Hidden History – Facets of the Subculture in the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Region
18.04.2026 — 17.05.2026
Opening: 17 April 2026, 6 pm
Night of the Museums: 25 April 2026, 7 pm – 1 am (Hip Hop Night with Janina Jackson, Dascha Reimt, Gunnpassion, Mama Rose and DJ Raenah)
Anne Imhof, Annette Gloser (feat. Silke Thoss), Croyde Mirandon / Patrick Soulier, Hannibal Tarkan Daldaban, Heiner Blum, Honji Wang, Leonard Kahlcke, Nadine Fraczkowski, Oguz Sen, Rushy Diamond, Schwarzi
& Friends
The Frankfurter Kunstverein invites the Diamant Museum für Urbane Kultur, Offenbach to the Steinernes Haus am Römerberg. Through close collaboration, a four-week partnership will unfold featuring numerous events, activations and opportunities for participation.
Hidden History is more than an exhibition. It presents documentary spaces of historical and contemporary positions of subversive and subcultural activity in the form of installations, interactive environments, wall magazines, collaborative murals, tape art, performances and video installations.
Which protagonists and activities have shaped the scene in Frankfurt–Offenbach–Rhine-Main in recent years? And how do they continue to resonate within the cultural fabric of our city today?
Culture is usually transmitted through enduring images and texts. The ephemeral and the undocumented circulate through oral histories, myths and stories, gradually fading and disappearing in the passage of time. This applies not only to distant cultures, but also to our own age of information.
The recent cultural history of our region is shaped not only by institutions and high culture, along with their networks and publics. Although elements of subculture have occasionally reached the cultural press, beneath the surface there remains a culture of the street and the urban sphere that lies below the threshold of official documentation — yet within certain scenes it remains highly influential.
Hidden History takes a look behind the city’s façades and, through exemplary case studies, offers insights into a culture that remains hidden from many. This culture, too, has its masters, legends and masterpieces. In Hidden History, we can discover them together.
With this exhibition, the Frankfurter Kunstverein expands the field of cultural perception. Curated by Heiner Blum, who has actively supported and made visible creative potential for decades, and developed in cooperation with the Kunstverein’s team, the project creates a vibrant and open space for cultural research and activity.
The Frankfurter Kunstverein invites everyone to discover new perspectives and to participate in a playful way. A central component of Hidden History is its programme of performative events, workshops, lectures, guided tours and concerts. For children and young people, an extensive workshop programme with participating artists offers the opportunity to rediscover the city and its signs as a space of experience beyond digital habits, opening up new analogue possibilities.
Over the course of four weeks, the Frankfurter Kunstverein will transform into a living archive of urban culture in search of the history of the future.