We meet Werner Peters in the Kippenberger Suite of the Hotel Chelsea in Cologne, where he’s standing in front of a photo series by one of his best-known regular guests, artist Martin Kippenberger.
Hello, Mr Peters! You named this suite after Martin Kippenberger, who used to be a regular guest at your hotel.
Unfortunately, Martin never got to see the deconstructivist-style extension we added to the fifth floor of the hotel, where the Kippenberger Suite is the main focus of attention. He passed away several years earlier. The name of the suite is a tribute to a guest who loved the hotel and put it on the map and who was a friend of the hotel, not just a guest.
As well as being a regular at our hotel, Martin was a regular at our bar. At some point, I had become part of his inner circle. Whenever he had a vernissage, it was clear you had to go along. He just said “it’s compulsory attendance” and that was that.
Kippenberger and friends: Hotel Chelsea’s role as a hub for Cologne artists
You turned the Hotel Chelsea into an “artists’ hotel” at a time when the concept was still completely unknown in Germany. Kippenberger and the other Hetzler Boys (Albert & Markus Oehlen and Werner Büttner) were frequent guests, exchanging their works of art for board and lodging. How did that come about?
Back then, Kippenberg’s atelier was quite close and it wasn’t uncommon for him to drop by Café Central several times a day. During the 1986 World Cup, he turned up late one evening and told me he’d placed bets on Germany in the nearby bars and restaurants – and won. He suggested we bet on the next game too. If Germany won, he’d get a week’s board and lodging, everything included, at the Chelsea. If they lost, I’d get one of his drawings, worth 1,000 marks. What can I say? I lost and he moved in. He must have liked it though because he just stay put after that first week, paying his way with a picture from his own collection – a large painting by Walter Dahn called Schwimmer mit Leiter (“Swimmer with ladder”). As the years passed by, I bought lots more paintings from his collection.
You owned one of Kippenberger’s most famous works, his 1983 painting Sympathische Kommunistin (“Nice communist woman”), for a long time before donating it to Cologne’s Museum Ludwig in 2013. How did it feel to let go of this important piece by your friend?
There was a certain amount of pressure on me to sell, especially from collectors who kept asking. For me, the most important thing was to make sure the painting was in good hands. So I wanted it to go where I thought it belonged – to Cologne’s Museum Ludwig. Kippenberger was actually underrepresented there.
I’m definitely happy that the “communist” found a good home in Cologne in the end. One curator even called her “Cologne’s Mona Lisa”.
Let me tell you a little story about the picture. The young lady in it really existed – Kippenberger didn’t make her up. The work was inspired by a photo of a member of the Pioniere organisation in the GDR, which was taken by a magazine photographer for a big anniversary – 50 years of the Soviet Union or something like that. Kippenberger discovered the photo in a magazine sometime in the 1980s and based his portrait on it.
Do you know whether the lady ever found out she’d been immortalised in such a famous painting?
After the wall came down, she saw the painting published somewhere, recognised herself and contacted the gallery. She also attended a large exhibition, in Düsseldorf I think, at the invitation of an art magazine. I introduced myself as the owner of the picture and that led to us writing to each other. She lived in Greifswald, in former East Germany, at the time and I visited her there too.
Hotel Chelsea: a centre of creative discourse in 1980s Cologne
You were awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1972 on the basis of your thesis on the Greek military writer, Onasander. Does that make you a better hotelier?
Not at all. I never really wanted to open a hotel! I was looking for a suitable spot for a café and I liked this location on the corner of Jülicher Straße, Händelstraße and Lindenstraße. The hotel that used to be there had fallen into decline and my plan was to rent out the upper floors as office space to pay for the conversion work for the café. We’d just started the project and then the office market collapsed and the conversion ate up the capital I had. So I had to change my plans.
Between 1987 and 2014, you brought a number of critical thinkers to Cologne for your “Philosopy at the Central” events.
What I wanted to do was take philosophy to the people. In 1988, when Peter Sloterdijk was here, the air was stifling and the guests made a beeline for the bar during the break. The event went on until the early hours.
When Patti Smith came to stay with us, she really wanted to meet Gerhard Richter. She knew he didn’t really receive guests anymore but somehow we made it possible.
Werner Peters
Do you feel nostalgic when you think back to the 80s?
Yes, I do a little. But life goes on. And life at the Chelsea goes on too – with younger artists and creatives and perhaps our own small exhibition room again soon too.
Staying at the Hotel Chelsea in Cologne
The Chelsea is located at the junction of Jülicher Straße, Händelstraße and Lindenstraße, surrounded by trendy bars and galleries, in the heart of Cologne’s Belgian Quarter. Café Central on the ground floor is equally as legendary as the hotel itself. A particular highlight to look out for is the Kippenberger Suite, which extends across two floors and has a spectacular glazed staircase that juts out into the city’s skyline.
Hotel Chelsea / Jülicher Str. 1 / 50674 Cologne / +49 221 20 71 50 / www.hotel-chelsea.de
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