11/30/2023 0 Comments Berlin berghain bouncer![]() My friend Janine is with me she isn’t going to go into the club with me, but since she lives next door, she decided to keep me company while I waited. So it’s Friday night and I get to Berghain ridiculously early (1am!) to catch one of the early acts, John Osborn. I, on the other hand, had been absent from Berlin for nearly a year, and I had no idea whether Ned or any of the other bouncers would recognize me. Interestingly enough, while they needed prompting from Ned to approach the door, they actually didn’t even need his presence at the door to get in the rest of the staff had already quietly conferred the status of “regular” upon them.Īll of this is to say that, by last Friday night, Bob and Donna had been bypassing the line and getting waved in every time they came here. The next night, they came by and Ned wasn’t at the door, but Sven-the “ hardest bouncer in Berlin”-recognized them and waved them in, no questions asked. He practically scolded them for wasting so many nights in line. He told them that, the next time they come to the club, they should walk past the line and head straight to the door (which is a privilege reserved for “regulars” here). By the time I left Berlin at the end of that summer, he would occasionally pull me out of line and take me directly into the club (which is valuable when the line can sometimes take more than an hour).Īnd so, Ned recognized Bob and Donna from having seen them partying with me so frequently through 20. I saw him working the door at the Berghain Kantine (a Biergarten and mini-club next to Berghain) on a Wednesday and chatted him up, and he eventually became more friendly to me as he saw me more often. You see, I had started talking to Ned back in the summer of 2008, when I noticed that he spoke English with an American accent. Sometime last winter, during one of their “sessions” in Berlin, they chatted up a bouncer, who we’ll call “Ned,” for simplicity’s sake. They’ve been devoted fans of Panorama Bar for years, and the staff have come to recognize them, such that they no longer have to worry about being refused at the door. I was joined this weekend by Bob and Donna, two French friends living in London, who come to Berlin nearly every three weeks to party. Last Friday and Saturday comprised my “homecoming” to Berghain / Panorama Bar, and both evenings provided rich examples of how contingent and complex entry into a nightclub can be. As readers of my previous blog, Luis in Paris, will remember, I’m also interested in the rather fluid ethical component of this process (something I’ve called liquidarity in my work): who goes in with whom and who vouches for whom, based on differences in access, appearance, “coolness,” familiarity with the bouncers, and so on. The opening event on May 18th will run from 10pm-5am.T this point, those of you who’ve read my previous mini-profile of Berghain already know that getting in can be complicated there’s severe selection at the door, and yet the door policy is never fully revealed or explained, and so any night out here is accompanied by a flurry of analysis and strategizing. The DISTURBING BEAUTY exhibition will be on view from May 18-21 at the Gallery at ArtsDistrict Brooklyn, with hours of 3pm-9pm. Club culture is always to some extent ‘RIOT,’ unadjusted and, above all, free.” For me, New York is rough and photogenic = ‘sexy’ 24/7. Starting in 2018, residencies followed in Belgrade, Sydney and then, in 2022, in New York City. “Since 2010, my exhibition projects have been traveling, and they have occasionally been created in collaboration with musicians. Berlin has always been the setting as well as the inspiration for my pictures and projects. It was at the end of the 1990s that my camera again became a stylistic device for expressing our attitude towards life. In a city in transition after the wild eighties and the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had for the first time put my camera aside. In Sven’s own words, “For more than thirty years, club culture has determined both my life-as a curator of countless nights-and, of course, my life as a photographer. In cooperation with visual artist Tavy Hornbrook, Marquardt shows on this special evening over 100 visuals as video art and creates a digital experience by letting images and sound flow together. The opening event on May 18 will see performances from a selection of noteworthy house and techno artists, including Joris Voorn. ![]() In collaboration with New York nightlife impresarios Teksupport, DISTURBING BEAUTY will see the Berlin based photographer exhibit a selection of his first photo works captured in 1980s East Berlin, which will be presented by Galerie Deschler. Berlin nightlife icon Sven Marquardt has announced his DISTURBING BEAUTY New York Art Week photo exhibition at ArtsDistrict Brooklyn May 18-21.
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