if walls could tell

“Why the hell does everybody want to succeed?
I’d like to meet somebody who wanted to fail. That’s the only sublime thing.”

—John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer, 1925

The transnational project if walls could tell, by artist Mischa Kuball, questions art institutions with regard to their permeability to broader social groups within a community. In various cities across Southeastern Europe, the walls will be installed in public spaces, symbolizing museum or gallery walls. Like a filter, these walls will collect all “traces” of cultural and urban expressions amid people’s urban lives, away from the cultural institutions to which they refer. Once marked by the environment and the people, the stage then returns to its institutional context; securing the traces left behind or for further inscription.

Acting as a catalyst in this context, Mischa Kuball opens up the space to all citizens, who in turn become direct content producers, participants, and co-authors in the production of a collaborative artwork. They are thus regarded as political subjects who should be able to appropriate all available instruments that turn them into active users and not passive consumers, raising the question: What happens when citizens, potential museum public, and artists get “freedom of expression” in public space, uncommon to museum exhibition politics and practice?

Artist Mischa Kuball states: “With the public intervention if walls could tell, we have already experienced the transformative power of cultural participation in Sarajevo, Bucharest, Skopje, and Chișinău. We have seen firsthand how these ‘white walls’—symbols of cultural institutions—become catalysts for public discourse in their respective urban contexts. The speed and conviction with which they are claimed and inscribed by the community have surprised us. These forces—artists, citizens, cultural activists—have refused to be erased from the public sphere, resisting political, economic, and social pressures. This sends a powerful message: sometimes, all it takes is a ‘white wall’ for voices to emerge, for stories to be told, and for cultural expression to assert itself as a visible, undeniable force in society.”

Once the walls are returned to the museum or gallery venue, an important aspect of the project includes orchestrating a public debate with artists, art historians, theorists, and curators, among others. The discussions are each be based on the previously observed social issues and problems in each of the local contexts and inspired by the interventions, statements, and imprints left behind on the walls. The context specific discursive programs is developed together with partner institutions and with speakers well acquainted with local socio-political and art contexts.

if walls could tell was launched in August 2024 in the public space near the future Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art building in Sarajevo. In 2024, the process was replicated in various partner cities/venues, such as The National Museum of the Romanian Peasant in Bucharest and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Skopje. In 2025, the project was shown in the Galeria Plai in collaboration with the Center for Contemporary Art [KSA:K], Chișinău.

Iterations of the project in 2025 are planned for Ljubljana, Kraljevica, and Čačak. In each of the partner cities, after being installed in the public space, the walls will return to the museum or gallery where panel discussions will be held to thematize the impact of the participatory art in public space within their specific context. The project will end at the WELTKUNSTZIMMER in Düsseldorf, where the final discussion with all partners will take place.

Upcoming dates:
MGML—Galerijia Vžigalica / Match Gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Panel discussion: April 15, 11 am (at the City Museum of Ljubljana)
Inauguration: April 15, 1 pm
With: Eda Čufer (dramaturge, curator, and writer, Faculty Member at AVA – Academy of Visual Arts, Ljubljana), Urška Jurman (curator, editor, and art writer), Mojca Puncer (Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maribor), Apolonija Šušteršič (visual artist, architect, and independent researcher)

Frankopan Castle, Kraljevica, Croatia
Inauguration: April 23, 6 pm
Panel discussion: April 25, 5 pm
With: Branka Benčić (art historian and curator, director of Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka), Sanja Bojanić (philosopher, Professor at the Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka), Igor Eškinja (artist, Associate Professor at the Academy of Applied Arts, University of Rijeka), Lina Franko (artist, artistic director of RIZOM [K])

Art Gallery “Nadežda Petrović,” Čačak, Serbia
Inauguration: June 5, 11 am
Panel discussion: June 7, 5 pm
With: Mariela Cvetić (artist and art theorist, Professor at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade), Jasmina Čubrilo (art historian, Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade), Bojan Đorđev (theatre maker), Predrag Živković (curator at the Art Gallery “Nadežda Petrović” Čačak)

Curator of the project and moderator of the panels: Zoran Erić, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade

About the artist
Conceptual artist Mischa Kuball has been working in the public and institutional sphere since 1977. From 2007 onwards Kuball has been a professor of public art at the Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, and from 2006 to 2008 professor of media art at Hochschule für Gestaltung/ZKM, Karlsruhe. Since 2015 he has been a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts, Düsseldorf. In 2016 he was honored with the German Light Award. Since the spring of 2024, he has been an associate member of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Matters of Activity. Image Space Material’ at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.