At the Arken Museum of Modern Art, in the southern suburbs of the Danish capital, visitors have been able since Saturday to jump, skip or run on a huge white inflatable mattress, dodging or looking for the three huge balloon balls of this "human billiard table". - an unprecedented burst of energy in usually quiet rooms.

Faithfully recreated by the museum team, the installation was first staged in 1970 by the Austrian group of architects and artists Haus-Rucker-Co.

At the time, the group's three founders believed the times demanded radical change, and their inflatable oasis could help break down existing power hierarchies and create new, utopian urban spaces.

Indeed, among the screams, laughter and gasps, visitors involuntarily become part of a game - they fight against each other or with each other depending on how the giant marbles fall.

"The idea was to break the character of historical heritage of a museum, to put a little more life in it and to bring a new type of activity", remembers for AFP Günter Zamp Kelp, 81 years old. , one of the three founding members of Haus-Rucker-Co, established in 1967.

Watching the visitors bounce, he laughs at the similarities to the 70s.

"You can't tell the difference between the photos from the 70s and today, it's completely the same, maybe a little bit the style of clothes, but the movement and everything is exactly like before", assures he.

After first being presented in Vienna in 1970, the "Giant Billiard" was staged in New York the same year, and then appeared infrequently for the next 50 years.

A rare re-creation, Arken's exhibition is his first appearance in Scandinavia.

For the curator of the exhibition, the work, staged today in a context of growing social inequality and isolation, comes at the right time.

Visitors "can have fun too, and we need to have fun, I think, more than ever with everything we're up against," said Jenny Lund.

Visitors to the Museum of Modern Art in Arken, near Copenhagen, enjoy on October 8, 2022 a recreational installation, "Giant Billiard", first staged in 1970 by the collective of architects and Austrian artists Haus-Rucker-Co James BROOKS AFP

“I hope you will leave thinking that sometimes unconventional solutions are necessary. And we need them more than ever,” she adds with a smile.

Many visitors seemed ready to have fun at the facility's grand opening.

"I think it's a good idea to make art that makes you interact with other people," said Laura Konrad, a 38-year-old office worker.

"You interact with people you don't know at all," she congratulates.

© 2022 AFP