Wiener Strasse (Roman)

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Wiener Straße is a novel by Sven Regener . It was published by Galiani Verlag in 2017 , the audio book read by the author was published by Roof Music in the same year . The novel depicts the pub, artist and squatter scene in Berlin-Kreuzberg in the 1980s and continues the plot of Regener's earlier novels Neue Vahr Süd and Der kleine Bruder .

action

The novel is divided into the five chapters Stingl , This will be great , The new New National Gallery , Chateau Strunzinger and Haut der Stadt . The chapters in turn consist of individual sections, which are told from the changing perspectives of the individual characters. There are essentially two touching story lines: one to the staff of the pub cafe incident in the Wiener Straße and to the members of the artist collective ArschArt .

Café idea

Erwin Kächele, the owner of Café Einfall, has so far let a few people live in his factory floor that has been converted into an apartment: the object artists HR Ledigt and Karl Schmidt (the latter also works at the counter in Café Einfall), his 18-year-old niece Chrissie, who has just arrived in Berlin and Frank Lehmann, who came to Berlin looking for his older brother and has now taken over his room. Since Erwin's girlfriend Helga is now pregnant, Erwin now wants to get rid of his four roommates in order to have space for his family. So he rents the apartment above Cafe Einfall and gives Frank a job as a cleaner after Chrissie refuses the job. When buying wallpaper and paint for home renovation, HR is forgotten in the hardware store. There he buys a digging fork and a chainsaw, which he thinks he can use for art events. The talkative and somewhat annoying neighbor Marko helps the four of them renovate the apartment and does a large part of the work himself.

The pub doesn't open until 6 p.m., but when Frank is cleaning there during the day, people often come to ask if it's open. This gives Chrissie the idea to open from 10 a.m. and offer home-baked cakes. The somewhat stingy Erwin doesn't trust Chrissie and thinks it's a bad idea, also because he would then have to invest money in repairing his old, huge coffee machine. But then you can be persuaded to try and open earlier. Chrissie burns the first cake and gives it to HR, who is constantly collecting items for art objects.

HR and Karl share a glazed part of the counter in Café Einfall as an exhibition space for their art objects. HR decorates the burnt cake with a German flag and displays it there under the title “German Cake”. Chrissie sells it to Japanese tourists, however, and has to compensate HR for it.

Chrissie's mother Kerstin (Erwin's sister) comes to Berlin from Backnang to see her daughter. She bakes apple pie with Chrissie and helps her sell them in the café. She also draws Chrissie's attention to the fact that Frank has fallen in love with her because, according to a theory of Sigmund Freud , he regards her as a “nourishing mother” because of her job selling cake . Chrissie gets angry, leaves her mother to resell alone, brings Frank a piece of cake upstairs into the apartment - and thereby unwittingly shows that she feels something for him herself.

Erwin attends a birth preparation course with Helga and has to wear a so-called “compassion stomach” for one day in order to be able to empathize with the physical symptoms of pregnancy. He comes into the Café Einfall with his stomach and meets the social worker Wiemer, who flirts violently with Kerstin. Wiemer is a kind of publicly appointed supervisor of the Kreuzberg art scene and curates the exhibition Haut der Stadt , which is to open on the same evening. Wiemer asks Erwin to organize the serving of wine at the vernissage at short notice. Erwin then goes to a wholesale market with Frank, who is supposed to take over the bar, where they taste many wines and then decide on the cheap Chateau Strunzinger because of Erwin's thrift .

Ass art

The Austrian action artist P. Immel (real name: Peter von Immel) has inherited a house in Kreuzberg and is moving into it with a group of other artists who are founding the ArschArt artist group there. All of them give themselves new names to hide their Austrian origins and pretend they are re-occupying the house . The group is outwardly egalitarian, but in reality it is led by Fr. Immel in an increasingly authoritarian manner. He not only determines the camouflage names of the other members, but also their clothing: everyone should wear white overalls and orange-colored construction workers' helmets, except for one whose camouflage name is changed from Karsten to "Kacki" and who has to wear a brown suit.

A camera team that wants to shoot a contribution for a cultural program on ZDF has announced itself at ArschArt . Under P.Immel's direction, the occupation of the house is now to be fooled: a few artists dress up as punks who are supposed to hang around in the entrance, others are supposed to paint the walls. ZDF employee André Prohaska, who wants to interview the squatters, comes up with the idea of ​​doing the interview on the roof of the house. Since P. Immel is afraid of heights, he sends Kacki. Since Prohaska is Austrian himself, he recognizes the artists as compatriots based on certain expressions (“Halt your Pappn”, “Are you stupid”). Kacki, who is supposed to be hiding this fact in the interview, gossips, is overwhelmed by homesickness and has to be rescued from the roof by the roped P. Immel. The whole action is filmed and wrongly perceived by Prohaska as an art action.

The ArschArt Group plans to take over a former barber shop right next to Café Einfall and convert it into a pub. P. Immel claims to know someone with enough money to help them. However, he does not reveal to the others that this is HR.

Skin of the city

At the exhibition Skin of the City , HR, Karl Schmidt and ArschArt are assigned three spaces right next to each other by the curator Wiemer. Karl exhibits ten locked wooden boxes, which supposedly contain various works of art. Interested parties would have to buy the boxes locked and only then could they open them, but opening the box would also destroy the work of art as a whole. ArschArt want to play their own band Dr. Votz showing living pictures. HR is exhibiting a street tree under the title "My friend, the tree" that he previously illegally felled with his new chainsaw. There is an ax and a chainsaw in the trunk.

HR's lorry parked incorrectly in front of the exhibition building enabled the contact area officer to track down the tree thief, but Wiemer initially prevented him from entering the exhibition without a search warrant. However, HR, who apparently wants to provoke a scandal at the vernissage, gives him a ticket for the vernissage. HR has meanwhile sold the tree to Erwin for a receipt for 100 marks, which he did not receive at all. At the vernissage there is a scandal: The KOB wants to confiscate the tree, Erwin wants to defend his property and HR the integrity of his work of art. When HR starts the chainsaw, the KOB calls for reinforcements and the event is stormed with tear gas. HR and the ArschArt artists are arrested.

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