Charade Rochade

For the past year, Berlin has witnessed a memorable shell game. Numerous pictures--around a hundred drawings, collages, and several paintings and photographs--were removed from the legendary artist hangout Paris Bar in Charlottenburg and shipped to the eastern part of the city, where they were displayed at the exhibition space haubrokshows on Strausberger Platz. Works by the artist Christopher Williams from the Haubrok Collection conversely graced Paris Bar's walls. The two men behind the action, Michel Wurthle, who runs Paris Bar, and the collector Axel Haubrok, called it "Rochade," otherwise the anme of the chess move also known as castling, and added the word "Charade," for the pantomimed word puzzle. The amusing venture is now rendered in impressive pictures in the book "Charade/Rochade": the walls of the collection's white cube space are crammed with pictures, while the bar's usually coza rooms appear oddly bare, with no more than the occasional photograph and a few works by Michel Wurthle (he is not only a restauranteur, but also an artist) and Christopher Williams. With essays by Bruno Brunnet, Otto Kelmer, and Haralampi G. Oroschakoff and an introduction by Axel Haubrok.