Playing the City 3

Playing the City 3
THE SCHIRN BRINGS ART INTO THE STREET FOR THE THIRD AND LAST TIME
11–25 August 2011

Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Römerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt
welcome [​at​] schirn.de
T (+49-69) 29 98 82-0
F (+49-69) 29 98 82-240

www.schirn.de
www.schirn-magazin.de

Playing the City—take three. From August 11 to August 25, 2011, more than fifteen international artists will occupy the inner city of Frankfurt with their actions, performances, and installations. Art will take to the street again. Playing the City 3 will focus on public space as a venue for artistic activities involving the city and its inhabitants in a variety of ways again. Each day will see new participatory projects by such artists as Tania Bruguera, Minerva Cuevas, Jacob Dahlgren, Tim Etchells, Christian Jankowski, San Keller, Kommando Agnes Richter, Levent Kunt, Eileen Perrier, Il-Chin Atem Choi, Sans façon, and Upper Bleistein. Political manifestations, demonstrations, or markets and stands specially organized by artists will help carry on the discussion on the collective, free and designable space, its limits, and not least its inhabitants’ involvement.

The works presented in the context of the project Playing the City 3 show a wide range of what art in public space can be today. The performance Demonstration, 16th of August 2011, Frankfurt by the Swedish artist Jacob Dahlgren will change our traditional understanding and image of manifestations. Instead of political banners and appeals, the participants will confront us with abstract works they have painted in the vein of Olle Bærtling (1911–1981), a representative of Swedish Modernism. The resultant “tableau vivant” will surprise passersby and perhaps motivate them to join in. The performance and installation artist Tania Bruguera will bring her long-time project Immigrant Movement International 2010–2015 from Queens, New York to Europe for the first time to promote a new society together with local groups and associations in the form of a manifestation on Frankfurt’s Römerberg. The group of artists Sans façon will subtly furnish public space with two theater spotlights by hitching them to the street lighting in a nearly parasitic manner, so that their circles of light will offer a stage for passersby and residents when night closes in. The Swiss artist San Keller’s Markt der Freiwilligen (The Volunteers’ Market) will offer an opportunity to meet voluntary unpaid attendants in charge of stands who will deal in free will, selling voluntariness to their customers. On Frankfurt’s famous Schillermarkt, passersby will meet the photographer Eileen Perrier asking people into her photo studio—which recalls the classical studio of the nineteenth and early twentieth century—for a special kind of portrait session complete with historical headrest. If people in Frankfurt start behaving differently all of a sudden in the days of Playing the City 3, they might be following the British artist Tim Etchells’ instructions. Titled Ways Out, his new work is comprised of a series of postcards with twenty instructions playfully inviting viewers to change their usual conduct.

In parallel to the activities unfolding in the city, the project team will do its work in public in headquarters set up in the Schirn—feeding the website, answering questions about the exhibition, and organizing and documenting all activities. Playing the City 3 can also be followed on the Internet as a digital extension of public space: the webpage www.playingthecity.de.

DIRECTOR: Max Hollein. CURATOR: Matthias Ulrich (Schirn). ASSISTANT: Clara Wörsdörfer.
HEADQUARTER: SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Römerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt, city center. OPENING HOURS: Tue, Fri–Sun 10 a.m.–7 p.m., Wed and Thur 10 a.m.–10 p.m. INFORMATION: www.schirn.de and www.playingthecity.de, e-mail: welcome@schirn.de, phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-0, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240. ADMISSION: free. GENERAL GUIDED TOUR: Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 4 p.m., meeting place: project headquarters. PRESS CONTACT: Dorothea Apovnik (head Press/Public Relations), Giannina Lisitano (press officer), phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-148, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240, e-mail: presse@schirn.de, www.schirn.de, www.schirn-magazin.de