Hasta La Ideas

The Museum für Moderne Kunst (Museum of Modern Art) in Frankfurt commissioned two collectives of illustrators, one from Frankfurt and one from London, to create new artworks on a theme of secrets for an exhibition aimed at children…

The show, entitled Pssst, has been curated by Jakob Hoffman in cooperation with the Kinder Museum Frankfurt. Hoffman worked with both Frankfurt collective Labor who work regularly with the museum, and also Anorak magazine in the UK who put together a group of British illustrators that have contributed to the fun kids magazine.

Sixteen artists in total – including Matthew Bromley, Gemma Correll, Rob Flowers, Anke Kuhl, Supermundane, and Philip Waechter – were invited to participate by creating brand new works exploring the theme of secrets. Here’s a look at some of the work in the show:

Rob Flowers created these large prints in bright colours. Visitors are encouraged to put on the face masks next to the prints and the coloured filters in the eye holes of the masks allowed the wearers to see the ‘hidden’ images which related to the masks of Flowers’ characters Earl of Mushroom, Eyeball Shamen, and Treegar – shown below:

“We were given an open brief to approach the secrets theme in anyway we liked,” says contributing artist Rob Lowe (aka Supermundane). “Interactive pieces were encouraged but it wasn’t explicitly part of the brief. My work (shown above) is called Speak Secrets / Hear Secrets. The wall is massive 4m x 8m and double sided with tubes running through it so children can speak into them and listen on the opposite sides. The holes don’t match up so you could be hearing someone speaking from right at the other end of the wall.”

Also visible above is Gemma Correll‘s Monster Jaws. Children (those who dare) can put their hand into the many-eyed beast’s mouth. Correll explains: “Kids can put their hands in his mouth and feel what’s in there (various squishy and strangely shaped things). There’s a glove incorporated with the hole so they can’t peer in.”

Matthew Bromley‘s piece (being finished, above) explores the idea of graffiti artists wanting to keep their identity secret. For the show he created the Pssst Crew – five fictional characters (Snoz Flapper, Goober, Bozo, Dilbert and Chump) who each paint or paste a logo which represents something about their personality. Visitors were challenged to match up the characters with their tags / paintings.

Bromley also created a publication (shown above) to accompany the project that can be bought in the museum shop.

Above, Christopher Fellehner‘s Secret Ambassador installation allowed visitors to record secrets (by pressing a button and whispering into his ear) or listen to secrets by turning the mouth.

Zuni and Kirsten von Zubinski (who also created the image at the top of the post which was used for the show’s promotional material) created a confession booth (above) in which visitors could unload their secrets.

Psst: An Exhibition for Children runs until January 27 at Museum Für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Domstrasse 10, 60311 Franfurt am Main. While the show runs, installations by Matthew Bromley and Simon Peplow will also be on view at the Kinder Museum Frankfurt.

For more info, visit mmk-frankfurt.de

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