Adam Harrison: The Painting Game

Artist talk: 5.15 pm

As part of International Museum Day 2025, the Fridericianum is presenting The Painting Game, a participatory artwork developed by Canadian artist Adam Harrison. The game will be demonstrated in Kassel both as a tabletop game and, for the very first time, as a human-scale playing board on the Friedrichsplatz, inviting visitors to activate the work through communal creation.

Intended for all ages, The Painting Game provides players with paint, brushes, paper, dice, and directions, immediately initiating the creative process regardless of previous artistic experience. It offers tools for overcoming artistic inhibitions by encouraging communication with the direct environment, creating space for reflection and collaboration. The result of each game is a unique painting that players can take home with them as their own artistic creation.

The Painting Game joins an historical lineage of games as artistic medium—present in Dadaism, Surrealism, Bauhaus, and the Fluxus movement—where artists encourage play as a counterpoint to elitist art systems by removing barriers between art and everyday life. Harrison’s work emphasizes both play and art as critical spaces to collectively learn, discuss, experiment, and dream.

Adam Harrison was born in 1983 in Vancouver, Canada. After studying at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (2009–2014), he founded Studio for Propositional Cinema, an artist entity that staged numerous exhibitions from 2013 until its dissolution in 2023. These included monographic presentations at Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach (2022), Fondazione Morra Greco in Naples, Italy (2019), Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Switzerland (2018), Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover (2018), Swiss Institute Contemporary Art in New York, USA (2017), Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen in Düsseldorf (2016), and Bonner Kunstverein (2016).

The International Museum Day, organized by ICOM – International Council of Museums, aims to draw attention to the social role of exhibition venues and to showcase their diversity and adaptability. The Fridericianum pursues the mission of being a lively place of exchange on contemporary art, culture, and social issues by offering space for experiences, encounters, and discussion.

Language artist talk: English. Admission is free. No registration required.

The project was made possible through the support of Julia Muggenburg, Belmacz.