Pawel Althamer and Friends
The Polish artist Pawel Althamer has just started a diverse, subtle, and experimental art project. For four months, he and his friends from the artist group Reactor-Sculpture Lab based in Warsaw moved into the Ludwig Forum Aachen and seek to shed light on themes such as power, authority, and freedom from a completely different perspective: from the standpoint of childhood. The motivation to try something so different and daring is the 1,200th anniversary of Charlemagne's death, one of the most powerful rulers in the Middle Ages. Together with children, teens and adults, a Children's Kingdom is being established that extends from the garden and courtyard of the Ludwig Forum, out across public space, and finally annexes St. Elisabeth's Church opposite. In workshops and performance actions these locations are regenerated and transformed: the church occupied, costumes designed, monuments created. The motor propelling these artistic transformations is the candid naivety and creativity of children, which opens up new perspectives for adults as well. Artists: Pawel Althamer, Czarli Bajka, Pawel Chmielewski, Konrad Chmielewski, Witold Nazarkiewicz, Przemyslaw Pietrzak, Tomasz Waszczeniuk and Anna Zielinska. Curators: Brigitte Franzen and Esther Boehle; Assistant Curator: Julia Kuchle.