You and Iggy traveled a lot together, right? I read that the two of you went to Haiti and Kenya and you lived in different cities together. The whole travel thing was a huge experience for him. It makes a difference, if you grow up in the Midwest, or if you grow up in New York, or London. He wasn’t exactly a sophisticated European. He was an American from Ypsilanti, Michigan. Then he got his own place and he was so proud. When I met him, he was living with David. For example, our apartment in the “Hauptstraße” was Jim’s first. Not just accepting the corner, but going around the corner and discovering new things. That’s the thing about Jim, Iggy, I think he always knew how to go that step further. We were always kind of curious to see what was around the corner. In what sense? And was Berlin a trigger for your restlessness?Ĭurious is a better word. You’ve described yourself and Iggy as “restless” when you were together. I mean, The Idiot is very Berlin and so is Low. Though I’m sure that Berlin was also part of the input. They weren’t here for a very long time, but the reason why it still stays with everyone, even today, is because they just did good work here. It was a real outburst that they had here. So they were inspired to create their own Berlin diaries.īerlin was basically New York and still, despite everything, it was so Europe. Also, I think they wanted to come here because they read a lot of Christopher Isherwood. Why did West Berlin work so well for all of you?īerlin had this kind of flair and I think that’s one of the reasons why Iggy and David were drawn to the city. To be in this confined island with Russia and Poland on one side and then West Germany on the other. What’s going to happen? We’re going to be stuck in no-man’s-land.” It was surreal. Then everything lit up again and you’d think: “My God, if the train gets stuck here. So, you would be sitting in the subway and all of a sudden everything would be dark and barricaded because you were driving through East Berlin. We’d say: “We’ll meet at the TV Tower.” The U-Bahn, also the S-Bahn, they went through the East. David had a British passport, so he had to go through the British sector. Depending on your passport, everyone had a different way to get in. And you had to get a visa and a permit and everything. You didn’t really, unless you had family or a reason, go further than East Berlin. ![]() Once the city opened, you realized how vast the East was. We always thought we had the better side. ![]() I never realized back then that we were living on the shittier side. What was your experience with East Berlin? Did you guys visit it often? You’d run into people all the time, whereas today everybody is dispersed. There were the three restaurants that everyone loved to go to: Paris Bar, Exil, Einstein. They were all kind of starting out, getting their wings. People like Wim Wenders and Kippenberger. When I was living here in the 70s, there was a very creative crowd here. But in Kreuzberg and Schöneberg, you could get really huge flats compared to other places in the world. I lived in a lot of different places in Berlin, but the most expensive part of town was Charlottenburg. I had a huge loft for very little money on Dresdener Straße in Kreuzberg, before I moved away. You had a lot of draft-dodgers here and it was cheap. West Berlin was open to a certain extent, but also very naïve and young. I don’t think that they had had that much confrontation with people from other countries, or different backgrounds, or with artists in general. Celebrities felt anonymous in West Berlin for some reason. Not just as an island in Germany but globally speaking. People often describe West Berlin as an island. If people recognized him, they didn’t stalk him or bother him. Even David (Bowie), who was very famous by then, could run or bike around Berlin untroubled. I had never even heard of him, when I met him. Only insiders knew him, because he was formally with the Stooges. At the time we could go anywhere, because Iggy (Pop) wasn’t that famous. But maybe just because I had a camera and I was photographing this guy in a leather jacket. ![]() What was that dynamic in the city really like? Did you guys stand out?Įsther Friedman: I think in that moment we did stand out. The woman seems shocked at the sight of Iggy. Yet one of the pictures that struck me in your exhibition shows Iggy Pop casually standing on the street while a couple walks behind him. Eva Kelley: We have the impression today that the Berlin of the late 1970s was extremely open and accepting.
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