Exberliner Issue 171 May 2018

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
12 EXBERLINER 171