Michel Wrthle: Paris Bar Press: Confidential

(Hardback)

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Description

The Paris Bar on Kantstrasse in Berlin's Charlottenburg is one of Germany's most famous meeting places for artists. Bustling every night of the week with fascinating guests from every walk of life, the restaurant is particularly beloved by painters, actors, writers, collectors and gallerists, its walls covered by a mlange of artworks by John Baldessari, Maria Lassnig, Georg Baselitz, Sarah Lucas and Martin Kippenberger-to name just a few. Now artist and owner of the Paris Bar Michel Wrthle has created the first behind-the-scenes look into this legendary institution, in the form of an intimate, sprawling visual journal-six volumes of hundreds of his drawings, photographs, collages, menus and hand-written texts in English, German and French. Created in the solitude of the 2020/21 lockdown, Paris Bar Press. Confidential is at once a subjective history of the Paris Bar brimming with memories, a love letter to Berlin, and not least Wrthle's affirmation to his staff that "we're all in this together, we will get through this, the world isn't going to end so quickly after all." An up and down of hopes, disappointments and happy moments, a frantic work marathon, until all of a sudden six thick volumes bound in red threatened to burst like ripe fruits filled with the juice of so much glue. - Michel Wrthle

Author Bio

Born in Hallstatt in 1943, Michel Wrthle studied art in Cologne and Vienna between 1957 and 1963. Following sojourns in Rome, Naples, Abidjan and Paris, Wrthle settled in Berlin in 1970, opening the legendary restaurant Exil with Ingrid and Oswald Wiener in 1972. In 1979 he acquired the Paris Bar with Reinald Nohal as partner; in 1991 Wrthle returned to drawing, painting and writing.