Public Art Munich 2018: Game Changers

PAM 2018 will launch with a grand opening on April 30 at the Munich Olympic Stadium.

PAM 2018 unfolds in time, each weekend presenting commissioned, time-based, performative projects along with an accompanying discursive program. PAM 2018 is less interested in art in public space as a physical location, but rather seeks to address broader concepts of publicity, public opinion, common good, or public speech. PAM 2018 is interested in economizing attention on behalf of public interest rather than for monetary gain. PAM 2018 valorizes art that aspires to change the game by recontextualizing our points of view and, as a result, our actions.

PAM, commissioned by the City of Munich, is Munich’s biggest public art program. It was launched in 2013 with A Space Called Public / Hoffentlich Öffentlich, curated by Elmgreen & Dragset.

Commissioned artists

Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Cana Bilir-Meier, Anders Eiebakke, Leon Eixenberger, Massimo Furlan, Mariam Ghani, Flaka Haliti & Markus Miessen, Rudolf Herz & Julia Wahren, Alexander Kluge, Michaela Melián, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Dan Perjovschi, Alexandra Pirici & Jonas Lund, Olaf Nicolai, The 9th Futurological Congress/Julieta Aranda & Mareike Dittmer, Franz Wanner, Aleksandra Wasilkowska

Game changers

PAM 2018 addresses the mechanisms of change and the fundamental shifts taking place today from the vantage point of Munich—a city that has experienced tremendous ideological, sociopolitical, and symbolic turns of events. The commissioned art projects span this complex history, from the Bavarian Soviet Republic, postwar denazification, Radio Free Europe, May 1968, the optimism and tolerance of the Olympic Stadium, 1989, to the welcoming of refugees at Munich’s central station in 2015, to the impacts of digitalization, artificial intelligence, and the #MeToo movement. The question is not whether to take part but rather how to do so and on what terms. What should change and what shouldn’t?