Houses of the Young Romantics & Art of the Artist Club

HOUSES OF THE YOUNG ROMANTICS & ART OF THE ARTIST CLUB THE YOUNG SAVING CULTURE FROM THEIR ELDERS 1881-1981: Paris, Vienna, Düsseldorf and London DECEMBER 2020 CATHERINE SULEIMAN | ARCHITECTURE DISSERTATION University of Edinburgh Introduction I The Artistic Needs of an Ideal Public ........... 7 II Architecture of the Artist Club ...................10 III Spirit of the Artist Club ..............................16 IV The Artist Club as an Artist’s Resource ..... 20 V Beyond the Sanctum Sanctorum ............... 24 VI Preciousness of the Gesamtkunstwerk ...... 30 VII Conclusions: A Nostalgia for the Future .... 34 Notes Bibliography Thanks Introduction This study will shuttle between four of the most This study will use the term ‘ideal public’ to describe artistically prolific European cities of their age, the particular audience that these artist clubs and between a myriad of art disciplines in order to aspired to meet the needs of. This collective, in the illuminate the salient and interconnecting design words of Gustav Klimt, was a ‘Kunstlerschaft – the principles of four of Europe’s most dynamic and ideal community of those who create and those artistically productive architectural spaces: Le who enjoy’. Similarly, Arnold Hauser, referring to Chat Noir in Paris (1881-97), Cabaret Fledermaus Paris from 1881-97, described the ideal public as ‘a in Vienna (1907-1913), Creamcheese in Düsseldorf public entirely made up of real or potential artists, (1968-76) and Club for Heroes in London (1978- of artistic natures for whom reality is merely the 1981). Naturally this is a subject of such wealth and substratum of aesthetic experience’. diversity that the creation and cultural significance of each artist club could be looked at as a subject on Nonetheless, in aiming to meet the needs of their its own. However, the nuanced but distinct design ideal public, all four of these artist clubs stimulated principles that the architects of these artist clubs the production of art so sensorially evocative that adhered to in various, but often very similar ways, they each soared beyond the realms of the sanctum in the curation of spaces that were conducive to the sanctorum and out into the global stratosphere. development of modern art, deserves its own inves- While the conclusions arrived at in the course of tigation. In view of bringing to life a new appreci- this study derive from an intensive critical study of ation of the dialectics between the artistic creation these clubs, in order to prevent the hampering of of spaces, and the epochal artistic movements these the central argument – that the design and mani- spaces had the potential to engender, this study festation of artist clubs are a work of art in and of aims to further understand the art of the artist club – themselves – often important contextual consid- architecture that functioned to quench the unremit- erations, have had to be omitted. To address this, ting, artistic needs of an ‘ideal public’. the notes and bibliography suggest further books and sources that will enrich the reader’s broader cultural and historical understanding of the tempes- ‘THE IDEAL tuous cultural landscapes from which these artist clubs sprang. COMMUNITY OF THOSE WHO CREATE AND THOSE WHO ENJOY’ [ CHAPTER I ] 7 To explore this idea further, it is helpful to consider the way in which Egan, along with co-founder, Steve I Strange, set about bringing together and uniting this fragmented community. With a strong vision of The artistic needs of an ideal public the people they wanted (and did not want) at Club for Heroes, their method of promoting the club night, at its conception, deserves some attention. As The central thread that ties all four artist clubs Egan recalls: together was the desire of their founders to unite a fragmented artistic community along artistically I found a printer up the street and found a picture progressive lines. These were sensitive individuals, of David Bowie with his head in his hands from the acutely aware of new and powerful sensibilities ‘Heroes’ session, obviously in confusion. And I wrote fermenting in the midst of society alongside a keen ‘Fame, Fame, Fame, What’s Your Name? A Club for acknowledgement, if not distress, that there was no Heroes. Tuesday Nights’. I didn’t put an address place for those, embodying currents of the new zeit- because we didn’t want anyone to know where it geist, “to congregate, strengthen and grow”. was. We wanted to personally invite you. We went to Smile, the hairdressers. I said to Keith, ‘Can you Take for example, Rusty Egan, who in 1978, at the give these to some cool people? You know who they “FAME, FAME, FAME, age of twenty-one, co-founded Club for Heroes. are.’ We went to the Paul Howie shop, we went to PX. This club night, that took place at Billy’s, near We went to all of our friends’ shops and said, ‘Look, WHAT’S YOUR NAME?” Baker Street in London, before moving to the we’re having a party. It’s 50p to get in.’ Blitz in Covent Garden, brought together a rela- tively small group of around 100-150 art-students, Egan and Strange had an acute sense of who they shop assistants and unemployed ‘poseurs’ in a wanted to bring together and a constructive vision uniquely aesthetic environment. ‘In a room that of how to manufacture both mystique and intrigue tried to imagine the past’ with music that ‘seemed around Club for Heroes’ inaugural night so as to be to emanate from somewhere in the future’, Club sure of luring in “guests who [were] sympathetic”. for Heroes was a feat in its ability to inspire such a In this gifted partnership between Egan and Strange magnitude of creative production among its audi- their determination to galvanise in one space, people ence. This plethora of music, space, design, fashion, with a shared sensibility, created a new collective photography and journalism would, very rapidly, approach to the communication of artistic ideas. transcend from ‘the margins of underground culture Sharing the same attitude and passions, many of the in Britain to the global mainstream’. According to habitués of Club for Heroes were already familiar to Egan, what drove his desire to start his own club one another. One central protagonist, Fiona Dealey, night was a realisation that “there were others recalls her surprise at “suddenly” finding, at Billy’s, like me, bored with punk and with nowhere to go”, “all these people [she] knew from clubs… from the which thereby suggests, that Club for Heroes was Lacy Lady, the Goldmine”. Another central protag- born out of his sense ‘that something was breaking onist, Steve Dagger, extends this point explaining down and something new was being born’. What how, upon his first entry into Billy’s, he recognised was missing however, was a space in which this new, “two thirds of the room… from various different embryonic zeitgeist could realise itself. clubs, parties and art-school events”. Fig 1. Drawing, Catherine Suleiman, C. Lord Frederic Leighton’s Fatidica, 2018. 8 9 his own artistic appetite however, he was resolute it was Salis’ artistic sensibilities which drove the in the idea that his café would gather ‘artists and conception of Le Chat Noir with its commercial their closest friends’ and become the ‘centre of their success being ‘at best a secondary consideration’. activities’. Le Chat Noir was to serve the contempo- If we consider how commercially lucrative both Le rary artistic community in Paris by being the space Chat Noir and Club for Heroes would soon become, in which young artists, writers, composers and it is important to note that for both Salis and Egan musicians would convene habitually to ‘converse, the money they derived, from either entry into the exchange ideas, read and perform their works for artist club or drink sales, served a purely self-sus- one another’. taining purpose. In the case of Club for Heroes, in particular, Egan relocated to the Blitz Club in order In our understanding of what sets these four artist to sustain the affordability of Club for Heroes for its clubs apart from the pre-existing social spaces young creative community: frequented by either established or embryonic artistic communities, we must observe from Le Once we were a success Vince wanted to double the Chat Noir two important factors. Firstly that, at its price of drinks and admission… but it really was not origin, Le Chat Noir maintained ‘a certain elitist about the money, so we went to Brendan at the Blitz character’ and did not actively seek out the general and we kept entry to a pound. public. While its door policy may not have been as strict as Club for Heroes, as will become more While considerably different in terms of spatiality, apparent later on, Le Chat Noir existed primarily for programme of entertainment and atmosphere, we the ‘artistic, literary and musical habitués’. Salis had should note the principal design intent of all four We can remark upon a similar situation in fin-de- This therefore provokes the question why, if there aspired to the profession of an artist since a young artist clubs – the founders wanted to create a space siècle Vienna where new artist circles, comprising were already various spaces in which like-minded man however, a series of unfortunate events had in which a nascent artistic community ‘felt free to of art-students, artists, writers and thinkers, chal- individuals were presently connecting with one brought Salis to ‘abandon’ this dream. Nonetheless, realise themselves’. lenging the rigid and unchanging conventions another, such as at art school events, at various of society, were already forming and fermenting other club nights or coffee houses, what needs did ‘outside the stuffy atmosphere of the Academy’, in these spaces not fulfil or rather, what were the Vienna’s all-important coffee-houses: founders of Le Chat Noir, Cabaret Fledermaus, Creamcheese and Club for Heroes aiming to achieve In the period around 1900 the Viennese coffee- that was different, in the manifestation of their own house was not just the hub of social life but the alternative spaces? undisputed centre of cultural activity.

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