Wide Range of Artistic Activities at the Schirn Kunsthalle's Playing the City 2
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Monday, November 11, 2024


Wide Range of Artistic Activities at the Schirn Kunsthalle's Playing the City 2
At the Schirn Kunsthalle, Swiss artist Clarina Bezzola ties together parts of clothing she collected from random strangers on the street in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bezzola's installation is part of the art project 'Playing the City,' which connects art and public spaces and lasts until 26 September 2010. EPA/FRANKRUMPENHORST.



FRANKFURT.- Following last year’s success, the exhibition project Playing the City 2 once again presents a wide range of artistic activities in public space, involving the city and its inhabitants in a variety of ways. Through 26 September 2010, central Frankfurt sees new actions taking place daily, from performances to installations to “guerrilla actions”. At the heart of the project lies an intense debate about public space and the “participatory turn” within contemporary art. Around 20 collaborative and participatory works have been planned, some specially conceived for the project, by Nina Beier, Clarina Bezzola, Julien Bismuth, Clegg & Guttmann, Cosalux, Christoph Faulhaber, For Use / Numen, Swetlana Gerner, Jördis Hille, Christoph von Löw, Josef Loretan, Jan Lotter, Annika Lundgren, Lee Mingwei, Ivan Moudov, Anny and Sibel Öztürk, Paola Pivi, Plural Art Collective feat, Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, Reactor, Annika Ström, Leonid Tishkov, Gavin Turk and Vanja Vukovic. In parallel a project office, the “Zentrale”, has been set up in the Schirn’s exhibition spaces, from where the project team pursues its work in public, fine-tuning the website, answering questions on the exhibition, and organising and documenting all the activities. Playing the City 2 can also be followed via the internet, in a digital extension of public space. The website developed for the project, www.playingthecity.de, assembles all the latest videos, texts and visual material, an exhibition calendar and a blog, and is also networked beyond the physical venues via numerous social media networks. It is thus a catalogue, exhibition forum and platform for discussion all in one.

Playing the City 2 opens up public space as a collective, free arena that can be moulded, that questions its boundaries, and that involves its inhabitants. The site-specific actions take place within a time-limited framework in which they are produced and can be experienced, and in which production and reception are closely connected. The traditional definitions of a work and of its authorship are negated: both terms that have been questioned since the 1960s, not least through action art. Many of the works developed for Playing the City 2 can only be realised through the involvement of the public; whether they are actions that provoke fortuitous street confrontations or sculptures that invite use. But at the very least they are intended to create a confrontation and a dialogue with the – sometimes randomly generated – audience, and to transform public space into a playing field with rules that are tested collaboratively. Can the public space really be taken as a place of different opinions and voices? What constitutes public opinion? What do we understand by public space? These are some of the questions raised by the Playing the City 2 project.

The concept that Playing the City 2 realises, on various levels, is a continuation of the ideas of the major avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. In the early twentieth century, the Dada movement rejected “conventional” art and art forms as well as bourgeois ideals, taking to the street instead. It is also worth mentioning Guy Debord’s Situationism, which 50 years later still has a strong influence on the contemporary art scene, notably on “Public Art”, and which has inspired theoreticians such as Michel de Certeau to define space as a “practised place” and to locate its significance in the activities taking place within it. The urban researcher Armando Silva argues similarly, differentiating the city into the architectural fact and a performance consisting of human interactions. For artists of so-called relational aesthetics, processes such as intersubjectivity and interaction are both the starting and endpoints of their artistic work. According to Nicolas Bourriaud, the utopian potential in developing artistic spaces in this way lies in being able to provide alternative forms of sociality, critique and happiness. They have all turned away from the transformative potential of grand narratives, and instead see opportunity for change in the direct encounter with people.

Playing the City 2 offers a look into the wide varieties of current participatory and collaborative art: one large-scale installation by the Austrian-Croatian design collective For Use / Numen fills the architecture of the Schirn with a walk-in cocoon of transparent adhesive tape. Since the installation can be experienced and entered, it becomes a fixed component and can be used as such by the inhabitants of public space. The installation by artist duo Michael Clegg & Martin Guttmann, “Open Debate Station, Frankfurt”, questions the structure and function of public debates. They design a discussion platform that, through fixed furniture and established rules of play, becomes a place for a public, structured and fair exchange of opinions. In this work, the two artists refer both to the tradition of Talmudic interpretation and to the history of the Frankfurt School. The Italian artist Paola Pivi will engineer unexpected situations on Frankfurt public transport as part of her work: during rush hour, an individual actor first starts to sing a song, and then gradually – apparently at random – more musicians will join in, singing or playing instruments, thereby disrupting the everyday situation of a silent trip by bus or tram.

The title of Annika Lundgren’s project, “The Stock Is Rising”, is a historical reference to a 1967 action, in which a group of 20,000 peace demonstrators led by Abbie Hoffmann gathered before the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and sang loudly to drive evil spirits from the building, as part of a protest against the Vietnam War. The action planned by Lundgren for Playing the City 2 is a response to the international financial crisis and started by publishing information on the website www.stockisrising.com about the action, about Abbie Hoffman, about levitation as a form of parapsychological practice in which the pure force of thought overcomes the gravity of objects, and about the financial crisis. On 21 September 2010, between 15:00 and 17.35, participants in the action will gather in front of the Alte Börse (former stock exchange) in Frankfurt, and make the building hover.

The remaining actions also use various means and media in order to intervene in urban space (e.g. Nina Beier, Vanja Vukovic and Julien Bismuth), to question social structures and processes (e.g. Ivan Moudov), or to set up forms of cooperation and interaction between the artists and the general public in Frankfurt (e.g. Clarina Bezzola, Lee Mingwei, Leonid Tishkov and Reactor). One important feature of the actions and activities is their time-limitation: when the project is over, the individual works will be documented through photographs and film on the website, while their traces in public space will gradually disappear.










Today's News

September 19, 2010

The Immortal Alexander The Great: The Myth, The Reality, His Journey, His Legacy

Modern Art from Latin America at the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany

Arcimboldo's Famous Paintings on View for the First Time in the U.S.

All Eyes on Kees van Dongen in Exhibition at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

Exhibition Titled "Pond Edge" by Michael Mazur at Mary Ryan Gallery

Morrison Hotel Gallery Premieres Timeless: The Photography of Julian Lennon

High Museum of Art Brings Titian's Famed Diana Paintings to US for First Time

Exhibition on the Use of Shadow Opens at Kunsthal KAdE

New Work by German Artist Thomas Scheibitz at Sprüth Magers

Representative Cross-Section of Thomas Wrede's Oeuvre at Museum Kunst der Westküste

Christie's Offers the Remarkable Wolfgang Joop Collection

Color in American Photography, 1950-1970 at Bruce Silverstein Gallery

Dana Melamed Opens Her Third Solo Show at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art

Six Artists Explore the Interaction between Cinema and Reality

Christie's Presents Guitars from Legendary American Singer-Songwriter Judy Collins

Chrysler Museum Reveals Portrait of America through Photography

Galerie Van Der Planken Presents Colorful Photographs by Liesje Reyskens

6th Liverpool Biennial Celebrates a Decade of Bringing New Art to the UK

Two Icons of Pop Art Featured at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Auction

Design for Phase 1 of The Glasgow School of Art Redevelopment Unveiled

Oxfam Discovery to Be Offered at Christie's this September

Harland Miller's "I'll Never Forget What I Can't Remember" at Galerie Alex Daniels

ARCOmadrid Kickstarts Its International Promotion in Sao Paulo

Phillips de Pury & Co. Announces 20th Century Master Prints from the Dreier LLP Collection

Poppy Sebire in London Presents Group Exhibition "Dark Nature"

Jan Knap's Simple and and Refined Works of Art at Zonca & Zonca

Intensely Colorful Works by Phillip Maberry and Scott Walker at Maloney Fine Art

Drawings Attributed to Francis Bacon at Werkstattgalerie in Berlin

Inverness Museum and Art Gallery Exhibits Work of Acclaimed American Artist

Sotheby's to Sell Important and Rare Manuscript Dedicated to The Sultan of Brunei

Bronx Museum Receives Gift of 25 works from Emilio Sanchez Foundation

Wide Range of Artistic Activities at the Schirn Kunsthalle's Playing the City 2

Amendments Toughen Anti-Fraud Arts and Crafts Law

Airan Kang furthers her Digital Book Project at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery

High to Transfer Art and Books to the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful