curators assure
me that Einstein was merely their
“trans-historical interlocutor” and
the exhibition reaches beyond his
immediate circle with the inclusion
of artists such as British surrealist
Catherine Yarrow. Einstein wrote
extensively on a harking back to human
pre-history, an artistic response
to the ideological instability, technological
and scientific advances and
fundamentally changing structure of
societies at the time – a phenomenon
comprehensively charted by more
than 800 books, pamphlets, magazines,
paintings, drawings, sculptures
and films in the exhibition. n
Berlin Realismus Through June 11 Bröhan Museum, Charlottenberg | Neolithic
Childhood. Art in a False Present, c.1930 Through July 9 Haus der
Kulturen der Welt, Tiergarten | Art in Berlin 1880-1980 Ongoing Berlinische
Gallerie, Kreuzberg | Käthe Kollwitz Museum Daily 11-6 Prenzlauer Berg
38
EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON — Art
Marc Chagall: Clown mit blauer Gitarre
Highlight
Searching
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Exiting perfect
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This month, an exhibition
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pits Chagall postcards
and tea towels against
some of the modernist
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Friendly, reliable service
In the unassuming Berggruen Museum,
one of Berlin’s smaller state museums
located opposite Schloss Charlottenburg,
is this one room display of some
unsurprising works by Russian-French
modernist Marc Chagall. Much like the
museum, the paintings on display are fairly
small and modest, complemented by a large
decorated folding screen titled Wandschirm,
1963. The exhibition text describes the artist
as a ground-breaking innovator and, without
a shadow of irony, says this is because of
his use of “the decorative image”. This is perhaps
exactly why Chagall has become the tea
towel, fridge magnet, key ring artist that he is
today, and fair enough.
Next door, German photographer Ulrike
Kolb examines the many ways in which Chagall
reproductions are displayed in private
homes, the office of the Federal President at
Bellevue Palace and even on the hilariously
shonky Chagallesque ceiling fresco in Berlin’s
very own Café Chagall in Prenzlauer Berg.
Kolb’s photographs reveal how Chagall’s art
is consumed and displayed today, in reproduction
and at the absolute height of a purely
decorative intention by their owners. A refreshing
take on how to look at works you’ve
seen on a thousand screen savers. — AL
The Modernity of Decorativeness ★★★★✩
From May 20 2018 Museum Berggruen,
Charlottenburg
Ulrike Kolb
© Stuart Nicholson
© Peter Purgar
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Antje Weithaas
Bugge Wesseltoft
Thorsten Johanns
Festival
Audun Kleive
Max Landgrebe
Ah Ruem Ahn
Erlend Apneseth
Per Arne Glorvigen
IRVING PENN CENTENNIAL
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DER JAHRHUNDERTFOTOGRAF
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WHAT’S ON — Art
DON’T MISS
Depressive
Alcoholic Mother
Becky Beasley’s
show at Galeria
Plan B sees the
British artist present
her graceful photography
and sculpture
alongside a
new floorwork.
Through Jun 9
L’Amour du Risque
me Collectors
Room Berlin hosts a
retrospective of bold
Berlin art couple Eva
and Adele’s 25-year
collaboration,
including drawing,
painting, photography,
video, sculpture
and their ubiquitous
self-made costumes.
Through August 27
Hello World.
Revising a Collection
Hamburger Bahnhof’s
critical look
at the Nationalgalerie
collection’s
strong Western bias
re-curates over 120
works to reveal their
hidden stories, such
as Dadaist Tomoyoshi
Murayama’s
1920s stay in Berlin
and Joseph Beuys’
collaboration with
Nicolás García
Uriburu.
Through Aug 26
Interview
“I feel that people look
down on copy painters.”
Van Eyck
Berlin-based German multi-media artist
Christian Jankowski on why he’s elevating
art from China’s biggest copy village
to the auction house. By Anna Larkin
Christian Jankowski is known
for his performative interactions
with what he calls
the “non-art world”, dealing with
psychology, ritual, lifestyle and massproduced,
luxury commodities in his
work. At the 2011 London Frieze art
fair he displayed The Finest Art on Water,
a luxury speedboat available for
£60m as a boat and £70m if bought as
an artwork. Represented in Berlin by
Contemporary Fine Arts, in 2016 he
curated the European Biennial Manifesta
in Switzerland, the first artist to
do so. In what may seem a departure
from previous work, Jankowski is presenting
a set of paintings at auction
house Grisebach in Charlottenburg
this May. The scenes depicted are
taken from photos he found online in
which people have re-enacted famous
paintings by artists including Degas,
Dix, Durer, Hockney and Goya. He
commissioned the oil paintings
themselves from professional
“copy painters” in China.
How did you develop the
concept for Neue Malerei?
A prototype was Chinese Whisper,
a commission I made for the Van
Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. On
the internet I found 10 images of
people re-enacting the 10 Van Gogh
self-portraits in the museum’s collection,
some were film stills, there
was even a waxwork. Also via the
internet, I ordered copy paintings
of these images from Chinese copy
painters. These were then displayed
next to the originals in the museum.
How did you find the copy
painters? I was made aware of them
in 2007, when I was doing a show in
Hong Kong. I read a newspaper article
about this “copy village”, Dafen in
Shenzen. It was a rural farming village
until the 1980s when copy painters
started setting up there. I was very
interested, so I went there and saw a
big construction site in the village, for
a new art museum. I met the architect,
who told me that he didn’t know
what kind of art he was building the
museum for, which I found even more
interesting. So I asked the painters
all around the village if they were in
charge of that museum, what painting
would they put on display? In the
meantime, I took photographs of the
construction site and always left an
empty wall in the centre of the image.
I gave these to the copy painters, who
painted the scene and added the painting
of their choice to the empty wall.
Eventually a curator at the museum
in Dafen invited me to bring the
paintings back there to be displayed
in the finished museum. They were
placed on the very same walls. I had an
immediate friendship with one of the
painters, Yin, and we kept in contact.
I spoke to him about Neue Malerei and
he brought together other copy painters
and managed the project for me in
China. I was in constant conversation
with the copy painters, giving them
feedback as the works progressed.
With Chinese Whisper I felt that people
looked down on the copy painters,
whereas in this project I wanted to
identify them [in the catalogue] and
align myself with them.
What do the copy painters
usually paint? Repeated copies
of masterpieces by artists like Rembrandt
and Van Gogh for hotels,
supermarket chains and
also private commissions like
wedding photographs.
Are you making a conceptual
statement by displaying and
selling the works in an auction
house? Who do you hope will
buy the works? It’s an interesting
context to view something, more
so than a gallery. I hope museums
buy them, so that more people can
see them, like the original works
that inspired them. n
Christian Jankowski – Neue
Malerei Through May 12
Grisebach, Charlottenburg
40
EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON— Art
Georgina Steytles, Common Birds
Reviews
Through Jul 1
Irving Penn. Centennial
C/O Berlin, Charlottenburg
★★★✩✩
On the 100th anniversary of Penn’s birth, this exhibition
of 240 works is drawn from a major retrospective
at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Over
two floors at C/O, his 70-year career is expansively
celebrated in portraits, still life, fashion, travel,
art and street photography. Penn’s early American
Vogue portraits, with sitters such as Marcel
Duchamp and Spencer Tracy crammed into his
experimental corner backdrop, show his expert eye
in capturing an unguarded moment. The fashion
portraits are exquisite exercises in symmetry, style
and elegance, exactly what you would expect from
one of the 1940s and 50’s top fashion photographers.
His art photographs include numerous
nudes, all headless female torsos. These sadly fall
flat, bringing to mind only a bland version of Bill
Brandt. The text claims Penn made them in reaction
to his daily diet of “skinny girls with self-starved
looks”, presumably including his own wife, supermodel
Lisa Fonssagrives. Similarly, Penn’s travel
photographs are uncomfortably objectifying: a film
shot in Morocco by Fonssagrives shows him rather
brusquely arranging shrouded Berber women and
men into his trademark fashion compositions. A
comprehensive show, but possibly guilty of some
unchecked hero worship inherited from the Met’s
original curation. — AL
Through May 12
Richard Frater: Common Birds
Oracle Gallery, Wilmersdorf
★★★★★
New Zealander and Berlin-based artist Frater presents
a 40-minute film made up of 330 photographic stills,
taken by himself, Georgina Steytler and Scott Rogers.
Frater initiated the project, but all three “share an interest
in ornithology and birds that have adapted to cities”.
Each shot a specific bird in their respective locations
of Western Australia, Buenos Aires and Berlin over the
same weekend. Reading rather like a particularly literary
MAY 2018
bird spotter’s diary, the work also consists of texts each
wrote about their quarry, equipment, chosen stalking
locality and exploits over the weekend in question.
There is disparity in the three’s technical ability: artist
Frater’s northern goshawk in Tiergarten is often blurred
in flight or has his back turned to the camera, whereas
professional wildlife photographer Steylter captures her
galahs up close, detailing every shocking pink feather
with perfectly composed shots of them interacting
with one another and the city. Frater’s amateurish innocence,
especially in combination with the unusual
urban wildlife environments and enchanting texts, adds
something fantastical to what could have just been
some pictures of birds. — AL
Through Jul 15
Taiyo Onorato and
Nico Krebs: Defying Gravity
KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Neukölln
★★★✩✩
Spread over two floors of the converted brewery
that is the KINDL are over 30 works by Swiss artist
pair Onorato and Krebs. Comprising photography,
sculpture, film and installation work, the show
includes both new works and their “most important
series of works from the past 10 years”. Among the 10
film projections is the black and white Blockbuster,
one of many pieces featuring Berlin residential or
office blocks shot from a nearby empty plot. Using
a canny camera angle, a man is filmed up a ladder
holding hammers, sticks, rocks and pipes with which
he bashes the buildings behind him. A soundtrack
synced with his blows adds to the surreal humour:
is he building or destroying Berlin? The artists’ wit
is again evident in the excellent installation Colour
Loop, a film intermittently showing falling water and
people entering a descending escalator projected
onto the side of a large drum structure. However, the
extensive collections of what look like – and essentially
are – American road-trip photographs in the
series The Great Unreal seem to have forgotten the
punchline, an exhibition of two halves. — AL
Onorato Krebs, Monument
18 May
2018, 8 pm,
Philharmonie
Berlin,
Kammermusiksaal
Ingenious Masters –
Far From Home
Dering, Philips, Tallis,
Byrd and Monte
Petteri Pitko Organ
Justin Doyle Conductor
Tickets /Service
RIAS Kammerchor Berlin
T + 49.(0)30.20 29 87 25
F + 49.(0).30.20 29 87 29
tickets@rias-kammerchor.de

WHAT’S ON — Calendar
Calendar
May 2018
Picks, highlights and can’t-miss events for this month in Berlin.
Clockwise from right:
Xposed Queer Film Festival,
May 24. Ghostfacekillah,
May 14. MyFest, May 1.
TUE
1
MyFest — Street Party
Kick off your month of
revolutionary struggle in
the classic Kreuzberg fashion:
outside, with a beer in hand, hanging
around Kotti. Stifle any
car-burning compulsions with
DJs, comedians and a kid’s
programme. Starts 11:30.
WED
2
re:publica 18 — Conference
and Festival This year
underpinned by the
succinct motto “POP”, the media
convention’s programme will
take on the not-so-squeaky clean
current state of digital culture
with the help of artists, activists,
scientists, hackers and many
more. Through May 4.
Station Berlin.
Pictoplasma — Conference and Festival
Like seeing all your wildest
Pusheen gif fantasies come to
life, gain a “new understanding
of character” at the festival and
conference featuring graphic, toy
and game designers plus
leading animation filmmakers.
Through May 6. Various venues.
Visionär Film Festival —Film
The festival for new auteur
cinema returns for its second
edition. This year proceedings
begin with a tribute to French
director Agnés Varda, with an 8pm
screening of her Left Bank classic
Cléo from 5 to 7 at Kino Wedding.
Through May 7.
THU
3
Superbooth — Electric Music
Fair Know your Moogs
from your MaxMSPs or
your chiptune from your circuit
bending? Then rejoice, dear
modular synthesizer enthusiasts
of Berlin: Europe’s largest
electronic music trade fair is at
FEZ through May 5.
FRI
4
Berlin Theatertreffen
— Theatre
Berlin’s annual festival
showcasing a jury’s pick of the
year’s ten most noteworthy
theatre productions is back at the
Haus der Berliner Festspiele and
other venues. Through May 21.
SAT
5
MIRA Festival Berlin
— Festival If your ideal
festival aesthetic is a
Commodore 64 loading screen
meets the Funkhaus, the
Barcelona-based digital arts
festival is for you. Laurel Halo and
Forest Swords head up the bill.
Through May 6.
MON
7
Berlin Burlesque Week
— Festival The finest strategically-placed
tassels,
sequins and giant cocktail glasses
Berlin has to offer. Featuring
esteemed performers
demonstrating a plethora of burlesque
genres at venues across the
city. Through May 13.
Yo La Tengo — Music New Jersey’s
ever-reliable and critically-feted
three-piece bring the noise-pop to
Heimathafen Neukölln with songs
from 2018’s There’s A Riot Going
On. 21:00 (sold out).
WED
9
Xjazz Festival — Music
Spread across 11 different
Kreuzberg venues, make
up for the time you spend
overlooking jazz, electronica and
neo-classical in Berlin the rest of
the year. Through May 13.
SAT
12
Isolation Berlin — Music
These days probably
feeling anything but
isolated (see p. 31), Berlin’s best
indie nihilists play a homecoming
gig at Astra Kulturhaus in support
of new album Vergifte Dich.
Starts 20:00.
Eurovision Song Contest — Party
It’s that time again! For our
money, there’s nowhere better
to indulge in this yearly ritual of
epic key changes, tactical voting
and fractious Euro-politics than
Freiluftkino Kreuzberg. Free
Schnapps for the front row.
From 19:30.
MON
14
Ghostface Killah — Music
Nearly four years since
his last visitation, the
unrivalled narrative abilities of
the Wu Tang stalwart finally
return to Berlin at Festsaal
Kreuzberg. Starts 20:00.
THU
17
Digitalism — Music
Kitsuné’s Hamburg
darlings take to the
Funkhaus’ stage, continuing their
mission to convince us earthlings
that the gap between Ennio
Morricone and Justice is easily
bridged by a wall of synths.
18:30-23:30.
TYPO Berlin — Design Festival
Entitled simply “Trigger”,
this deliberately, er, triggering
edition of the yearly design
conference at HKW will
pit the industry against the
twin-pronged forces of media
deception and digital transformation.
Through May 19.
The Encounter — Theatre
Renowned British theatre director
Simon McBurney stages
himself at the Schaubühne in
a solo work that makes heavy
use of audio to tell the true
story of the odd encounter of
an American photographer
and Brazil’s Mayoruna tribe in
1969. Through May 20.
42
EXBERLINER 171

WHAT’S ON — Calendar
FRI
18
Karneval der Kulturen
— Festival Hit the streets for
Kreuzberg’s 23rd Multikulti
festival celebrating diversity in Berlin.
But let’s be real: it’s another excuse to
get lit in public. Don’t miss the
parade on May 20. Through May 21.
SUN
20
Pierre Boulez Saal — Open Day
If you like your concert halls
more than your chamber
music, then take advantage of
architectural stunner Pierre Boulez
Saal’s second open house. Performances
and activities throughout the
day – plus maybe even a bit of
re-education. 11:00–19:00
WED
23
Berlin Music Video Awards
— Festival Extend those
sessions spent falling down
music video YouTube holes into a
four-day, guilt-free marathon at the
Berlin VMAs, at Gretchen and
Theater im Delphi. Nominees range
from Run The Jewels to Elton John.
Through May 26.
THU Xposed Queer Film Festival
24 — Film 13 years on, Xposed
are still showcasing the best
of queer film from around the world,
My Perfect Berlin Weekend
From 1968er to insurance salesman, lifelong revolutionary Berliner
Michael Prütz has been selling policies from his Kreuzberg office for 30
years while remaining loyal to his political ideals. But who said a
communist couldn’t indulge in the finer things in life? (see page 8)
FRIDAY
12:00 Treat myself to one of the lovely German
cakes at Ela Ent (Graefestr. 18, Kreuzberg) 18:00
Greek dinner at 35-year-old institution Kreuzberger
Weltlaterne (Kohlfurter Str. 37, Kreuzberg). 21:00
End the night at Bierhaus Urban alongside a healthy
mix of Berliners and tourists – no cocktails here, just
beer and Schnapps (Urbanstr. 126, Kreuzberg).
SATURDAY
12:00 Start the day at the Marheineke Markthalle
– lots of stands and lots of Berliners
(Marheinekeplatz 15). 13:00 Head across the
street to Felix Austria, an Austrian café with
great coffee, and lecker breakfast. 14:30 Wander
down the street to LangerBlomqvist book shop,
for new books on discount (Schleiermacherstr.
25, Kreuzberg). 20:00 End the day with dinner
at Cielo Di Berlino – good pizza, good prices
and not too many tourists (Monumentenstr. 31,
Schöneberg).
SUNDAY
10:00 A long walk around Schlachtensee, one of
the most beautiful lakes in Berlin. Sit outside at
with all the glory, camp and
beauty that encompasses.
It opens with feature Phaidros
by Mara Mattuschka. Through
May 27. Moviemento.
FRI
25
Disruption Network Lab
— Talk Manipulators,
trolls and influencers
taking the fun out of your Sunday
papers café sessions? Transcend
the limits of your own filter
bubble and learn to love the news
again at DNL’s hacktivist
conference, Hate News. Through
May 26. Kunstquartier Bethanien.
CRESCENDO festival UdK — Music
Covering the whole spectrum of
UdK’s musical remit in just 16
days, this year the festival asks
that expectations of perfectionism
be left at the at the door as its
musicians celebrate the joy of
incompleteness, under the theme
of UnVollendete. Through Jun 9.
SAT
26
Berlin Seafood Festival
— Food The Hauptstadt is
not exactly renowned for
its fresh catches,so this is perhaps
the one time of the yearyou can
MAY 2018
indulge in fresh seafood. Urban Spree.
Through May 27.
SUN
27
Lö Grand Bal Almanya
— Theatre Director Nurkan
Erpulat has updated this
satirical musical about Turkish life in
Germany that he originally premiered
at Ballhaus Naunynstrasse in 2010,
staging it anew for the Maxim Gorki
Theater (with English surtitles).
Starts 19:30.
MON
28
EXBlicks: Partisan — Film
Following Volksbühne boss
Chris Dercon’s recent
departure in April, catch our timely
screening Berlinale doc Partisan,
chronicling predecessor Frank Castorf’s
25 years at the helm of the
iconic Berlin theatre. Lichtblick Kino.
Starts 20:00. (see page 24)
TUE Potsdamer Tanztage — Dance
29 Festival Bring your body to
Postdam to catch a host of
other moving bodies doing their
thing at the international festival for
contemporary dance. Expect
performative explorations of the Big
Bang, gender and more. Through
June 10. Fabrik Potsdam.
Fischerhütte’s beer garden if the weather’s good
(Am Schlachtensee, Steglitz-Zehlendorf). 12:00
Head to the nice and authentic Nowkoelln Flohmarkt
on Maybachufer, and look for books and
CDs. 16:00 End the weekend meeting friends at
Van Loon, where I can look out onto the former
harbour (Carl-Herz-Ufer 5, Kreuzberg).
Georgia Ginnivan
May Programme in English
2.5., 4.–7.5. / HAU2 / Premiere
Gob Squad
THEATRE
Creation (Pictures for Dorian)
Premiere / English and German
3.–30.5. / Start and end at HAU1 THEATRE
Rimini Protokoll
(Begrich/Haug/Karrenbauer)
DO’s & DON’Ts – a journey through every
trick in the city
Premiere / German or German with English translation
4.+5.5. / HAU1, HAU3 DIALOGUE MUSIC FILM
MARX200
Politics – Theory – Socialism
HAU Hebbel am Ufer & Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung
13.5. / HAU1 MUSIC
Tigran Hamasyan
Concert
16.+17.5. / HAU1
Mariano Pensotti
THEATRE
Arde brillante en los bosques de la noche
/ Burning bright in the forest of the night
Re-run / Spanish with German and English surtitles
17.+18.5. / HAU3 PERFORMANCE DANCE
Boyzie Cekwana
The Last King of Kakfontein
English with German surtitles
17.+18.5. / HAU2
Meg Stuart /
DANCE
Damaged Goods
Hunter / English
22.5. / HAU2
Contemporary
DIALOGUE
And (C&) /
Jota Mombaça
C& América Latina Launch / English
23.+24.5., 26.+27.5. / HAU1 PERFORMANCE DANCE
Antonia Baehr,
Latifa Laâbissi &
Nadia Lauro
Consul and Meshie / English, French, Arabic and German
16.5. / HAU2 DANCE PERFORMANCE
Berlin Ballroom
Community &
OPULENCE
THE OPULENCE BALL / Voguing Ball
With Jack Mizrahi, Vjuan Allure, madison moore, among others
30.5.–2.6. / HAU1, HAU2, HAU3, Outdoor
INSTALLATION DIALOGUE MUSIC FILM PERFORMANCE
Detroit – Berlin:
One Circle
Music • Talk • Performance • Installation
• Film • Club
www.hebbel-am-ufer.de

ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide
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The new directory to help you find your
way around Berlin. To advertise, contact
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shrimp cocktails and more. Set menus
from €5. During Happy Hour drinks
are just €3.50 after 20:00. Reservations
suggested. Skalitzer Str. 35, U-Bhf
Görlitzer Bahnhof, Tel 030 6113 291,
Mon-Fri 9-1, Sat-Sun from 10,
www.morgenland-berlin.de
hain. Delicious freshly made burritos
and quesadillas served by a collection
of fun-loving international people.
Once a week, challenge the NHE team
to a game of rock-paper-scissors and
win a half-price meal! Kopernikusstr.
22, S+U-Bhf Warschauer Str., Mon-Sun
from 12, www.nohabloespanol.de
CAFÉS
BARETTINO — Neukölln
Barettino means “small bar” and in
our case is a unique combination of
everything which makes you happy
between dawn and dusk. A huge breakfast
choice & fine coffee, lunch & dinner
made fresh and with love, plenty
of delicacies, toasted paninis and
homemade cakes, Italian aperitivo and
holy spirits. Join the Barettino family!
Reuterstr. 59, Tel 030 2556 3034,
Mon-Sun 9-22, www.barettino.com
KREMANSKI — Kreuzberg
Kremanski offers tasty breakfast,
high-quality coffee, lunch (Mon to Fri),
homemade cakes and ice-cream, special
beers, drinks, good music and cultural
events. The friendly and talented staff
will make you feel welcome, inspired
and relaxed. The perfect hangout right
at Kotti, all day long! Adalbertstr.
96, U-Bhf Kottbusser Tor, Mon-Thu
8.30-23, Fri 8.30-2, Sat 12-2, Sun 12-23,
www.kremanski.de
TO PLACE YOUR
AD HERE CONTACT
ADS@EXBERLINER.COM
for its courteous staff and pleasant
atmosphere in the elegant and
much-loved Literaturhaus villa. The
perfect stop during a shopping trip
on nearby Ku’damm. Fasanenstr.
23, U-Bhf Uhlandstr., Tel 030
8825 414, Mon-Sun 9:30-24, www.
literaturhaus-berlin.de
NAPOLJONSKA — Mitte
Located just off Zionskirchplatz,
this vegetarian café offers organic
and homemade delicacies. Enjoy a
range of hearty breakfasts reaching
from spinach omelettes to pancakes
and French breakfast. Here you
can sip your organic latte in a cosy
atmosphere with the young and old,
locals and travellers. Kastanienallee
43, U-Bhf Rosenthaler Platz, Tel
030 3117 0965, Mon, Fri 08.30 -18.00,
Tue-Thu 8.30-16:00 Sat- Sun 09-
19.00, www.napoljonska.de
ATAYA CAFFE — Prenzlauer Berg
With its comfortable sofas and
colourful, gemütlich decor, this vegan/
vegetarian Italian-African fusion cafe
specialises in 100 percent homemade
cuisine, ranging from fresh pastas to
avocado salads and exotic paninis,
rounded off with cakes, smoothies and
bio fair-trade Italian coffee. Come for
business lunch on weekdays, Saturday
buffet breakfast or Afro-Italian vegan
brunch every Sunday! Bring the kids
and dogs. Zelterstr. 6, S-Bhf Prenzlauer
Allee, Tel. 030 3302 1041, Tue-
Fri 10-19, Sat-Sun 10-19, Mon closed,
www.atayacaffe.de
CARAVAGGI NATURWEIN
BISTRO — Prenzlauer Berg
Here is a place to enjoy organic,
biodynamic and natural Italian wines
of the very highest standard. Try some
of our hot dishes, cheeses, prosciutto
di Parma, salami, Tuscan crostini,
fresh vegetables and more from small
Italian producers following the Slow
Food philosophy. Lettestr. 3, S-Bhf
Prenzlauer Allee, Tel 030 2870 4411,
Tue-Sun 17-24, www.facebook.com/
ItalianNaturweinBerlin
RESTAURANTS
SCHWARZES CAFÉ
— Charlottenburg Since the 1970s,
Schwarzes Café on Savignyplatz has
been a cult favourite among artists,
anarchists, foreigners and Charlottenburgers.
They’re open 24/7, have
English menus and serve organic
meat. Kantstr. 148, S-Bhf Savignyplatz,
Tel 030 3138 038, Mon-Sun all
day, www.schwarzescafeberlin.de
3 SCHWESTERN — Kreuzberg
Housed in a former hospital turned
art centre, this spacious restaurant
with big windows overlooking a
lovely garden serves fresh, seasonal
German and continental dishes at
reasonable prices. Breakfast on
weekends and holidays. Live music
and parties start after dessert.
Mariannenplatz 2 (Bethanien), U-Bhf
Kottbusser Tor, Tel 030 6003 18600,
Mon-Fri from 12, Sat-Sun from 11,
www.3schwestern.com
CAFÉ IM LITERATURHAUS
— Charlottenburg Enjoy a coffee in
one of Berlin’s finest cafés, known
CAFÉ MORGENLAND — Kreuzberg
On weekends and holidays you’ll find a
great buffet here, complete with gourmet
cheese, fresh fruit and veg, crêpes
and other vegetarian dishes, cold cuts,
NO HABLO ESPAÑOL
— Friedrichshain The best California-style
Mexican street food joint in Friedrichs-
PUNE — Prenzlauer Berg The place
to go to, especially on Sundays for a
great Indian buffet after a stroll in the
nearby Mauerpark flea market. They
offer a large menu with various meaty,
vegetarian and vegan dishes, and daily
lunch specials. Don’t skip the cocktail
happy hour! Oderberger Str. 28,
U-Bhf Eberswalder Str., Tel 030 4404
2762, Mon-Sat 12-24, Sun 11-24,
www.pune-restaurant.de
44
EXBERLINER 17

ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide
Görlitzer Bahnhof, Tel 030 5482 1866,
Sun-Mon 9-17, Thu-Sat 9-22, closed
Tue-Wed, www.bastard-berlin.de
part bar, the interior is beautifully
decorated with antique tiles. Wühlischstr.
22-23, S+U-Bhf Warschauer
Str., Tel 030 2616 918 Mon-Sun 17-2,
www.hopsandbarley-berlin.de
technology comes to life! Expect the
unexpected! Rosenthaler Str. 39,
S-Bhf Hackescher Markt, Wed-Thu
18.30-21.30, Fri-Sat 16.30-21.30,
www.monsterkabinett.de
LA BUVETTE — Prenzlauer Berg
For a good glass of wine, a romantic
or business dinner, a wine tasting or
a birthday party... come to La Buvette
Weinbar. A cosy French bistrot
where all wines come directly from
France and the food is like mama’s
cooking. Try the famous ‘steakfrites’
with a glass of Bordeaux, or
come on Sundays for ‘moules-frites’!
Gleim Str. 41, S+U-Bhf. Schönhauser
Allee, Tel 030 8806 2870, Mon-
Sun from 18, www.labuvette.berlin
CABSLAM WELTRESTAURANT
— Neukölln The very best California
breakfast slam in Neukölln. Fresh
location at Landwehr Kanal has fused
with Weltrestaurant Markthalle
Kreuzberg! A mix of American and
German cuisine that rocks: burgers,
burritos and more! Innstr. 47, Neukölln,
U-Bhf Rathaus Neukölln, Mon-
Tue 11-22, Wed closed, Thu-Fri 11-22,
Sat 10-22, Sun 10-17, Tel 030 6869624,
www.cabslam.com
BARS & NIGHTLIFE
MONSTER RONSON’S ICHIBAN
KARAOKE — Friedrichshain
Monster Ronson’s is the world’s craziest
karaoke club. Make out on their super-dark
dance floor, get naked in the
private karaoke boxes and sing your
favourite songs all night. Warschauer
Str. 34, S+U-Bhf Warschauer Str., Mon-
Sun from 19, www.karaokemonster.de
SHOPS & SERVICES
BGKW LAWYERS — Mitte
This firm specialises in labour, family,
private building and insolvency law.
The legitimacy of dismissal is the main
subject of labour disputes. In divorce
proceedings, legal representation is
mandatory. We give legal advice in
cases of construction defects and to
all parties concerned in insolvency
proceedings. Prior contract consulting
is often appropriate: Arbeits-, Ehe-, Lebenspartnerschafts-,
Bauträgervertrag.
Markgrafenstr. 57, U-Bhf Kochstr., Tel.
030 2062 4890, www.bgkw-law.de
BASTARD — Kreuzberg From Bastard
with love: whether it’s breakfast,
lunch or dinner, this restaurant is not
just for those who were born out of
wedlock. Choose from the changing
seasonal menu created with love for
fresh ingredients and fine food. Our
tip: try the homemade stone-oven
bread! Reichen berger Str. 122, U-Bhf
HOPS & BARLEY — Friedrichshain
Serving home-brewed pilsner and
dark beer, this is the place to go to
get that proper brew-pub vibe in
Friedrichshain. Cider and wheat
beers are also on tap. Part brewery,
THE GERMAN SPY MUSEUM
— Mitte Immerse yourself in the
fascinating cloak-and-dagger world
of Berlin’s high-tech museum: crack
secret codes, complete the laser
obstacle course and gasp at what the
NSA and Facebook knows about you.
The German Spy Museum charts the
history of espionage in its interactive
exhibition with a floor space of
3000sqm. Unique exhibits such as
the famous Enigma machine are waiting
to be explored. Leipziger Platz
9, S+U-Bhf Potsdamer Platz, Tel 030
39 8200 450, Mon-Sun 10-20, www.
deutsches-spionagemuseum.de
TIB-SPORTZENTRUM — Neükolln
At Berlin’s oldest sport club you’ll find
sports for young and old. Baseball,
softball, ultimate frisbee, tennis, dance
and more. Their sport centre has a
gym, sport courses, 8 badminton and 2
indoor tennis courts, and a sauna.
Columbiadamm 111, U-Bhf Südstern,
Mon-Fri 7:30-23:30, Sat 8:30-20:30,
Sun 8:30-23:30, www.tib1848ev.de
DOLORES — Mitte & Schöneberg
Founded 10 years ago as a street food pioneer in the German
capital, Dolores serves excellent California-style burritos, tacos and
quesadillas – inspired by San Francisco’s Mission district. Recommended
by Time Out, New York Times and Lonely Planet. Voted #1
value for your money by Exberliner readers. Rosa-Luxemburg-Str.
7, S+U-Bhf Alexanderplatz, Tel 030 2809 9597, Mon-Sat 11:30-22,
Sun 13-22. Bayreuther Str. 36, U-Bhf Wittenbergplatz, Mon-Sun
11-22, www.dolores-berlin.de
MONSTERKABINETT — Mitte
Join us on a trip to Berlin’s underground
art scene! A unique theme
park inhabited by automatic, singing,
dancing monsters. Your guides: our
performance artists from Transylvania.
Visitors of all ages are invited to
enjoy an invaluable art event where
HUMBOLDT-INSTITUT — Mitte
Total beginner or advanced learner:
the Humboldt-Institut has the right
German course for everyone. Small
classes with intensive tuition ensure
swift and effective learning.
Intensive courses are also available
with accommodation on campus.
Or simply choose a part-time course
in the morning, evening or on
Saturdays. Invalidenstr. 19, S-Bhf
Nordbahnhof, Tel 030 5551 3221,
www.humboldt-institut.org
MAY 2018 45

ADVERTORIAL — The Berlin Guide
RABBI DR. WALTER ROTHSCHILD
— Schöneberg Do you need a rabbi?
Sometimes one might. For private
counselling, for family and religious
rituals, for teaching, for advice -
rabbinic advice, not psychotherapy.
From someone with insights and a
great deal of professional and life
experience. Rabbi Walter Rothschild
is available in Berlin and elsewhere.
contact@rabbiwalterrothschild.de,
www.rabbiwalterrothschild.de
ASISI PANORAMA BERLIN — Mitte
Experience the panorama DIE MAUER
(Berlin Wall) by the artist Yadegar
Asisi in an 18-metre-high rotunda.
The panorama shows everyday
life in Kreuzberg of the 1980s on a
1:1 scale. Immerse yourself in this
monumental Panorama installation
– a perfect illusion of the history of
the city. Friedrichstr. 205, U-Bhf
Kochstr., Tel 0341 3555 340, Mon-Sun
10-18, www.die-mauer.de
FRAUENCOMPUTERZENTRUM
BERLIN (FCZB) — Kreuzberg
The place for vocational social
media and computer skills training
for women. Now offering publiclyfunded
courses for working and
unemployed females: free of
charge or at affordable prices.
Relaxed and flexible learning environment
with dedicated staff and a
great view of the Spree. All training
in German language. Cuvrystr. 1,
U-Bhf Schlesisches Tor,
Tel 030 6179 7016, www.fczb.de
030 6179 7016, www.fczb.de
LPG BIOMARKT — 9x in Berlin
Your all-organic neighbourhood supermarket supplies fruit and veggies,
vegan groceries, meats, cheese and even cosmetics. They offer a huge
selection of local and regional products, preferably from within 200km
of Berlin. Fill your basket with freshly baked bread and treat yourself to
a selection of homemade sweet and savoury goodies. Found already in
8 locations in Berlin to offer you the fairest, cleanest and most delicious
products nearby, from nearby. Kreuzberg, Mehringdamm 20 & Reichenberger
Str. 37 Prenzlauer Berg, Kollwitzstr. 17 Mitte, Alt-Moabit 98
Friedenau, Hauptstraße 78 Steglitz Albrechtstr. 33 www.lpg-biomarkt.de
SUBSCRIBE TO
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46 EXBERLINER 171

ADVERTISING — The Language School Directory
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Looking for a German school that offers you:
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MAY 2018
47

BERLIN BITES
BREAKFAST
Taking back
brunch
Once primarily the domain of
Australians, breakfast in Neukölln
is now anyone’s game.
Here are three of the latest
hyped spots (including, yes,
one from Down Under).
EGG KNEIPE:
THE EIER HAVE IT
A spiritual cousin to California’s venerated
Eggslut, this Kottbusser Damm street food
stand celebrates the humble hen ovum in
all its forms: poached, fried or scrambled,
served atop fried potatoes, spinach, spelt
toast from the Endorphina bakery... you get
the idea. The eggs in question come from
a family-run organic farm in Oberlausitz,
and Egg Kneipe’s trio of German owners do
them justice in dishes like “Salmon Delight”,
grilled toast with a poached egg and a veritable
mountain of house-cured Lachs (€7). For
a gluten free option, there's the “Egg Rolls”,
hearty egg, rice and chestnut-flour crepes
stuffed with fillings like spinach, mushrooms
and Allgäu cheese (€5.50). There’s a lowcarb,
low-calorie “Fitness” menu with salads
and bowls as well as a gut-busting “BullEi-
Burger” in which an egg tops a beef Boulette
from Neukölln’s Blutwurstmanufaktur.
Nothing here is over €10 – a bargain for this
quality, though given the size of the place
you may have to eat standing up. Better to
take your breakfast to the nearby canal and
devour it while the yolk’s still warm. –JS
Kottbusser Damm 1, Kreuzberg,
Mon-Sat 11-20
BONA KOLLEKTIV:
THE NEW INSTA-CHAMP
The title for most-Instagrammed brunch
in Neukölln still undisputedly belongs to
the Aussie-owned Roamers, but this Polish-
Italian newbie has all the makings of a challenger.
There is unfinished wood. There are
succulents. There’s writing on the wall left
over from the location’s past life as an HQ
for the SDP newspaper Das Volk. And there is
a massive, colourful “King” platter of toast,
various spreads, salad, chutney-topped Camembert,
Italian ham and a sunny-side-up egg
decorated with sprigs of sage, rosemary and
thyme, served on butcher paper for maximum
visual effect. It’s a little steep at €11.50
but could easily serve two once you take into
account how filling Bona’s homemade sourdough
bread is – made with all manner of
grains, nuts, herbs and spices and leavened
with a starter from Poland, these dense slices
are a meal in and of themselves. A similar
“Queen” plate comes with a croissant, fruit,
yoghurt, muesli and a boiled egg instead of
a fried one. If you don’t mind the techno,
which the staff tends to play even when it
isn’t their semiregular “Techno Brunch”,
you can stick it out till you’re hungry again
and order less-photogenic Polish specialities
like pierogies and zapiekanki cheese-topped
baguettes. –JS
Hermannstr. 178, Neukölln,
Tue-Fri 9-17, Sat-Sun 10-17
THE FUTURE BREAKFAST
Rachel Glassberg Françoise Pollâne
Rachel Glassberg
Eggkneipe
The Future Breakfast
Bona
There's something undeniably endearing
about the backstory of The Future Breakfast
owners Katie James & Florian Tränkner.
The Australian-German duo started off
selling breakfast and coffee from a very
Instagrammable vintage caravan at Markthalle
Neun, Bite Club or pop up brunches
at Isla Coffee in Neukölln. Smart way to
build a following. In March, the Future
Breakfast sedentarised on Böhmischer
Platz in southern Neuköllln. The minimalist
menu matches the spartan, modernism
of the place: four dishes. Always a good
sign. It's also refreshingly free of the usual
avo-toast. Instead they offer Eggs Benedict
(€9.50) that don't just look as pretty as an
Instagram, but are actually tasty – and thoroughly
filling. The innovation here is the
substitution of ham with oyster mushrooms
that have been apparently marinated or
cooked in chipotle sauce. The yolks of the
slightly undercooked poached eggs bleed
over the mushrooms into the home-baked
English muffins – creating an interesting
version of that elusive Benedict fusion. The
matcha pancakes are a little disappointing
though: a mount of greenish doughy
discs, topped with green apples and a giant
blob of sesame-coconut whip., matcha
fans will miss the earthy taste of the green
tea powder – overpowered by the black
sesame – and the pancakes we tried that
day came so doughy that it was hard to tell
if they were just accidentally undercooked
or if pancakes shouldn't be vegan after all.
There's also a hearty Pearl Barley Bowl (€9),
a pantry mixture awash with roasted sweet
potato and bits and pieces like pomegranate,
kale and cashew that's as fillingas
the eggs but easier on the stomach (top it
with two eggs for €11). The food is slow to
come here – the wait can be over 25 minutes
even at opening time – so be prepared to
enjoy a few a cups of (good) coffee (€2.50-
4, from The Barn) to make the wait more
bearable. As for the prices, they're not low,
but the staff is cheerful and hipster-quality
food (organic eggs, lots of Instagrammable
homemade like-bait) has a cost. –FP
Böhmische Str. 46, Neukölln,
Mon-Fri 8:30-18, Sat-Sun 9:30-18, closed Wed
48
EXBERLINER 150 171

BERLIN BITES
BREAD
Le Brot
Real baguette in Neukölln
Achhh, the unmistakeable, sweet smell of hot
baguette. Enter the bakery on Fuldastraße,
and inhale: finally, real French bread in Berlin!
While we’d stopped counting cute cafés serving
macarons, canelés, madeleines, quiche and other
handmade patisserie du jour, till last December,
French expats’ creativity had rarely extended to the
craft of bread and croissant-making. One obvious
reason is that whereas any industrious wannabe can
bake a decent cake, boulangerie is a totally different
affair that requires adequate equipment, years
of practice and serious know-how. Improvisation is
not an option. Meanwhile, one had to make do with
German baguettes that had little in common with
the real thing besides the name and shape. Or take a
round trip to the temple of all things French, Galeries
Lafayette, but let’s face it: their bread isn’t quite
artisanal. In short if you ever craved the delicious
French stick – your best bet was to get yourself on a
return flight to France! That was before Le Brot.
With a certified French baker at the oven (imported
all the way from Rouen, Normandy) and a
shrewd German entrepreneur at the helm, Le Brot
has all the assets to succeed. The place is the brainchild
of Jan Schmieder-Balladur, a German family
man whose Francophilia doesn't stop at women (he
married a French gal). Seeing a lucrative niche in
the Berlin market he transformed the former Späti
on his street into a full-fledged open bakery with a
pretty café space in the back. The result is convincing:
each day bakers churn hundreds of loaves, pain
au chocolat and croissants to loyal customers, mostly
locals but also bread lovers who come from across
town for a piece of the bounty. The bread is worth
the trip: the incomparable springy-chewy texture, the
crisp crust, the slight sweet tinge, it’s all there – and
it’s only flour, water and the right mix of yeast and
sourdough. How can it be so difficult? Expert kneading
and longer rising time? According to baker Remy
Guilbeau, the secret to baguettemaking
is in the flour: it’s got
to be 100% wheat and only
wheat – no additives like extra
gluten as is often found in bread
nowadays, especially in Germany.
They import theirs from Moulin
des Trois Rivières, a small
artisanal mill in western France
that bags a pure uncut white
‘powder’ that's certified organic.
The result is addictive and comes
in three versions – “Tradition”
(€1.90), “Campagne” (with 10%
rye, €2) and “Céréales” (mixed
grain, €2.30), each also available
as individual Brötchen (€0.80-95).
You can enjoy them plain (with
butter) or filled with first class cooked ham and/or
roasted veggies (€4-5.50), sandwich or tartine style. If
you’re French, this the place to dip your croissant in
your petit noir (Americano). If you like it sweet, don’t
miss out on the pain au chocolat – a delicious crusty
golden-brown shell filled with the right amount of
melt-in-the-mouth dark chocolate, perfectly flaky,
not oversweet, not greasy. And if you’re not a morning
person, come back at night for a quiche or cheese
plate over a glass of wine… There are so many ways
to enjoy a French lifestyle off of Sonnenallee. n
Fuldastraße 54, Neukölln, Mon-Sat 7:30-22:30,
closed Sun
Michel Le Voguer
FEBRUARY 2018 49

REGULARS
Save
Berlin
by Dan Borden
On the bike path
to hell
What is the city doing to improve
conditions for cyclists?
Cyclists are saints. With every pedal
spin, they bolster our fragile planet
while strengthening their hearts,
calves and karma. But not for traffic planners
– in their binary world, cars zoom along
streets and pedestrians waddle along sidewalks.
They don’t know where to put those
two-wheeled agents of anarchy.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Berlin’s planners
designated cyclists pedestrians and gave the
newly-united city a network of sidewalk
cycle lanes. They didn’t foresee our bike
population explosion. Half a million now
clog those narrow paths every day. And they
couldn’t predict today’s smartphone-chatting
e-bikers, Deliveroo kamikazes or swarms
of zombie-like bicycle tourists. Bikes-for-rent
pile up on every street corner.
Berlin’s cycling chaos is more than a headache.
It’s getting increasingly dangerous. In
2016 Berlin saw 7500 accidents involving
bicycles, and 19 cyclists were killed – about
one every three weeks.
In December 2015, a golden bicycle appeared
in front of Berlin’s city hall. It carried
a manifesto from the activist group Volksentscheid
Fahrrad, a 10-point plan to make
Berlin more cyclist-friendly and safe. Then-
Transport Senator Andreas Geisel dismissed
the demands, pointing out that the city was
already spending €14 million a year on its bike
network. So the activists raised the stakes.
They gathered 105,000 signatures, enough
to put their proposals to a public vote in
the September 2016 election. Facing likely
defeat, Berlin’s Senate threw in the towel and
adopted Volksentscheid Fahrrad’s plan as law.
Last December, current Transport Senator
Regine Günther signed off on an annual cycle
infrastructure budget of €50 million.
The 10 points boil down to three flavours
of new, street-level bikelanes:
A street of their own
The plans call for 350km of safe Fahrradstraßen,
a network of bicycle-priority routes
converted from existing streets in the city
centre (photo). Residents’ cars and delivery
vans would be permitted, but cyclists are
boss. Berlin already has bike-priority streets
– such as Linienstraße in Mitte and Wilmersdorf’s
Prinzregentenstraße – but they’re
poorly marked and unenforced.
Please mind the bollards
In addition to the Fahrradstraßen, Berlin’s
government has committed to giving all
major thoroughfares two-metre-wide bike
lanes at street level, clearly marked and protected
from four-wheeled invaders (and their
swinging doors) by kerbs or other barriers.
Work is underway on the first, along Kreuzberg’s
Hasenheide.
Cycling Superhighways
Another key demand is 100km of Radschnellwege,
or bike speedways. Planners have
already mapped out eight radial routes linking
the city’s outskirts to the centre, often
through parks or abandoned railyards. The
first is planned to run north from Adlershof
along the A-113 highway, then across Tempelhof
into Kreuzberg.
The law prescribes 350km of
new “cycle streets” by 2025.
Other Volksentscheid Fahrrad goals:
100,000 more bike parking spaces, cyclistfriendlier
intersections, and a city-funded ad
campaign to promote cycling. That last demand
may prove critical. Despite their good
intentions, the saintly activists have stirred
up some bad blood.
High on the list of bike haters are the car
and lorry drivers set to lose traffic lanes
and parking spaces. The three opposition
parties in Berlin’s Senate have banded
together, declaring the bike-friendly proposals
a “culture war against car drivers.”
And imagine the reactions of Fahrradstraße
residents when their centuries-old
cobblestones are ripped out and replaced
by teal-coloured polyethylene pavers. With
their laundry list of demands and lofty
tone, cyclists risk casting themselves as a
privileged minority.
Through clever political maneuvering,
the Volksentscheid Fahrrad got their
ideas carved into law and even funded.
Now comes the hard part: concrete action.
Berlin’s Senate, perhaps burned by having
the plans jammed down their throat, is
dragging its feet. That 2015 golden-bike
manifesto called for Berlin to be transformed
into a cyclist’s paradise by 2025.
Since then, just a single new bike lane has
been approved for construction. Activist
Peter Feldkamp bemoaned the lack
of progress in Tagesspiegel, saying, “If the
Senate keeps working at this rate, it
will take 150 years.” ■
Gitti La Mar / Rabea Seibert / Volksentscheid Fahrrad
50
EXBERLINER 171

COLUMN— The Gay Berliner
Xpose
yourself
Walter Crasshole
strips Xposed Queer
Film Festival down to
the essentials
If the X in Xposed doesn't stand for eXplicit – and it does
sometimes – it certainly stands for eXperimental, or at least
adventurous. And for a lucky 13th time, it returns to offer up
a serving of queer film far off the beaten path, but all the tastier
for it. For four days (May 24-27) at Moviemento, travel that path
through a selection of LGBTQ* features, shorts, documentaries,
discussions and parties, all leading to The Lolly Awards.
Discoveries abound. Even I stumbled upon an auteur I’d never
heard of: Bulgarian-born Austrian Mara Mattuschka. Her 2018
film Phaidros, runs as the feature opener for this year, and plays
like the long lost New Queer Cinema feature we never saw. Hitting
notes of Derek Jarmen and early Todd Haynes, Mattuschka’s
film is a journey through the dramatic underbelly of Vienna’s
theatre and nightlife scene, following Emil – a dead ringer for My
Beautiful Laundrette-era Daniel Day Lewis – and his barbed relationship
with veteran actor Werner Maria Straus.
Mattuschka’s no newcomer. Like fellow Austrian artist last
year, Valie Export, Mattuschka receives the “Experience” treatment
at Kottbusser Tor’s Aquarium and with a filmography
stretching back to 1983, there’s plenty to Xperience.
For a different kind of feature, Drew Lint’s Canadian-German
production M/M, dissects identity and obsession in a tale of two
young gay men in modern Berlin who look exactly like each other
(not exactly a far-out fantasy). How far can love, or obsession,
take you before you consume and ultimately destroy each other?
Two documentaries this year take playful approaches to serious
subjects. Daisy Asquith’s Queerama traces the history of homosexuality
from Oscar Wilde through today, using nothing but BFI film
footage and a killer soundtrack of John Grant, Hercules & the Love
Affair and Goldfrapp. “Documentary” curiosity Terror Nullius by
Soda Jerk is a patchwork of film clips exploring Australia's colonial
history in a much less linear and more in your face manner than
the former. With minimal knowledge of Australian pop-culture
and history, those not from down under should also immensely
enjoy it. As a bonus doc for those with Berlinale blues, Bixa Travesty
(“Tranny Fag”), about devastatingly powerful performer Linn
de Quebrada and Teddy documentary winner of 2018, also screens.
Shorts have always played an important role in the Xposed agenda
(the original fest was dedicated to them) and this year shorts
come in all sizes and volumes. Case in point, Julia Fuhr Mann's
“Riot Not Diet” is a utopian, empowering vision of fat women in
Germany today, while Olivia Kastebring's “Juck [Thrust]” focuses
on a movement of women in Sweden pushing power out of their
pelvic regions. Both are in the Opening Night Shorts Program.
There’s much more on offer than I can thrust into this column,
so be sure to go down and check it out yourself. And if anyone
tells you to Xpose yourself in May, take it as a hearty recommendation.
See you there!
XPOSED Queer Film Festival, May 24-27 | Moviemento,
Kreuzberg, see full programme at xposedfilmfestival.com
MAY 2018

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
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Letters to
the editor
This month: our cinema trailer
featuring Berlin personality
Rummelsnuff and an article in
our April Brazil issue offend
two readers.
“I don’t want to be
a Berliner any more.”
Guten Tag, I would like to get my opinion
about your trailer off of my chest. I love
black humour and sarcasm but this video
won’t increase your circulation – I assume
that is the point of running it. As a Berliner
I feel pretty bad when I see this commercial.
If the tourists, immigrants and temporary
residents are supposed to see and hear
Berliners like that, then I don’t want to be
a Berliner any more. With that appearance,
Berliners can maybe work as a bouncer for
dubious clubs, but he doesn’t represent me.
Thank you for your attention.
— Sincerely, Peter
“Does this not look
slightly racist to you?”
Dear Exberliner, I am Brazilian, a Berlin resident
and reader of your magazine. I bought
April’s edition yesterday to have it as Sunday
reading and to my surprise most of it is about
‘Brazil in Berlin’. So far so good, but then I
reached page 18. There’s a two-page story
called “Why I married my German wife”. It’s
about four Brazilian guys that shamelessly fool
their respective German wives with lies and
betrayals in order to get German citizenship.
Before I even start, let’s do a short analysis
of the illustration that was published with
the story: A dark-skinned man portrayed as
the chesthair-out-of-shirt Latino stereotype
sneaks a passport out of the pocket of a white
skinned woman. Does this not look slightly
racist to you? With his other hand he holds
a ring. A true gold digger act performed by a
darked-skinned male against a white-skinned
female. No need to say this already started
out on the wrong foot. You want to know if
marrying a German person for a visa is worth
it? Well, how about opening the scope a little
and talking about a whole new wave of marriages
that are impulsed by visas, performed
by an innumerous number of non-European
nationalities coming together with European
nationalities, motivated by love, friendship,
political points of view or even money? Off
the top of my head I can give you at least five
examples of this kind of marriage that would
make an exciting, diverse story with no need
to offend a nationality.
Do you even realise how this one-sided
story touches Brazilian people? People that
struggle for acceptance in a foreign country?
How this offends our culture and specially
touches the reputation of Brazilian immigrants?
Why didn’t you hear other stories?
This piece reinforces a bad stereotype
and it’s offensive. I hope Exberliner is
capable of an apology, for these miserable,
miserable pages. — Roberta
Dear Roberta,
The article in question wasn’t supposed to
portray “Brazilian people”, how or why they
marry, or who does or does not marry for
citizenship. Its scope was a lot more humble
and limited: under the tag ‘confession’, we
ran a rather anecdotal story of four friends
from Brazil who happen to share the same
story of love and deception – at least in the
way they all boasted marrying their German
girlfriends for a visa. Granted, the story is
pretty one-dimensional – as told from the
men’s perspective. Granted, “marrying for a
visa” isn’t a Brazilian thing. It just happened
that these four were Brazilian, that Alice
Klar knew them (and in some cases their
wives!) and that they were willing to talk to
us (although anonymously).
As for the illustration, you’re totally right:
the guy (intentionally) does look like the
cliché ‘Latin lover’, a cliché used and abused
by the men of the story. The German women
allegedly fell for just that – and all the exoticism
that comes with it.
As for the ‘passport stealing’ – it’s obviously
a visual metaphor. It’s a barter: the
women get to marry a dream lover, the
men get to solve their visa problem. Who’s
the cheater, who’s the cheated? As the story
shows, some of the men end up falling into
their own trap.
All in all, we thought that the material
made for a quite universally entertaining story;
a story that tells us more about the quirks
of the human psyche than it does about one
nationality or another. This is the way you
read it. It’s not the way we intended it.
This was only one story in a 15-page
Brazil special. We also portrayed six talented
Brazilians who call Berlin home and wrote
at length about Brazilian food, culture and
places. Some readers enjoyed it, including
some fellow Brazilians. You didn’t – and
we’re sorry for that. Let us just assure you
that we never meant to offend you or other
Brazilians. If you found this article upsetting,
we can only apologise.
— Exberliner team
www.berlindrawingroom.com
52
EXBERLINER 171

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