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Hannes Fehringer
LOST BET – AN EMPTY LESSON IN AMSTETTEN
Lost bet. “She’ll make it a month, tops!” “No way”. After only two weeks, packing paper was on the bou-tique’s displayed goods. Only the green “United Colours of Dorrer” sign was still stuck to the façade under the eaves. Passersby guessed that the rent was most likely too high for the proprietor, probably a certain Ms. Dorrer as indicated by the sign. Or Amstetten’s pace too slow. Not an unusual fate…with the dozens of empty storefronts here. And it had all started so well. She’d gotten good press, with respect Ms. Dorrer. An inquiry into our hotbed for highbrow city news – the culture café Zum Kuckuck, whose clientele is among humanity’s smarter half – resulted in the tidbit that Ms. Dorrer’s first name was the beautiful “Angela.” A major fashion show was even covered in the local paper, in which not only the models but the entire United Colors of Dorrer store was highlighted. German visitors from abroad came to the opening, which makes it even more astonishing that the magic was already totally over the day after: Not a blouse on a hook. The mannequins in the display windows were naked, completely unwrapped.
Angela closed the store. It’s something we can’t get our minds off of. Our Munich native has quickly become our pride and joy, she was in everyone’s good books. She was openhearted, not at all shy about making new friends. You could think that she’d been able, with her appearance and her manner alone, to create her personal clientele … maybe even a business cooperation with the café I mentioned before, Zum Kuckuck, would have been possible with a little cajoling. If the coffee house people is able to sell the menus from the Chinese restaurant next door and orthopedic shoes from the forest along with jasmine tea and beer, they could have thrown Dorrer’s threads onto the market between two eighths of Gruenen Veltliner.
Her stuff was good as plumage for odd birds, in this case a whole flock of them. Something in size XL, for example, for Adam, a prize Austrian from Greece whose knowledge of German can no longer be challenged even by the crossword puzzles in the Austrian daily paper Standard or the nonliner thinkers of the German weekly Die Zeit.Caps and coats from Dorrer’s collection would have made him from a sound to a sight. Or the hosts themselves: Roman and Ingrid M., who used to own a record store, then with their knickknacks switched over to a coffee house and then – with events from the autonomous culture club “Kulturhof Amstetten” – transformed the place to a “philosophical cafe”. Of course the regulars still watch football and ski races, but without the sound of the TV commentator. Instead, they hear the bigmouths’ brainstorming. Angela would have surely found something casual for these idiots. “Dick” and “Andi,” two artists whose lives are even art, even had a fitting with Angela. These two sashayed on the catwalk at Dorrer’s fashion show. The regulars blamed them that the United Colors of Dorrer had to lower its bar for them, but it was just a joke.
In reality, Angela’s leaving was like swallowing a bitter pill that left a harsh aftertaste on the tongue: The international smorgasbord in her second-hand shop – as well as the odd fact that all the models of her stuff had to answer to the name Dorrer – never would have had much of a future in our city. Next week, an affiliate of some drugstore chain is supposed to open its doors in the empty storefront.
From: “U C D - United Collection of Dorrer”, 160 Seiten, 82 Farbseiten, German/English, essays by Thomas Macho, Andreas Kühne, Hannes Fehringer und Stefan Lindl, Verlag für Moderne Kunst Nürnberg 2005
translation: Kimberly Bradley
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