Informal Meeting of young European Artists
August 24 – August 30, 1972
The Informal Meeting of young European Artists held at Kunstverein München was one of many official events framing the Summer Olympic Games of 1972 in Munich. Artists from ten different countries were invited by the Olympic Committee to get involved with the topic of „Opportunities for Art and Sport in the Future“.
One of the artists, Oskar Neumann, described this group exhibition to the socialist newspaper „Unsere Zeit“ in September 1972 in the following fashion: „At the front of the room there was a map of Munich and its surroundings that depicted the Olympic sports venues on the same scale as the armament factories and the sabotage broadcasting companies of the CIA. In the same room hung a work by the West Berlin painter Jürgen Waller titled „Ride for Germany“ that portrayed a sun-bathed Neckermann with his clique in the top part of the painting and below them, sportsmen and artists whose mere function was to support „those up there“. And, to finish, Carlo Schellemann‘s Vietnam „Stations“ set up in the room acted as a reminder of the genocide in Indochina which was still continuing throughout the Games.
Journalists also visited the artists’ meeting and took part in the discussions, throughout which the key topic remained the purpose of sport and art within society which „do not change the world of their own accord, but can contribute to a realisation of these changes“. Additionally, outlines for permanent “Spielstraßen“ were drafted, and even alternatives to the Olympic Games were developed. The ideas of futurologist Robert Jungk guided this process, as formulated by Neumann in the aforementioned article: „A diversion from the Olympic Idea would be wrong. However, criticism of the Games is both right and necessary. Especially criticism of the fact, that the leaders of this country have used them for their own purposes.”
Translated by Kunstverein München e.V. (March 2019)
2. Stanklewitz, Karl, "Sonderling Spielstraße - Ein Freiraum für Künstler, die experimentierten und auch provozierten", in: http://www.kultur-vollzug.de/article-27959/2012/08/21/sonderling-spielstrase-ein-freiraum-fur-kunstler-die-experimentierten-und-auch-provozierten/ [21.08.2018]
Fig.: Wolf Peter Schnetz on behalf of the Informal Meeting of young European Artists (ed.): Beyond the Game: Leisure Spaces of the Future; Results of the Informal Meeting of Young European Artists within the Art Program of the XX Olymp. Spiele München 1972 / with contributions by Peter F. Althaus [u. a.], organized in the framework of the Olymp. Kunstprogramm