Kulturkenner

Tata Ronkholz, Düsseldorf (Bilk), Martinstraße 35, 10/1978

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Locations and dates

The drinking hall, also known as Büdchen or - with an expanded offer - SchelliImbiss, belonged to the Federal Republic like the VW Beetle. A retrospective in pictures by Tata Ronkholz.

Cigarettes, drinks and spirits, ice cream and sweets, newspapers and colorful leaflets. This is on offer and is displayed loudly, colorfully, and in large letters. Often there is also a chewing gum machine.

Tata Ronkholz

The drinking hall, also called Büdchen and available in variation as a fast food place with fries, hamburgers, and sausages, is as much a part of the early and middle Federal Republic as the VW Beetle and the HB figure. Each one is different, they all resemble each other.

Tata Ronkholz

The first drinking halls emerged in the mid-19th century and were located in front of mines and steelworks – open to miners and workers. They are scenes like from a novel by Ralf Rothmann or from an episode of Schimanski: "Tatort" Duisburg. Trude Herr or Tana Schanzara would immediately come to mind as visitors of the booth. Consumption from yesterday. It's hard to imagine that – unlike in shops or supermarkets – a credit card would be pulled out. "Here, payment is made with small change. Drinking halls are not a safe bank," writes Andreas Rossmann in his accompanying essay "Village Square of the Metropolis," which concludes the picture book with photographs by Tata Ronkholz.

Most of the time, the drinking hall – with a display window and not always with an entrance door – is wedged into a row of houses or in the corner of a house and borders tightly on the edge of the street; less often, it stands free and confidently independently in the square, even getting lost in urban no man's land and is on the move as a mobile cart.

Foto: Tata Ronkholz

Rarely does it spread in the parterre of a dignified burgher house. Sometimes it borders seamlessly on adjacent advertising billboards. Or it fills a gap between two houses, as if it itself were the tooth of time.

Foto: Tata Ronkholz

The fuller the display, the more little stalls. Space is tight. Also inside. The assortment is piled up, lining up closely and high on the shelves. Here the PR strategy does not apply that too much abundance suggests one does not have to hurry with the purchase, as there is enough available.

Foto: Tata Ronkholz

Anyone who goes to the drinking hall needs something: beer, a schnapps, something to smoke, maybe a conversation. Or what the housewife forgot and sends the children for, who are also allowed to get drops, licorice, or marshmallow for a few cents.

Foto: Tata Ronkholz

No customers and no sellers

At first glance, something is missing in the photographic views of Tata Ronkholz – just like in the serial depictions of the industrial architecture of her teacher couple Bernd and Hilla Becher: people. We see no customers and no sellers, no passersby or corner dwellers. Cars also rarely push into the picture.

Tata Ronkholz

Nothing distracts from the object, even if it does not experience any sculptural elevation with her. She photographs with a large format camera, size 13 x 18, "from eye level with daylight," as Ronkholz describes it.

Tata Ronkholz

The photographer, born in Krefeld in 1940 and who died young in 1997, who before her studies at the Düsseldorf Art Academy designed furniture as a fellow student of Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Struth, has looked around: especially in Düsseldorf and Cologne and in the cities of the Ruhr area.

Tata Ronkholz

The approximately 100 photographs in this beautiful volume were taken between 1977 and 1984, when the facades and often also the displays had already seen their best days. Aside from a handful of shots, they are black-and-white photographs. This is only fully realized in comparison to the colored motifs, as the latter seems to be the (artistic) norm.

Andreas Rossmann's essay quotes as a motto a sentence by Heinrich Böll from 1972, which refers to what can be bought in the kiosk as "all the trivialities that remind of childhood." Tata Ronkholz wanted to "show the booth in all its loveliness," even in its small-scale modesty. He wanted to capture the everyday, including the resistant, which stands in contrast to the flawless smoothness, speed, and routine of the modern city.

Tata Ronkholz, drinking halls, photographs, publisher of the bookstore Walther König, Cologne 2025, hardcover, German / English, 192 pages, 49.80 Euro.

At the same time, the Photographic Collection/SK Foundation Culture in collaboration with VAN HAM Art Estate and the City Museum Düsseldorf presents: Tata Ronkholz – Designed World. A Retrospective. In addition to the drinking halls & kiosks, another series of works is dedicated to industrial gates, taken between 1977 and 1985. The black-and-white images of the gates allow glimpses into the interior of the commercial areas through grids and frameworks and appear almost abstract due to their graphic structure.

March 14 to July 13, 2025 (a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://rausgegangen.de/events/eroffnung-tata-ronkholz-gestaltete-welt-eine-retrospektive-0/">Opening: March 13, 7:00 PM)

Text

Andreas Wilink

Tata Ronkholz

Tata Ronkholz photographs drinking halls

Tata Ronkholz photographs drinking halls

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