The Great Game To Come

13.05.2008 — 21.05.2008

Following two historical projects from the 1960s and 1970s, one by the Danish artist Palle Nielsen, and the other by a group from the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach around Thomas Bayrle, Wolfgang Schmidt and their students Linette Schönegge, Regina Henze and Karin Günther-Thoma, the Frankfurter Kunstverein has been transformed into a playground during one week in May. Children, adolescents and adults were invited to participate actively in the process of developing and experimenting. The idea, an initiative of Chus Martínez, Tobi Maier and Katja Schroeder, was realized with the help of the artists Palle Nielsen, Thomas Bayrle and groups of students from Städelschule in Frankfurt and the art academy in Copenhagen supported by their professors Nils Norman (Copenhagen) and Tobias Rehberger (Frankfurt). This special project was extended over the entire exhibition space of the Frankfurter Kunstverein.

In addition to helping develop the playground for ‘The Great Game to Come’ the team of Umwelt-Exploratorium (UX e.V.) was present during the week and offered workshops for students at the Kunstverein. Together they developed a huge floating solar powered balloon. UX e.V. was a charitable association based in Frankfurt which was founded by former students from the product design department of Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach. Their aim is to work with current tendencies in our environment and to illustrate its transformations through collaborative projects.

During this project the Frankfurter Kunstverein provided information about the „historical“ projects offering various sources of documentation.

This project was a cooperation between the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Visual Arts in Copenhagen and Umwelt-Exploratorium (UX e.V.). The Frankfurter Kunstverein would like to thank the Deutsche Bank, the PwC-Stiftung Jugend – Bildung – Kultur and Montana for the kind support of the project.