Munich’s two major football clubs are omnipresent in the city centre. However, the social and sporting life of Munich’s inhabitants takes place in many small sports, cultural and leisure clubs in all districts of the city. The individual costume, jersey or fan merchandise contributes to identification and solidarity with one’s own club.
Club colours, crests and badges not only serve as a sign of unity and togetherness, they have long since become a “second skin” for fans. Munich-based artist Stefan Wischnewski takes up this aspect of identification in his work “Zweite Haut” (“Second Skin”): since September 2011, he has been collecting textile items from various clubs and sewing them into a patchwork-like ‘Munich club collage’ in the form of a ‘Münchner Kindl’ garment, which he then exhibits as a sculpture. In this way, he skilfully reflects not only the diversity of fan life in Munich, but also the identification with one’s own city that goes beyond the individual club.
The aspect of personal exchange and direct mediation is of central importance to the artist. Wischnewski visits the members and thus enters into an exchange with the local clubs and associations. In a second step, he works on the realisation of the club collage with interested members in his studio. This active involvement of the club members not only provides an insight into the creative process, but the participants are also part of a collective creative process, the results of which can be seen from February 2012, initially at the Gasteig and then in club houses and other semi-public locations in Munich.
Further exhibition venues:
SVN München e.V., Staudingerstraße 20, 81735 Munich: 01 – 22 Apr 2012
TSV Milbertshofen, Wilhelm-Wagenfeld-Straße, 80807 Munich: District festival, 05 May 2012
TSV Waldtrudering, Rotkehlchenweg 2, 81827 Munich: Summer festival July 2012
TSV Forstenried-M;ünchen, 81475 Munich: Exhibition ‘85 years TSV Forstenried’, 07 – 22 Jul 2012
Stefan Wischnewski, born in 1974 in Neumünster, lives and works in Munich.
