Die endlose Verlängerung der Kindheit

SLEEK ART SPACE is a platform for art and discourse. As an extension of the print issue, we invite artists and thinkers to engage, exchange ideas and share perspectives. On the occasion of the FIFA World Cup 2026, we invited artists to respond to football within the space, while author Mortiz Rinke guides us in these pages through his personal journey between writing and the sport.

Football at SLEEK ART SPACE, Berlin, 11 June – 3 September 2026

ART AND FOOTBALL are not necessarily a pairing that comes to mind immediately, although the visual dimension has always been integral to the game. Football is spectacle. From improvised kickabouts with neighbourhood friends to the staging of the World Cup between nations, clubs and fan communities from every corner of the globe. The FIFA World Cup has existed for almost a century, and although the fundamental principles of the game have remained unchanged – two teams, one ball, score goals – football has continuously opened up new social and cultural dimensions. It has developed into a visual topography of presentation, projection and collective self-understanding. Above all, football is a mirror of society. The game speaks of bodies and communities, of identity and belonging, of consumption, power and geopolitics. Few other cultural phenomena are charged with such emotion worldwide while being so seamlessly integrated into everyday life. Through the work of four artists – Annique Delphine, Carlo Bellmann, Julius Bauer and Tom Stechert – the exhibition examines football not only as a sport, but as a cultural image system and a social space of resonance. Approaching the subject through different perspectives and materials, the works share an interest in the symbols, emotions and mechanisms that shape foot- ball far beyond the boundaries of the pitch.

For the FUSSBALL EXHIBITION, it was important not only to connect art and football, but also to create a dialogue between the physical Art Space and this issue of SLEEK, PLAY. As part of this, we invited Moritz Rinke to offer a personal reflection on his relationship with the game. Rinke writes about football as a way of life, about writers on uneven local pitches, Hans Meyer, Netzer and Beckenbauer. Above all, he writes about the magic of major tournaments, those moments when adults become children again.

When I was a child and had a cold, lying in bed and unable to go to school, my parents would let me watch the first half of evening football matches on TV. That was how I came to watch the semi-final of the 1976 European Championship, Yugoslavia versus Germany. At half-time, it was 2-0 to Yugoslavia, and I was lying in bed in tears with my Kicker magazine. When Dieter Müller, who had just come on as a substitute, scored the equaliser to make it 2-2, my father woke me up and I was allowed to watch two more Müller goals in extra time, bringing the final score to 4-2. Of course, in the days leading up to the final against Czechoslovakia, I did my best to stay ill, but just in time I suddenly felt bet- ter, so that watching the match would certainly do me no harm. Yes, I did indeed get to see Uli Hoeneß miss his penalty in the shoot-out. The ball flew high into the Belgrade evening sky, and I still often think about that missed penalty today. Germany had lost. I had to go to school the next day feeling tired and spent the rest of the week practising penalty shoot-outs on our North German moorland meadow among the cows. I often think back to those early childhood days of football during these weeks. In fact, before every major tournament, I become that child again, because for anyone who has loved football since childhood, the World Cup naturally begins months in advance. In February and March, when the Bunde- sliga returns from the winter break; when the Champions League enters the knockout stages; when the national coach is increasingly sitting in the stands watching players, and we, the fans, are watching him too. The time before the World Cup is the most sensitive period, the most delicate. We fans study form curves and ankle joints with concern and implore the na- tional coach: “Just take Füllkrug as well, he’s got power and magic even without match practice! And please don’t play Kim- mich in the number six role, he leaves too many gaps!” In May, we eagerly await the first announcement of the World Cup squad. During the last squad announcement, I was at the European Writers’ Conference, scrolling through the names under my chair. “Why on earth Süle??” I muttered to myself. Until then, I had had no idea how to make a meaningful contri- bution at the conference, but now I would have loved to stand up and announce: “Müller in despite muscle problems!” At some point, my life as a playwright and writer had tak- en a strange turn. Perhaps it all began in 2005 in Mecklen- burg-Western Pomerania. On a bumpy pitch with no goals, 11 writers gathered for a ceremonial meeting to launch the German national writers’ team. One stood on the touchline, repeatedly trying to keep the ball in the air like Sisyphus. Another fell over and broke his arm. At least there was one proven coach on the pitch shaking his head: Hans Meyer, then manager of Hertha BSC.

Hans Meyer, then manager of Hertha BSC. We later travelled with him to the first Writers’ World Cup in Tuscany, Italy. By then, the DFB had taken notice of us and sent us to interna- tional writers’ matches in England, France, Italy, Israel, Ukraine, Turkey, Brazil and even Saudi Arabia. Sometimes my publisher would ring and ask where the new manuscript was, and I would reply: “Soon, after the next international match!” The World Cup in Sweden was already on the horizon, in Malmö, in the very stadium where Pelé had become world champion in 1958. I managed to persuade Hans Meyer, now head coach at 1. FC Nürnberg, to make Nürnberg’s training ground available to us. Friendly matches against Austria and Saudi Arabia went very well. We had started out like Monty Python on a football pitch, and now they were reporting on us on Das Aktuelle Sportstudio. Hans Meyer even mentioned me in Kicker, in the beloved Kicker! Soon afterwards, I met Philipp Lahm to discuss writing books on behalf of a weekly newspaper. He had just published Der feine Unterschied, while I had released my first volume of declarations of love for football. A particularly nice encounter was with Horst Eckel, one of the 1954 World Cup winners, who told me about the song Sepp Herberger had ordered the team to sing under the “shower” after the Miracle of Bern against Hungary. Eckel closed his eyes for a moment, then sang “Hoch auf dem gelben Wagen” (“High up on the yellow wagon”), and suddenly it was as though I were standing there beneath the shower in Bern myself. Meanwhile, Werder Bremen had also taken notice of me and appointed me as their official ambassador. There were also some genuinely difficult moments, such as the phone call from former DFB president Theo Zwan- ziger asking whether I could testify in a trial against Günter Netzer. I had once heard Netzer say at a hotel bar what Beck- enbauer had allegedly told him about Germany being award- ed the World Cup. Stupidly, I had repeated this off the record to Der Spiegel, who in turn informed Zwanziger. “Dear Mr. Zwanziger,” I replied, “your commitment to fight- ing racism, your comment about Qatar being a cancer on world football, brilliant, but I can’t testify against Netzer. I’m a writer! What on earth do you all want from me?” It was the only moment in my strange footballing life when I referred to my actual core competence. Or another bizarre moment, in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s Lamborghini. My team and I had just produced a book about Borussia Dortmund, You Have to Be Able to Read a Game, and former BVB captain Sebastian Kehl had invited me to the end-of-season party. The evening ended with me trying to drive a drunk Aubamey- ang home in his Lamborghini Aventador and nearly crashing into Mats Hummels’ Vespa. I had no idea how quickly that thing could accelerate. As I pulled out of the parking space, I also found myself thinking of Horst Eckel and the song: “Hoch auf dem gelben Wagen” (“High up on the yellow wagon”).

So where does this unbridled love of football come from? Can one, as a writer, explain it intellectually? The game as a mirror of society? The game as a glimpse into the abyss of human ex- istence? The game as a dramatic collision of opposing forces (Hegel), as an acceptance of chance (Camus), as a Dionysian frenzy (Nietzsche), as the highest concentration (Jogi Löw)? It may well be all of those things, but for me, over all these years, football perhaps represented more of a desire to hold back adulthood and, with it, old age. Perhaps football was al- ways something like the endless extension of childhood. An elixir for the childlike, a vaccine against interruptions to the game, ensuring that play would never end. And perhaps my writing, too, always required this inner child, for what were drama and literature other than playful arrangements? But how do we manage, time and again, to endure the ter- rible takeover of football by money and its co-option by officials? FIFA? Infantino? Qatar? Now a World Cup with Trump? And soon a World Cup in Saudi Arabia? Against all this money, greed and power in the official FIFA world, does our game still stand a chance? Yes. And why? Presumably only through the power of all those football-loving kids.