Direct marketing in galleries and bars: Berlin shelf tsar Rafael Horzon wants to become super senator

Friday evening was once again all about the great prankster, conman and impresario Rafael Horzon. In Berlin there is no way around it, which is evident from the fact that I always have at least three identical invitation emails in my inbox.

The well-known shelf tsar and polymath and his science academy have previously sent out self-confident cooperation offers to Humboldt University, FU and TU. Now he wants to become super senator for economics, culture, design and standardization in the Eralp cabinet. Maybe not the worst idea given the general state of Berlin and also considering what designer Peter Saville achieved in his time as Manchester's art director. In reality, it is probably about funding amounting to 700,000 euros for his “German Design Museum” on Uhlandstrasse, a stylishly converted former arcade, which was previously run on a private initiative.

The current show cleverly combines the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus - represented by numerous pieces from the collection of the Bauhaus furniture gallery owner Ulrich Fiedler - with an overall show of the “Redesign Germany” project initiated by Horzon on Torstrasse 25 years ago. He took it from there.

I still remember the opening exhibition on Torstrasse, where design hipsters and architects radically standardized time, language, housing and life in a Jacobin furor - I wrote “Bauhaus at Speed” back then. Artist Ingo Niermann, who does not appear here, developed the German language. Photographer Sebastian Mayer shows his series of 100 standard portraits, in which, along with many acquaintances, my 25 years younger self also appears, blown up.

I meet Sebastian, who has just fallen off the train from Zurich. He looks a bit disheveled and worn out, which could be due to the long train journey. But I still consider him a great artist. When the place starts to burst and the gin is gone, we go over to the Paris Bar, which is also bursting with a Friday evening crowd, where the six of us get a table for four.

Despite all the prophecies of doom and despite the many inflatable boat lips, it's always nice here. The bistro food is better again and not expensive (fish soup for 12.50 euros), the fries are the best in town. Heinz ketchup is served with it. I place a display copy of “Cooking with Ketchup” at the counter because that’s where it belongs.

On Saturday mornings I get annoyed by “classical, pop, etc.” on Deutschlandfunk, where celebrities are allowed to tell their biographies using pieces of music for an hour. Some “canoe legend” plays the worst of the pipe and classical radio. What kind of obsession does the editorial team have with female athletes from East Germany, from whom you really can't expect an interesting taste in music? And when will I finally be invited?

In the afternoon back in the West, the MÄRZ-Gesellschaft, a small-fine-eccentric salon format curated by publisher Barbara Calendar, has invited people to Alt-Lietzow. On the way there in the Matthäikirche there was a quick preview of the annual charity auction for refugee aid, beautiful pieces at low starting prices from friends Marlon Wobst, Annika Hippler, Käthe Kruse and, and, and. Preliminary bids placed.

In the bookseller's cellar, the musician and gender researcher Julie Miess, who I have known since my Flittchenbar days, presents her autofictional novel project about werewolves. It's impressive how she combines her horror film knowledge with the family history that goes back to Transylvania, her furrier ancestors and the Nazi organization of the same name.

As a publisher, I would pounce and bite. The whole family then goes on to Wilhelm Hoeck, where I am amazed at Rotkohlente that Peter Sloterdijk is also hanging on the autograph wall between Andrea Berg and Heidi Kabel. Someone falls out of a chair and is picked up by an ambulance. This is how the inn has to be. Maybe I'll have to move to Charlottenburg at some point.