From the gallery space to the dance floor: exhibited and performed

I rarely end up in Köpenick. We actually wanted to go dancing, you suggested a Dyke* party. Instead, three of us and panting slightly, we fight our way to the fifth floor of the radio station to look at photos. A friend of ours is also exhibiting; it is the final exhibition of students from the Ostkreuz School.

We arrive almost too late, the exhibition closes at 11 p.m. The herringbone parquet floor creaks under my feet as I try to find the right pace to look at the many different works. In the crowd of good-looking young people we lose each other. I'm not worried, every now and then I see you, red and green in the sea of ​​black clothing. They stand in groups at the large windows and breathe in the night air and exhale cigarette smoke.

I stop in front of a picture. Salmon, frozen and sliced, waiting to be packaged. The picture looks so clinical, so accusatory, that I lose my appetite. I tear myself away and continue walking aimlessly. My eyes are drawn to the bare back of a man sitting on a bed in a hotel room. Warm light surrounds him, but the photo still seems somehow melancholic. I wish he would turn his head and look at me.

I find you again in front of a series of photos in black and white. The photographer deals with an ultra scene; Crowds of men strainingly hold up banners, their throat muscles frozen in their screams. Some of them wear wedding rings and ski masks, others are almost children. Your eyes wander along the photographs in fascination. I watch you take in the details and I can almost hear you thinking.

We meet one of your work colleagues who you complained about on the way to the exhibition. Now you're chatting about your favorite pictures and I have to stop myself from laughing. It's a bit dangerous to stay here. It's not just work colleagues who lie in wait, old acquaintances also cross our paths, with whom we promise to meet up soon at every chance meeting, only to immediately lose sight of this idea.

When we notice a classmate in the crowd, we flee. After all, we went to the exhibition to see something, not to be seen, we agree with each other. I secretly wonder if that's true. The exhibition is not secondary - the pictures are intensively looked at and discussed - but everyone is dressed up and subliminally waiting in tension for the afterparty. Something big is coming.

We are refused a drink at the bar, which is now closing, pointing out that another bar is still open. Out of annoyance, you steal a bread wreath from the counter. Faster than I or the bartender can see, the plastic bag has disappeared under your large leather jacket. You grin conspiratorially at us and disappear towards the dance floor to make up for missing the Dyke* party. I feel into my body and know that I can't take part much longer. Taking a deep breath, I prepare myself for this next challenge.

We order beer, Aperol Spritz and sugar-free, non-alcoholic lemonade and tap our feet to the fast beat of the music. The DJ chases us undeterred from track to track. Again and again we reach for your prey and shove bread between our teeth and wash it down with drinks. It's warm outside when we finally leave the radio station behind us. The moon shines with all its power in the cloudless sky. The inner, tired bastard wins, and because I'm sober, we drive back in the car.