Playing the City

Intrigued by a giant blue wall made of plastic crates next to Frankfurt’s Schirn Kunsthalle we walked to what at first glance appeared to be just another construction site. Instead we discovered a gigantesque structure of foam rubber and other odd material. Amused by our rather confused look one girl detached from the group of artists working on it. »It’s going to be a factory; Come back on Thursday«, she said and gave us an invitation – before she disappeared in the foam rubber formations again.

We’d just been invited to the opening of the 3rd annual Playing the City. For two weeks artists like Minerva Cuevas, Tim Etchells, Christian Jankowski or Eileen Perrier will intervene in public space and invite the local population to participate in various projects. They include fun activities such as tasting archive flavoured ice-cream and photography sessions, many site-specific projects and interventions addressing socio-political issues from gentrification to migration. And in addition to the various events all over the city there will be a permanent headquarter and thus centre of documentation at Schirn.

Some projects actually look quite fun – and might be a better option to visit the Kunsthalle than what we had originally come for. The current show Secret Societies had sounded refreshingly young but turned out to be rather cryptic with little information and stylish art works that seemed to be taken from the latest art fairs. (Of course there were also good pieces like Zielony »Le Vele di Scampia« with footage on a mafia-run concrete bastion at the outskirts of Neapel or interesting works like Snyder’s »The Site« on Sadam Husseins hideout.) Anyways, we felt like we had picked the wrong occasion to come to Schirn.

P.S. The odd sculpture-structure we had discovered is actually a part of the installation »Bitte kurz lüften«. With this non-functional, greenhouse topped building the artist collective Upper Bleisteins mocks urban planning. And of course the house is going to be interactive, too: Visitors can activate its ›metabolism‹ via a moveable wall… Go play!

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