Hidden History – Facets of Subculture in Frankfurt Rhine-Main

The Frankfurter Kunstverein invites the Diamant / Museum for Urban Culture, Offenbach to the Steinernes Haus at Römerberg. Developed through close collaboration, the project unfolds as a four-week cooperation featuring numerous actions, activations, and opportunities for participation.

Hidden History is more than an exhibition. It presents spaces of documentation and reflection on historical and contemporary positions of subversive and subcultural activity through installations, interactive environments, visual wall newspapers, collaborative wall drawings, tape art, performances, and video installations.

Which actors and activities have shaped the scene in Frankfurt–Offenbach–Rhine-Main in recent years? And how do they continue to influence the cultural fabric of the city today?

Culture is usually transmitted through lasting images and texts. Ephemeral and undocumented practices circulate through oral histories, myths, and stories, gradually fading and disappearing over time. This is not only true for distant cultures but also for our own age of information.

The recent cultural history of our region has not been shaped solely by institutions and forms of high culture, along with their networks and publics. Although certain aspects of subculture occasionally enter the cultural pages, beneath the surface there remains a vibrant culture of the street and the urban realm—often below the threshold of what is formally documented, yet highly influential within specific scenes.