A good bar is like a cave. Intimate but not uncomfortably cosy. Public but not anonymous. Inelegant banalities are to be discarded along with bad manners. First off. You may need them later. The hat, which a worthy bar guest does not refuse to wear, can remain on the head. The bar is a world of its own. That much should be clear right away. The outside will be about in Munich Schumanns with dark smoky wooden blinds fended off. In Berlin, pictures were simply glued to the panes. That really draws the eye. Only the very ignorant passers-by don’t want to see what’s going on at the Paris Bar.
It’s nice in this bar, which you don’t really believe would rather be in Paris. There is art here too en masse. The clever landlord, Michel Würthle, likes to be paid with pictures. If one of his top-class guests – top-class means artist – is not liquid, he quickly creates a work of art for the bar cave. Fortunately, such pecuniary ailments happen again and again. Accordingly, the bar room is lined with pictures from floor to ceiling. Petersburg hanging. One senses immediately that no chic art was bought here to impress the mostly not so chic customers. Mr. Würthle’s collection has a story, or rather: many stories. And what has history is often more elegant than something newly bought.
In the Paris Bar, however, not only great guests cavort who conjure up amazing art out of a hat. The host himself is an artist. He designed a fantasy world for his establishment. The address “152 rue Kant” shines at you from the house facade. For a moment you think you are in the French capital, but all the functional jackets quickly bring you back to reality. Berlin, also good.
Michel Würthle: Paris Bar Press Confidential. Steidl, Göttingen 2021. 6 volumes in a slipcase. 792 pages, 75 euros.
That the host is not Michael but Michel à la Michael Piccoli can be called is easier to classify. That’s how you do it in the old fashioned bar world. After all, in the Schumanns they don’t talk about Karl Georg, but are happy when Charles kisses your hand in greeting. As far as the good or at least the best of the bad tastes allow it, everyone likes to play a little theater here.
Bar life has not emerged unscathed from the pandemic years. Especially for the bar women and men, everyday life has gotten out of joint. Würthle used the unwelcome free time to draw and created a five-volume collection of impressions from his life and from the world of the Paris Bar. He says he was joking with it. It’s reassuring that a man of the world doesn’t lose his sense of humor even in times of pandemic desperation.
The bright red volumes published by Steidl-Verlag want to offer a replacement for all the lost bar nights. Luckily, no foreword or afterword was added to the whole thing. What is there to explain? If you don’t remember it from the pre-pandemic times, it will be difficult to make you understand what it means to find shelter in a bar in the current situation. Instead, the book covers succinctly announce what you will find between them: calligraphic menus, drawings with esprit, surprising collages, mischievous anecdotes, Hollywood-esque film stills. It is at the same time a journal, a diary and a Livre d’or, a book of guests.
This casual matter-of-factness leaves no room for criticism: Impressions from the bar and the life of landlord Michel Würthle.
(Photo: Michel Würthle/Steidl)
Above all, it is a picture book about a picture book bar. Depending on your level of expertise, you can more or less understand what is unfolding page by page. It is obvious that there is a lot to understand here that not everyone can and should understand. The cover says accordingly: “Confidential”. What happens in the Paris Bar stays in the Paris Bar, or at least in the red slipcase that protects the five volumes from prying eyes. This is how a closed society presents itself, flirting with the big wide world. God knows, flirting doesn’t mean being serious. That’s why Würthle’s wonderful doodles are ultimately a kind of family album.
Such an intimate picture potpourris can currently be found mainly on Instagram. What is collected in Würthle’s Corona diary is of course much nicer and more casual. You see James Bond-esque male and female bodies. Not only do they pose with native cosmopolitans in hand, but they also go sailing in the Cyclades or have a picnic in Tuscany. For a moment you ask yourself whether it’s not all too great and wonderful, whether something might be wrong. But the reader has to call reason. This casual self-evidence does not allow any criticism. You can give them to others another time.
In “times of crisis and menacingly rising fever curves with declining sales up to ruinous zero”, as the author describes the situation, nothing better can happen than to immerse oneself in such a sexy libertarian world. If you don’t let yourself be seized by the longing for the jet set and chain smoking, at least the innkeeper Würthle cannot help you.
The embassy? Maybe: “Wherever we are, the Paris Bar is with us!” In the course of the volumes or as the Corona crisis progresses, the journal loses shape. Dated menus hardly ever appear anymore, more and more is drawn from the pool of old photos and pictures. Naked intimacies encounter great works of art, encounter snapshots. With the landlord and his favorite guests you can read and look into a rush of images. That’s no bad consolation for times when the doors on Rue Kant have to remain closed.