Skip to main content

J.K. Ping-Pong Club

Two adults play ping pong in a black and white photograph
Július Koller, Selection from J.K. Ping-pongový klub (U.F.O.), akčný environment (J.K. Ping-Pong Club (U.F.O.), Actions Environment), 1970, black-and-white photograph image courtesy Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna; photo: Milan Sirkovský; ©Július Koller Society

Tickets & Info

Tickets & Info

This event has passed Become a member
Price Free

On Thursday nights this winter, the Walker revives Július Koller’s Ping-Pong Club, seen in the exhibition Multiple Realities.

In a radical response to conditions in the socialist Eastern Bloc in the late 1960s, Koller used ping-pong to activate a paralyzed public who became desensitized to the violence and corruption happening around them. The original J.K. Ping-Pong Club installations came with no art accompaniments, asking players to engage without distraction and putting the power of fair play back in their hands.

One part art installation and one part sport, the J.K. Ping-Pong Club invites visitors to pick up a paddle and play. Special guests to be announced as featured competitors.

All supplies are provided.

Accessibility

Audience participation requested/required.

For more information about accessibility or to request additional accommodations for this performance, call 612-375-7564 or email access@walkerart.org.

For more information about accessibility at the Walker, visit our Access page.

Free Thursday Nights are sponsored by

<p>Free Thursday Nights are sponsored by</p>

Related events

After Hours Opening Night Party: Multiple Realities
A woman laughs while holding a drink and talking to a man at a party where the room is bathed in purple light.

Fri Nov 10, 2023

After Hours Opening Night Party: Multiple Realities

Opening-Day Programs: Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s
Black and white photograph of two men in the seventies leaning against a metal fence in front of a park with a large picture of Lenin attached to a wooden pole. Each man holds a bottle of beer and one of them lifts the bottle in his hand at the viewer.

Sat Nov 11, 2023

Opening-Day Programs: Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s

One on One: Five Ways In
Two adults talk to one another inf ront of a wall filled with portraits in a large white art gallery.

Thu Feb 08, 2024

One on One: Five Ways In

Free Thursday Night: Festival of Snow
An adult stand inside a exhibit looking at a book and it obscured by a colorful semi-transparent screen.

Thu Feb 01, 2024

Free Thursday Night: Festival of Snow

Related articles

It’s No Accident Socialism Started Here: A Conversation with Zdenka Badovinac

Jake Yuzna

Visual Arts

It’s No Accident Socialism Started Here: A Conversation with Zdenka Badovinac

Raised in a country that no longer exists, Slovenian curator and writer Zdenka Badovinac discusses commandership, the potential of minority positions, and how rethinking socialism might help tackle life in today's unraveling worlds.
Multiple Realities Book Design Notes
Design Visual Arts

Multiple Realities Book Design Notes

How does Acid Communism lead to a book? Exhibition catalogue designer Žiga Testen explains.
A Non-Western Exchange: Looking Back at Transnational Cinema Education in the Cold War Eastern Bloc
Two men standing next to a film camera on a city street looking at are reflected

Pavel Pyś

Moving Image Visual Arts

A Non-Western Exchange: Looking Back at Transnational Cinema Education in the Cold War Eastern Bloc

From the 1950s through the end of the 1980s, the film and TV schools in Prague and Poland attracted hundreds of students from countries including Syria, Algeria, Iran, India, Colombia, and Cuba. Looking back at this history, a group of scholars reconsider the successes and failures of this attempt by authorities to promote global socialist solidarity.

Dates & Tickets

No dates are currently available for this event.