The German Football Museum in Dortmund is presenting its new special exhibition In Motion – Art & Football just in time for UEFA EURO 2024. The immersive show will be on display in the museum’s arena from May 28, 2024 to January 5, 2025.

In Motion – Art & Football brings together an unprecedented showcase of European modernist painting on the subject of soccer. More than 175 works of art from national and international collections are presented in an immersive spatial staging, including some rarely shown works by René Magritte, Paul Klee, Banksy, Nicolas de Staël, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Willi Baumeister, Felix Nussbaum, Laurence Stephen Lowry, Robert Delaunay, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and Umberto Boccioni.

The concept of the exhibition is designed like the European Championship itself: Each nation participating in UEFA EURO 2024 is represented by at least one artist, underlining the basic idea of a diverse, united Europe.

The expansive exhibition format is unusual: the works of art are combined with film and photography in a large-scale installation covering 1,000 square meters. Noises, sounds and tones effectively absorb the sound of the 20th century. The exhibition operates at the interface between digital and analog art mediation, between film and performance.

The exhibition is accompanied by European soccer champion Josephine Henning, who works as an artist after her active career. As “Artist in Residence”, Henning will create a work of art at the German Football Museum during the European Championships and hold creative workshops as part of the museum’s educational work.

There will also be opportunities to contextualize the overall impressions: In a “Digital Gallery”, all the exhibited artworks can be seen as elaborate digital projections in their original size.

Furthermore, historical events are assigned to the respective artists on a long “studio table”. Finally, audio files explaining the exhibited works can be listened to in a separate part of the room. The artists represented there include René Magritte, Paul Klee, Banksy, Nicolas de Staël, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Willi Baumeister, Felix Nussbaum, L. S. Lowry, Robert Delaunay, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró and Umberto Boccioni.

The opening was accompanied by an evening event hosted by Katty Salié (aspekte), at which invited guests were presented with the exhibition before the official launch. Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth, Minister for Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia Ina Brandes, DFB President Bernd Neuendorf and Dortmund’s Lord Mayor Thomas Westphal were among the 350 guests from politics, sport, culture and society.

“The exhibition is one of the biggest cultural projects for EURO 2024 and I am sure that it will inspire visitors – culture fans and soccer fans alike! This is exactly what we want to achieve with the cultural program for the European Championships,” emphasized Claudia Roth.

“We want to invite encounters between art and soccer, bring people together and spark enthusiasm for both.” And Thomas Westphal, Lord Mayor of Dortmund, emphasized that “this exhibition, like the museum, is unique in Europe”.