Lela Ahmadzai
Marina Camargo
Muu Blanco
Dias Riedweg
Sebastián Gordín
Simon Gush
Fernando Gutiérrez
Gianfranco Foschino
Olaf Holzapfel
Alvaro Olmos
Santiago Tavella
Michael Wesely
Zhang Qing
Alfons Hug
Art exhibition on the football world cup 2014. The exhibition focuses on video art, photography and sound art, examining the current state of football and its ties to society and culture.
curated by Alfons Hug
The art exhibition „The game only ends when it is over“ on the Football World Cup 2014,
will be on show from the 6th of May at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. After a twelve-
leg tour in South-America, it is now Berlin’s turn to host this highly anticipated exhibition,
which will also be held in Nuremberg and Wiesbaden from May 2014 onwards. The
exhibition focuses on video art, photography and sound art, examining the current state
of football and its ties to society and culture.
The Berlin exhibition will present video art, set in Berliner artist Olaf Holzapfel’s unique
installation, which is simultaneously an autonomous work of art whilst also providing the
exhibition setting for the other works. The colourful construction consists of sixteen
rectangular cubicles, with twelve of these containing screens on which video art works
can be seen.A football world championship is more than just a sports event, as is apparent from the
current protests in Brazil. Aside from economical interests, cultural and financial
implications play an important part. The exhibition of the Rio Goethe-Institut approaches
these themes from an artistic point of view.
“More than other types of sport, indeed, more than many other societal phenomena,
football provides a narrative structure, a visual languages and an allegorical richness,
making it particularly suitable to be transformed into art. Epic, dramatic, tragic and
comical elements all blend together in this great game, which, in spite of all the charts,
still has something pre-modernistically unproductive about it.
An exhibition about football is very different from a game shown on television or public
viewing, since the artists have removed themselves as far as possible from the
affirmative spectacle, seeking out the hidden sides of football instead or those seemingly
less relevant games that don’t take place in the big stadiums. The right place for football
is usually the least expected one, a rule that incidentally can also be applied to
contemporary art,” says Alfons Hug, director of the Goethe-Institut in Rio.
The Nuremberg and Wiesbaden exhibitions will have a particular focal point as well.
Nuremberg boasts the The German Academy for Football & Culture, a unique resource
covering the wide spectrum from sports entertainment to cultural enquiry. The Kunsthaus
will present a sound installation by Lukas Ligeti as well as twelve selected works of video
art.
A highlight is the project A Woman’s Goal – Afghanistan women’s national female football
team by artist and photographer Lela Ahmadzai. The exhibition will be accompanied by a
world championship poetry-slam, a plein-air cinema showing short films on football,
music, artist talks and possibly the city’s cosiest public viewing location providing an
opportunity for exchange between (inter)national artists and (football)audiences.
In Wiesbaden, the „city of the players”, the elegant yet playful aspect of football is
brought to the foreground through the architecture of the exhibition. 13 selected
positions create a voyage across two floors, through the generously proportioned rooms
of the monumental villa. On the 13th of July, the same date at which the new world
champion will win the finale, the Wiesbaden exhibition will end as well.
The exhibitions will show works by the following artists:
Lela Ahmadzai (Afghanistan-Germany), Marina Camargo (Brazil), Muu Blanco
(Venezuela), Dias/Riedweg (Brazil), Sebastián Gordín (Argentina), Simon Gush
(South Africa), Fernando Gutiérrez (Peru), Gianfranco Foschino (Chile), Olaf
Holzapfel (Germany), Alvaro Olmos (Bolivia), Santiago Tavella (Uruguay),
Michael Wesely (Germany), Zhang Qing (China).
The exhibition is curated by Alfons Hug, director of the Goethe-Institut in Rio.
Additional information can be found at:
http://www.goethe.de/ins/br/rio/deindex.htm
Press contact: ARTPRESS – Ute Weingarten Elisabethkirchstr. 15 | 10115 Berlin | +49 30
48496350 artpress@uteweingarten.de | Pressebilder: http://www.artpress-
uteweingarten.de/en/presselounge/
Press Contact: Goethe-Institut, Berlin Bureau: Viola Noll, Pressereferentin, Neue Schönhauser
Straße 20, 10178 Berlin
T +49 30 259 06-471
Mail: noll@goethe.de
The exhibition will then travel to:
Nuremberg, Kunsthaus: 28. May – 6. July 2014
Wiesbaden, Nassauischer Kunstverein: 24. May – 13. July 2014
Opening: 5. May
The courtyard of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin
Werderscher Markt 1 | 10117 Berlin