Kunsthaus Tacheles.

3-color print, 16X20. Printed on 100# French Paper cardstock as always.

A LOT of backstory on this one:

Tacheles was an artists’ squat in what used to be East Berlin. After the wall came down, countless buildings in the former DDR were suddenly empty and ownerless. Berliners quickly moved to occupy them and established homes, communities, and - in the case of Tacheles and other large buildings - free spaces for art, music, films, parties, etc., with all the good and bad that comes with lawless liminal spaces.

Tacheles was arguably the center of this squatting scene and persisted well into the 2010s before succumbing to the real estate engine churning through the city. The building had been emptied and fenced off by the time I took the photo printed here in black. (To be fair, it was barely habitable and almost laughably unsafe.) Tacheles has since been almost entirely torn down and replaced by a sprawling mixed-use development master-planned by Herzog & De Meuron. They kept the name. It is fairly beige. And so it goes.

The mural shown here was a landmark on Oranienburger Strasse, but is gone now.

How long *is* now? How long will this moment last? So much of our time is spent between other things. A deep breath before diving back below the surface. A glimpse of something different. And then the window shuts.

Some details:

The word “ruinen” - German for “ruins” - is repeated down the right side of this print and taken from the occupants’ motto, “The ideals are in ruin. Let us save the ruins.”

The blue image from a photo I took of the building’s facade. It says, “Tacheles artists love you.”

The black image is a photo I took from Oranienburger Strasse.

In pink, the redevelopment master plan by Herzog & De Meuron.