The Flying Shack, headquarters of the Greek Existentialists. Athens, 1953.

 Flying Shack (Ιπτάμενη Παράγκα) was the name of the wooden house of Simos Tsapnidis (Σίμος Τσαπνίδης), leader of the Greek Existentialists. Here, hundreds of youths used to hang out, from 1953 to 1956. They formed an art group, deep in the heart ofAthens.

The group, involved theater, poetry, dance, visual arts and music. They danced and played a strange kind of music, a mixture of boogie and swing, but with improvisations, in a dada spirit.

Many traveling artists and political fugitives, found a refuge here.  Police termed the Flying Sack, a “home of orgies” and closed it, by 1955. Simos Tsapnidis, fled Greece, in 1956, and traveled all over Europe, for 20 years

PALETTE . Hamburg. February of 1958

PALETTE. In the 50’s and early 60’s, Palette, in the still destroyed center of Hamburg, was the essential hangout for ‘Exis’ or ‘Existentialists’, who were more or less a mix between Beatniks and Mods. The Palette was more like a pub, but maybe with the first jukebox in Hamburg playing records by Elvis or Cool Jazz and French Chansons.
The crowd was a bizarre mix of art students, gangsters, dropouts, bohemians and sometimes the motorcycle rockers from another Pub next door.The first ‘happenings’ were held here, with young authors and poets like Hubert Fichte who used to read or improvise lyrics to Jazz music just like the Beats in San Francisco.The man with the cane (photo) is Simos Tsapnidis, the leader of Greek Existentialists.