The Playground Project
13 July to 28 October 2018
Between 1950 and 1980, the playground was a creative laboratory. In the cities of the industrialised world, a plethora of innovative, crazy, interesting and exciting projects were developed. Landscape architects, artists, activists and citizens sought to provide children with the best possible environment to play in and, at the same time, to rethink communal and urban life. The Playground Project captures this wealth of ideas in images, models, plans, books and numerous films as well as in play sculptures that invite visitors to slide, play hide and seek, laugh and run. Children, parents, playground designers, educators and architects are welcome to rediscover the playground of yesteryear and to imagine that of tomorrow.
Taking its starting point in the work of the pioneers of new playground concepts in the first half of the twentieth century, the exhibition shows how their ideas were received, adapted and developed in different countries. The playground is more than just an element of urban life; it also says much about the society that devised it. Last, but by no means least, the exhibition presents playgrounds as sites with a non-standard aesthetic of their own, where citizens of all ages identify with their city.
The exhibition showcases a total of 150 selected works by 81 artists, whose work has been acquired by a committee of experts for the Collection of the Federal Republic of Germany over the last five years for approximately 1.7 million Euros. They focused primarily, amongst other things, on the question, “Which artworks make particular reference to our society, and can convey information, now and in the future, about the state of our present-day Germany?”
Verschiedenste Berufsleute aber auch Gruppen von Eltern und Bürgern wurden aktiv, weil sie durch zahlreiche Bücher und Kontakte das nötige Wissen und Motivation erhielten. Die Ausstellung stellt Personen vor, die ihrer Zeit oft voraus waren und die keinen Aufwand scheuten, ihre Ideen und Überzeugungen zu verwirklichen, in einem Gebiet wo kein Ruhm und Prestige zu holen waren. So wehrte sich das Betreiber-Kollektiv des ersten Abenteuerspielplatz Deutschlands im Berliner Märkischen Viertel erfolgreich gegen Auflagen der Behörden, die Feuer und den Bau hoher Hütten verboten.
Nicht zuletzt präsentiert die Ausstellung den Spielplatz als Ort mit einer eigenen Ästhetik, die nicht Standard ist, sondern ein Ort wo sich Bürger jedes Alters mit ihrer Stadt identifizieren.
The Playground Project wurde von Gabriela Burkhalter als reisende Ausstellung kuratiert und für die Bundeskunsthalle realisiert und angepasst, in Zusammenarbeit mit der Kunsthalle Zürich.
Admission tickets
€10/ €6.50 (concessions), Family ticket €16
School groups enjoy free admission to the exhibition on Fridays (booking necessary)
Happy-Hour-Ticket: 7 € (available two hours before the museum closes; individual visitors only, all exhibitions.) Combined ticket for all exhibitions available. <link en visiting opening-timesadmission.html internal link in current>More information
