Artist Massimo Furlan reenacts the moves of legendary football matches. Like many children, he had once dreamed of becoming a famous football player. In art, he made it happen.
For the international festival Public Art Munich 2018, Massimo Furlan staged a reenactment of the 1974 World Cup football match between the GDR and the FRG, which surprisingly ended with a 1:0 score for the GDR. It was the only direct encounter between the two German national teams at a World Cup. At the time, both teams had already qualified, so the focus was less on a sporty encounter than on the political encounter between two countries that had only recently recognised each other politically.
The match was performed by only two players and without a football in Munich’s Olympic stadium in 2018: Massimo Furlan as Sepp Maier and Franz Beil as Jürgen Sparwasser. Football returned – in the form of an art event – to the Olympic stadium from which it has normally disappeared.
On the occasion of the European Football Championship 2021, the Kunstinsel am Lenbachplatz shows two moments of this historic event and reveals in a humorous and slightly absurd way how sport events can write contemporary history.
Massimo Furlan, born in 1965 in Lausanne, lives and works in Lausanne.
