Games allow us to bring fantasies to life, create new worlds and metaphorically describe those that already exist. They provide a space to experiment, to not fear looking silly or funny, or even to pretend to be someone else.
Contemporary art also plays with the viewer - sometimes seriously, sometimes ironically - leaving room for imagination. The exhibition invites visitors to use the metaphor of play to engage with the practices of the featured artists.
Beat Lippert organised a pétanque championship - a game requiring neither special skills nor complex equipment. The artist often works with participatory art: the assembled installation comes alive through audience involvement, transforming into a playground that brings strangers together.
Another artist, Luc Aubort, collected found objects, playfully engaging with the ‘serious’ practice of collecting.
Andrea Wolfensberger transformed a documentary audio recording into a sculptural composition: noticing the similarity between the shape of sound waves and the contours of the Sukhum coastline, she creates a work from sand taken from the local beach - a popular spot for leisure and entertainment.
In Lena Maria Thuring’s video, neighbours at a summer house enact everyday dialogues and situations. Referencing documentary theatre, her work blurred the line between performance and reality.
This diversity of artistic approaches prompted reflection: is the surrounding world a game or reality?