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The Pigalle mosaic mural in Zurich (1950/51, removed in 2013, partly restored in 2014): Questions by Yadolah Dodge, answered by Alex Winiger, July 2022

Q: Do you know the origin of this particular art work and who was the artist?

A: In the end of the 1940s, Emil Bäggli, a successful wine commerciant and restaurant owner, decided to build a complex that included not only a hotel, but also a restaurant, a dance hall, a very modern cinema, a garage with a car elevator and a tiny bar, and all that in the middle of the hundred of years old center of Zurich. The restaurant of the francophile businessman became a french one, and the tiny bar was decorated from the beginning by this Montmartre scenery. The artist who created it, a graphic designer named Edwin Grosshardt but called Ferdinand by everyone, was a bon vivant very present at the card table of the Café Select and a regular of the Künstlermaskenball, the carnival of the artists in Zurich. Bäggli and Grosshardt both opposed the Zwinglian spirit, the artist, though, much less business-minded than his patron.

Q: What is the significance of this piece for Zurich history and are there any other art works similar to it here in Zurich?

A: The small Pigalle bar became quickly a harbour for the homosexuals, for its position in town between other meeting places and for its entrance in a small alleyway, the Elsässergasse, which allowed entering it without being seen by everyone. In the 1950s up to the 1970s, the homosexuals in Zurich underwent tedious persecution, and even more in the neighbouring countries, as I was told. I think that the scenery of the mosaics was an appropriate symbol of gayness and liberality for that place. On a more general level, it symbolized the clubbing, going to theater, moving in the streets.

Mosaics were not rare in Zurich at those times, some even formally similar to this one. But the set of subject was mostly narrow. In the schools you have fairy tales and animals, on the houses father mother child or the working on the countryside. A very harsh contrast formes Karl Hügins Walche decoration called «Der Staat», a very instructional tableau, which represents the social standard of the 1930s.

Q: You need to present yourself and mention your important article in this regard.

A: I knew this artwork already in the times I visited the art school. While doing art and thinking about it I was always particularly interested in its public aspects: how does an artwork interact with the public when it is made for the public. An artwork like this one, which was not created to be contemplated in an isolated place, but in a specific site where people drink and laugh, sing and discuss. One did not care especially about it, but it was always before one's eyes.

Then I realized that the place had been dismantled, and that the mosaic mural, at least the part of it that you see here, had been transferred in another place. I have seen this in other places with other, more famous works, if you think of Diego Riveras «Sunday afternoon»-painting created for an vivid and elegant restaurant near the Alameda Central in Mexico City and now placed in an awesome exhibition space. I must admit that I was slightly disappointed to rediscover the Pigalle mosaic as an ordinary isolated picture on the wall. The protagonists who saved it did their best and had in mind to place it in a narrow bar again, which could not be realized in the short time everything happened. But they not only saved the artwork, but they put it in a public space again, and this at their own expense. This is a merit. In my upcoming text I want to appreciate this, also comparing the case with others where such repositionings took years and millions.

Q: Finally, is there anything you wish to say about this art work that might be interesting?

One may say that this is only a restaurant decoration. This is true on one side. The problem is how you estimate a decorative artwork.

The Pigalle decoration has at least two counterparts in Zurich who served as backdrops for subcultural meetings. There is, on one side, the Metropol painting of Alois Carigiet of the 1930s. Carigiet was a stage designer like Grosshardt. The cave of the Metropol served as a speak-easy where artists stayed and drank after closing hours. The painting is full of jokes and poetry and was certainly not painted in a sobre state.

And then there is the leftover of the paintings in the Lindenhof shelter, where in the beginning of the 1970s the Bunker republic had its place. You see there policemen bullying longhaired hippies. The space is now part of a police museum.

These places had an identity shaping quality for the groups who used them. The decorations were part of a mirroring and self-assuring of the minority groups who used them.

Further information

Citation

Alex Winiger, «The Pigalle mosaic mural in Zurich (1950/51, removed in 2013, partly restored in 2014): Questions by Yadolah Dodge, answered by Alex Winiger, July 2022», on: https://www.mural.ch/index.php?kat_id=t&id2=76