Press Release
To complement The Playground Project (from July 13), the Bundeskunsthalle is opening the roof garden and the museum square to Outdoor, an exhibition on the subject of "Play," which provides contemporary artists Nevin Aladağ, Kristina Buch, Ólafur Elíasson, Jeppe Hein, Carsten Höller, Christian Jankowski, Llobet & Pons, Michel Majerus, Andreas Schmitten, Thomas Schütte, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Alvaro Urbano and Ina Weber with an opportunity to design interactive installations and spaces, forms and utensils for play. Visitors are invited to experience art in a playful, participatory and performative manner. According to a philosophical definition of Homo ludens, play is a primary condition of the generation of culture; it is through play that Homo ludens, unlike Homo faber, develops his skills. It is in play as a fundamental, formative and necessary human activity that he/she discovers his/her individual qualities, and this experience allows him to develop his/her dormant personality. In this definition, play is equated with freedom and autonomy of mind.
Exhibition May 31 -
© ArtCatalyse International / Marika Prévosto 2018. All Rights Reserved
"By playing, we begin to discover the world, to understand it and to find our way around in it. Play puts social conventions to the test, and, like art, it is a domain of unfettered creative activity, an end in itself, untrammelled by the twin demands of purpose and utility."
–Rein Wolfs
Related to the exhibition The Playground Project – Outdoor Carsten Höller has developed a site-
Carsten Höller conceives of the museum as a space that is not just devoted to the preservation of the old, but also to experimentation, innovation and to trying out unexpected ideas and concepts. He expands the medium of sculpture, turning it into a platform for playful activities that transform the physical and emotional experience of the viewer/visitor into an integral and central part of his art.
"Carsten Höller’s slide is a response to the museum—to its rules, its architecture—to the institution, but also to art itself. It represents a new, participatory form of experiencing art."
–Rein Wolfs
Curator: Susanne Kleine
[1] Michel Majerus, if we are dead, so it is, 2000. Scene: Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2011/2012. © Michel Majerus Estate. Photo: David Franck. Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin and Matthew Marks Gallery. [2] Carsten Höller, Bonn Slide. © Bundeskunsthalle.