CURA.

Now located in the underground spaces of Basement Roma, as a device central to the Basement Art Assembly Biennial (BAAB) Issue 00, the original Times Bar was opened in 2011 by Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, from the Cooper Union University in New York, along with Lindsay Lawson, after their moving to Berlin. The bar was shut down in 2014.

The small venue quickly became a hub for the Berlin art community, a hangout for artists such as Simon Denny, Karl Holmqvist, Tiril Hasselknippe, Aleksandra Domanović, Sandra Mujinga, Marlie Mul, Vittorio Brodmann, Oliver Laric, among others.

“The bar’s Facebook page regularly featured ‘events,’ large and small, that aimed to transform the monotony of another night into the fantasy of a post-internet Studio 54. The formatting of these Facebook events demanded an end time, and 3 a.m. was often selected, but the truth was it was usually when the sun, or rather, the gray Berlin haze of morning found its way through the bar’s window. Or, more precisely, when the ecstasy wore off or the last euro was spent. Or when the night got so tiresome, everyone decided to call it. That is to say, there was no format. Invitations ranged from the installation or removal of artwork above the bar to birthday parties, karaoke, or DJ sets. Like the peanuts served in plastic cups, these evenings were part of ordinary bar life, nothing that wouldn’t normally happen over a beer, but the ‘event’ – amplified by the sounding board of the internet – transformed them into something else: every occasion became everyone’s birthday.” (Max Pitegoff and Calla Henkel, from the forthcoming Clubbing fanzine #05 by CURA.)

The Times Bar thus joins a long tradition of artists’ bars, venues that from the 1950s onward have been the beating heart of cultural and artistic life in many cities, starting with New York. In the 1950s, the Cedar Tavern brought together Abstract expressionists – Pollock, de Kooning, Mitchell – in furious discussions about art and life. In the early 1960s, Max’s Kansas City, founded by Mickey Ruskin, became the center of the avant-garde, attended by Warhol, Rauschenberg, and Janis Joplin. In the 1970s, the Spring Street Bar enlivened the SoHo scene, while the Five Spot offered painters the improvised liveliness of jazz. CBGB’s and the Mudd Club marked the rise of Punk and New Wave culture, where music, performance and visual arts merged. In TriBeCa, at Magoo’s, artists could even pay their tabs with their paintings. In the 1980s, Florent, in the Meatpacking District, brought together artists, drag queens, and nighttime intellectuals, while Max Fish, on the Lower East Side, renewed the art bar tradition for a younger, more experimental generation.

Today, Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff’s Times Bar is bringing back its original spirit with artworks, drinks, performances, talks, DJ sets, and impromptu events, transforming Basement Roma into a hybrid and experimental space. The Times Bar is reactivated in this new context, through the re-offering of some of the key elements from the original venue (counter, objects and furnishings, receipts, menus, stools, the vase of flowers), but above all of socializing as its main feature. The place where a large scene of artists used to meet every weekend is thus evoked to express a sense of community, of collectivity, of movement based on the sharing of time, experiences, imagination and living spaces.

The simple structure of the bar, characterized by the bare geometry of the white tiles, takes on at once the function of an installation device, an element for the articulation of the space, a backdrop, a performative scenario, catalyzing the energies and shared memories of a place in which the different conversational lines of the exhibition converge.

The Times Bar closes on November 29th, marking the final day of this first edition of the Basement Art Assembly Biennial (BAAB), Issue 00. The event will be enlivened by the coming and going of artists, talks, screenings, DJ sets, karaoke, drinks, and an all-day kitchen – culminating in a social dinner, where artists will be invited to participate in food preparation. Artists will also document the day through short footage of random moving images.

Featured Artists: Davide Balula, James Bantone, Cecilia Bengolea, Hannah Black, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Vittorio Brodmann, CCL, Car Culture, Claudia Comte, Jeremy Deller, Gina Fischli, Gina Folly, Calla Henkel / Max Pitegoff, Carsten Höller, Karl Holmqvist, David Horvitz, Than Hussein Clark, Mark Leckey, Lily McMenamy, Nyala Moon, Valentin Noujaïm, Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo), Selma Selman, Tobias Spichtig, Nora Turato, Women’s History Museum.

Public Program: Elisabetta Benassi*, Cecilia Bengolea, Matteo Binci, Lex Brown*, Matilde Cerruti Quara*, Alessandro Cicoria, CRC Reading Club (feat. Jazmina Figueroa, Paul Maheke, Sofia Gallarate, Vittoria Totale), DIS (feat. DIS, Kiernan Francis, Paul Gondry, Zhe Zhe), Anna Franceschini*,  Francesco Urbano Ragazzi*, Diego Gualandris, Dan Bodan directed by Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff*, David Horvitz*, Invernomuto, Martha Kirszenbaum, Lateral Roma (feat. Dina Mimi)*, Mark Leckey, Ilaria Mancia, Gordon Matta-Clark*, Eleonora Milani*, Nicola Pecoraro*, Francesca Pionati*, Gianni Politi, Michele Rizzo, SAGG Napoli*, Selma Selman, Lorenzo Silvestri*.
(*part of the program on November 29th)