Sometimes Fleetwood Mac and Prince were there at the same time. Mick Jagger hung around the edge of the dance floor, Udo Lindenberg showed up every day, Falco as well and the Munich celebrity in the form of Bernd Eichinger. Whitney Houston sang here for the first time in front of a European audience. Colleague Freddie Mercury and Queen or Rod Stewart, dressed in their best 1980s outfits, regularly checked out what was going on at the “P-One”. And those arrogant guys at the door: legendary dismissiveness. It is often said that at one point the “hardest door in the world” stood at Prinzregentenstraße 1, where the following dialogue is said to have developed: “You can’t come in here” – “But we are the Scorpions” – “Exactly because of that”.
Much has been written about the P1. The club has become an institution. It even has a Wikipedia entry that reads more serious than the events that sometimes took place inside, under and next to the Haus der Kunst: “The P1 is a discotheque in the Munich district of Altstadt-Lehel, which positioned itself as a classy and celebrity discotheque and gained notoriety.”
But now there is also a lot to see there. An opportunity for many people who were denied entry because they were wearing jeans that didn’t suit them, or because they were wearing rock band fringed leather jackets. So anyone who never had the chance to see what went on in the rooms that Michael Käfer received as a gift from his father Gerd Käfer for his 25th birthday in 1984 can now do so – even beautifully packaged as an art object.
“Archives in Residence. Glamour and History. 40 Years of P1” is the name of the exhibition in the Haus der Kunst, which opened on Friday evening. Until February of next year, celebrities can be seen there in wonderful black and white photos, but also in bright and colorful photos. You can marvel at photos of the notorious theme parties in the “Oanser”, and the journey through Munich’s most famous disco takes you from the move from the east to the west wing to the minimalist design of the Milan designer Matteo Thun, who redesigned the nightclub.
And because the whole thing is under the label of art, the exhibition curators Sabine Brantl and Lydia Antoniou also want to offer “immersive experiences”. This means that a magazine about the P1 will be published during the exhibition and expanded with contributions from visitors. They should then also bring along as many personal mementos from the P1 as possible, which will then be exhibited. The “most beautiful and exciting stories” from the P1 can also be written down and put in the note box at the entrance. It is, of course, golden.