die ersten internationalen dadafestwochen Cabaret Voltaire 2002

The First International DadaFest Weeks, Zurich

The death of the Cabaret Voltaire 2nd of April  2002

End of December 2001, one of my friends from Zurich’s punk scene  told me about a empty house he had seen in the Niederdorf,the cities historical center.He described the object as a five stories high medieval structure, with a strange memorial plaque on its side entrance,which was dedicated to some sort of cabaret.The description of the house matched a very familiar object in Spiegelgasse. I took a stroll through the Niederdorf area and there it was: the birthplace of Dada actually stood abandoned. After a few inquiries, I found that the building was to be renovated and actual conversion plans had already been submitted. All permissions were obtained. A renowned auction house intended to move in after renovation. The owner of the property was the „Rentanstalt“ a swiss insurance company. I called up a meeting to discuss technical details and a cultural program for a weekend of some squatting action. I was amazed at how little the future art squatters knew about the importance of the Cabaret Voltaire, and it seemed essential to me to initiate a dada revival by occupying the building.On Saturday, the 2nd of February, 2002, we broke down the doors at No. 1 Spiegelgasse. We had devised a special plan for this action.Squating a object in the historical center of Zürich had never been done before,and it was a unwritten rule,that you could take whatever building on the outskirts of town,but never would the police allow you to occupy a house in Zurich’s tourist center. So we decided to dress up:the male activists wore suits and ties, girls were dressed up as catering ladies and served snacks to bewildered passersby accompanied by classical music. We told anyone who would listen that we had inherited the house from a distant aunt,  and were now holding a modest party in celebration of the dear deceased lady.. It was not long before the police caught on. Officers came rushing to the spot only to find nothing they could object to. After they had munched the sandwiches the girls had given them,also they congratulated us on our inheritance.Meanwhile we were barricading the building from inside,to make sure that no police could kick us out at short notice.

The very next day I started to spread the rumor that the cabaret voltaire was to be converted into a pharmacy.This little lie proved to be very efficient in gaining support from the Zurich’s intellectuals,as the same fate had befallen a few historical landmarks-half of the famous Odeon cafe,a place where exiles such as Lenin and Thomas Mann had convened,had been made into a pharmacy years ago.Convieniantly the owner of the Cabaret didn’t do anything to counter this fairy tale,as the deal between them and the future tenant from the art world hadn’t been finalized yet and neither of them were interested in any publicity for their project.Very soon the local newspapers took up the story with the pharmacy , and our little happening in the center of Zurich received a lot of media attention.

All major German columnists, mocked Zurich’s ignorant cultural philistines, who were unable to recognize the potential of Dada as a cultural location factor. Under the presence of an ever growing public interest, the activist collective organized regular events, focused on creating Merz-style collages in music, creative speech, open stage, as well as concert and theater performances on weekends, thus able to collect donations at the door in order to finance the living and travel expenses incurred by participants.We occupied the top floors of the medieval house-the bottom part was open to the public more or less 24 hours a day.While transforming the top part into visual „”Gesamtkunstwerk”“,or inhabited sculpture-we opened up 4 different stages within the basement and first floor.Each Saturday evening at midnight Pastor Leumund,a friend and dada activist from Berlin,celebrated his legendary dadamass.We all joined in his parody of a catholic mass, sung songs together,prayed for nothing,and made nonsense our con-sense. The venue started to get very popular,and the more our audience grew,the more angry our next door neighbors were getting with us.Our neighbors lived in large fancy apartments,and had spent millions in acquiring their property in a safe and gentryfied area,and were in no mood to take any disturbances from low life riff raff such as us.In fact they had spent a considerable resources in kicking out the former long term tenant,who was operating a discotheque in the cabaret.But the noise wound not stop yet,and to their horror the resurrected Cabaret Voltaire triggered a brief Dada boom. There were nightlong Dada features on the radio and daily reports in the Zurich press.  Pressure on the city to preserve this location of international charisma as a cultural institution grew stronger, and the director of the Zurich cultural department, came to the fore, got in contact with the Insurance Company and declared his solidarity with the Cabaret Voltaire activists, assuring them that no pickax or shovel would go near the house,until a decision about the future of house was made.

We composed a manifesto and organized a press conference at which we demanded the preservation of the historic Cabaret Voltaire as a living memorial to the Dada movement. At this press conference we appeared for the first time as “Fondation pour l’humanite Croesus,” a foundation committed to staging annual Dada festival weeks, as well as the squandering of idle resources through the defenestration of capital..To prove our serious intentions of becoming a cultural institution we decide that the best way showing  to the public that we are also capable of handling tax money in the same way as real government institutions with a allegorical performance.This was to be our  first capital defenestration,we threw  1,000 francs in 1-franc coins from the upper windows of the Cabaret Voltaire into the street. We threatened the city that on the day of the eviction, the Croesus Foundation would throw one million swiss francs out of the window. Every franc we would collect in the cabaret would be thrown back at them!

We enjoyed a beautiful two months in Spiegelgasse,but by the middle of mach we knew that we would have to move out by the end of the month—we decided that it would be okay to leave but not before putting up a brave fight.We called up all our activists to form the Croesus militia .We spent a evening crafting cardboard weapons.and on the next day,armed with an arsenal of cardboard halberds, crossbows, cannons and tanks we tried to assault the Zurich city police headquarters.As no one dared to come out of the building we declared that we had won this skirmish. As the victorious Croesus Militia returned home from battle they could hardly believe their eyes: a large crowd had gathered in front of the Cabaret Voltaire. They’d been waiting there for hours for the announced final capital defenestration of one million swiss francs.By this time the  Croesus Foundation had made a profit of 5000.- sFr., mainly on selling alcohol and drugs,so we decided to throw this amount out of the window-but in order to pacify the high expectations of the masses we also started to chuck personal funds, counterfeit money, used underpants and bucket loads of water  from the windows.Unfortunately, the Croesus Militia was unable to defend the Cabaret Voltaire against an invading police force on the morning of the 2nd of April, and so, once again, officers were treated to a glass of sparkling wine, before we abandoned the building peacefully. The policemen, who in the meantime apparently became somewhat familiar with the subject, surprised the disinherited artists with enigmatic comments such as “art means change,” while beefy construction workers immediately commenced making mincemeat of our equipment, installations and artworks. Afterward, the displaced Dada population set up camp with an open living room in front of the adjacent bookstore, and were provided with food and drink by other city residents for 48 hours. The great international interest in the subject was a matter of national disgrace for the city of Zurich, and finally a decision was reached to preserve the building as a memorial.

A private sponsor was found behind closed doors, prepared to shell out the monstrous annual rent of 400,000 francs to the Rentenanstalt . We were assured of our involvement. Upon that we developed an action plan for a self-governing Dada cultural center, but two years later, when the Cabaret Voltaire reopened its doors, we were not invited. Instead the city of Zurich appointed a former manager of a popular disco to be the curator of Cabaret Voltaire. Scholars with university degrees in Dadaism, who were involved in the decision-making, justifying our exclusion, by claiming that our strategy during the occupation had proven overly retro-Dadaist.Later on the disco owner was mobbed from his position by his assistant,and since 2006 the cabaret voltaire is occupied by a pub,a souvenir shop,and small gallery.The gallery is run by up and coming dada curator Adrain Notz and he  tries hard to keep up with the international art world by hosting shows by the chapman brothers and other famous international artists. Unfortunately the gallery was no match for the global players,and after a few years the city reduced the funding from one million a meagre 400 000.- sFr. a year . The final death blow for the cabaret voltaire came in 2016,when the celebration of the centennial of dada was used by Zürich Tourism to promote the city as a artsy tourist destination.Since 2005,when the cabaret was officially reopened by the city and the swatch group,it was foreseeable that things would turn out this way.In retrospect one of the projects we proposed that year should have been pursued more seriously was „the society for the fulfillment of dada“.The aim of this society was to literally fill up the cabaret voltaire with concrete, and by this creating a fitting allegorical monument showing the world how Zürich deals with its uncomfortable dada past and its living art activists .

This text was published in revista canibaal nr. 9,Valencia,2017, https://www.canibaal.es/producto/revista-canibaal-no9/

BUILDING TYPE
Medieval tenement building, empty former disco and bar

SIZE
600 m²

PROMOTION
None

INFRASTRUCTURE
Bar, disco cellar, stage, cinema, tea room, inhabited sculpture, kitchen, ateliers und guest rooms

EVENTS
Free services: Workshops, paramilitary exercises. Window distributions, dadaist actions in public space

CONCEPT AND ORGANISATION
Pastor Leumund, Mark Divo, Bitnik, Derek al Ramsi, Stini Arn, Elektra Sturmschnell, Etrit Hasler, Anika Pätzold, Petra Wild, DJ Gürü, Danu

GRAPHIC DESIGN
Tika 

Artists:

beteiligte Künstler 1. Dada-Festwochen im Cabaret Voltaire 2002

Mark Divo, Pastor Leumund, Stini Arn, ACSA, Zaccheo Zilioli, Pascal Häusermann, Silvan Leuthold, Derek Al Ramsy, Gau Miau, Elektra Sturmschnell, Xeno Volcano, Kampfgiraffe, Subscience, bang goes, Styro 2000, Mickry 3, Andres Lutz, Kathriona Guggenbühl, Hot Synchopators, Biopop, Thomas Lehmann, Veronica Wenzel, Gianni von Albertini, Knarf Rellöm, F.S. Blumm, DJ Patex, Boni Koller, Opus no media, Radical Candysnacks, Vladivostok, Gürü, Etrit Hasler, Zugluft, Boris von der Burg, Ariel Zumstein, Orange Drive, Martin Senn, Companie Gloria Rigole, Dani Göldin, L-Deep, PVP, Johanna Lier, Team Winterthur, Pierce, Labrium, Fluxus Zug, The King Anabels, Waldorf, Wolf-Biermann-Explosion, Lennie Lee, Dan Jones, Mirzlekid, Aki Müller, Die Fickenden Turnschuhe, Anika Paetzold, Fake Masters, Pebert und Fieling, Joke, Prinzessin in Not, Evita, Edy Baur, Trix Meier, Sandra Kuenzi, Schönwetterkru, Selina Trepp, La Bombe, Jurczok, QueRico, Ajana Calugar, Grrr, Medooza, Kehrwoche, Franziska Koch, Moni Schori, Interpixel, Stuttgarter Dadaisten, Novilon, Miroz, Svenja Plaas, Enrique, P`nut, Cocorico, Nanatakker, Petra Wild, Philip Anz, Aster O.H., Monoblock B, Akkordeonorchester Bellevue, Herr Blum, Pirom, Twitch, Suzanne Zahnd, La Gorda, Supermario, Babyshake, Anja Kleidt, Kerl Zumstein, Olga Mazurkiewicz, Catcha, Lou Lou, Dakini & Leo, Mario & Valentimo Marchisella, Serena, Olifr M.GUZ, Hannes Hug, Dänu Böhmle, Niklaus Ruegg,Ursina Klemenz, Thala Linder,Sue Ellen, Bermuda Idiots, Dominik Locher

 Aki Muller:

program:

FLYERS:

PRESS ARTICLES:

Concept: