Copenhagen (AFP) - Jumping on a trampoline in a museum? This is possible in Copenhagen, where the Museum of Modern Art presents an entertainment facility imagined by an Austrian group in the 1970s.

At the Arken Museum of Modern Art, on the southern outskirts of the Danish capital, since Saturday, visitors can jump or run on a huge white inflatable mattress, while searching for the three huge balls of the "human billiards game", in an unprecedented explosion of energy inside the usually quiet museum. .

The facility was first built in 1970 by a group of Austrian architects and artists called Haus-Rucker-Co. And the Danish Museum team has faithfully recreated it.

At the time, the group's three founders were of the opinion that the era required radical change, and that their inflatable oasis could help shatter established hierarchies of power and create new urban spaces that emulated their utopian aspirations.

Indeed, between screaming, laughing and gasping, the visitors involuntarily become part of a game - they fight each other or with each other depending on how the giant glass marbles fall.

"The idea was to break the character of the museum's historical heritage, to give it more life and a new kind of activity," recalls Gunther Zamp-Kelb, 81, one of the three founding members of the Haus-Rucker-Co., which was born in 1967. ".

Watching the visitors jump, Zamp Kelp laughs at the similarities to the 1970s facility.

"The pictures from the 70s and today are indistinguishable," he says.

After its first introduction in Vienna in 1970, the "giant billiards" facility was shown in New York the same year, and appeared erratically in the next fifty years.

Arken Gallery, a rare recreation of the facility, marks its first appearance in Scandinavia.

For the curator, this work, which is taking place in a context of increasing social inequality and isolation, is timely.

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

"I hope visitors will leave with the thought that unconventional solutions are sometimes necessary. And we need them more than ever," she adds with a smile.

Many visitors seemed ready to enjoy the grand opening of the facility.

"I think it's a good idea to make art that engages you," said Laura Conrad, a 38-year-old office worker.
"You interact with people you don't know at all," she adds.