B1|A40 THE BEAUTY OF THE GRAND ROAD

trial-looking buildings or to the production
conditions of the bee colony described on a
billboard is of little consequence to the bees,
whose “economic commodities” are still eminently
marketable in Germany’s first – and still
prospering – “shopping city” located in the no
longer green belt. The information that one of
their current areas of settlement and production
is for once located near the almost proverbial
gridlock sections of the “beautiful” road
might for a moment confuse the customers.
Yet it could be argued that even in the midst
of unregulated and creative nature, this particular
highly intelligent “travelling people” is
demonstrating the superiority of its own individual
model of value creation and exploitation
of resources over those of regulated society.
Those who are repulsed, after partaking of
this special offer or any of the conventional
merchandise offered by such shopping malls,
by the prospect of having to face the gridlock
on the A40 or the crowding in the underground
trains may find an alternative in Andreas Wegner’s
Paketdienst Esso 36 (Esso 36 Parcel Service)
(2010), offering a comfortable and ecologically
viable journey in a horse-drawn carriage.
In former times the mail coach used to be a
handy means for acquiring riches for some intelligent
members of the aspiring bourgeoisie;
the traditional “travelling people”, also called
vagabonds, would have deemed such rides in a
horse-drawn carriage a nonpareil luxury until
the late 19th century.
The journey could for example lead to the
nearest inn whose staff, in former times,
would have been quick to serve the coachmen
and their customers, if also their readiness to
bring viands outside for the others was probably
merely driven by the desire to get rid
of these thieving vagabonds again as quickly
as possible. Seen from this perspective, the
project of the grand road has been offering,
in both of its stages, a range of refreshments,
simultaneously pleasurable and physically and
mentally invigorating, ranging from picnics
and leisure activities to booze cruises, both to
well-informed guests and accidental passersby.
Wherever the tired traveler arrives, he will
find hospitality, whether at Atelier van Lieshout’s
Motel Bochum, Delikatfisch Braun, the
fish farm located close to the famous spaghetti
junction at Duisburg-Kaiserberg in a veritable
self-made paradise, or Jeanne van Heeswijk’s
Gallic table at Duisburg-Werthacker.
Where Der Widerstand des kleinen Glücks (The
Resistance of Small Happiness) put up by the
new settlers is defending the last remaining
open spaces in an economic metropolis,
its highly symbolic setting in a combination of
autonomous sculpture to functional furniture
also serves in 2014 as a hospitable meetingpoint
for the big spaghetti dinner – a tonguein-cheek
reference to the aforementioned
labyrinth of intertwining roads. The “Outside
Inn”?! Once the boundaries get blurred, the
hour of the showmen, anarchists and other
service providers has come.
The wheels which were set in motion in 2010
are gathering pace in 2014. Possibly the discrepancy
between the fear of strangers and the
curiosity about what they are contributing to
contemporary urban society has become more
marked over that period and accordingly subconsciously
influences the perception – also
that of the author of this text – of the beauty of
the grand road as an area of untapped opportunities.
Take the Mülheim-Eichbaum metro station:
one of those rather dilapidated transport junctions
in the middle of nowhere, halfway between
Mülheim and Essen. On the left hand,
the traveller coming from Mülheim will see a
field bordered by a row of houses; to the right
a makeshift asphalt track leads through a
wooded section – whether it actually leads to
build-up areas can be determined only once
the metro travelers start to disperse. In 2009,
showmen staged an opera here. The first actors
were paid, grant-aided artists; yet the success
of the by now legendary Eichbaum Opera
was above all guaranteed by the participating
residents from both sides of the motorways
and metro lines. Its remnant is a strange
construction, half container and half lookout
platform, maybe also some kind of director’s
roost. By now, the Opernbauhütte (opera shed)
erected by raumlaborberlin as a temporary
construction (2008 – 2010) has been gold-plated
by Martin Pfeifle and Wanda Sebastian; accordingly
the author is invariably reminded by
129