HARLEKINÄUM
In 1990, art collectors Ute and Michael Berger set up the HARLEKINÄUM, "The craziest museum in the world", according to their self-imposed claim and advertising slogan, in a farmhouse ensemble in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, which houses HARLEKIN Geschenke, the company they founded in 1969. The crazy thing about it is the incredible number of ideas and inventions that Ute and Michael Berger have developed for HARLEKIN Geschenke in collaboration with Stelli Stellmacher over more than three decades, including the East Frisian mug with a handle on the inside, the bosom mug, the Lusthansa sticker and even collectible condoms. Eight so-called experience rooms are filled with them, from the "Classic Gallery" to the "Bath in the Jungle". In one of the rooms, the world is literally upside down, in another you walk through a giant cheese. A museum to marvel at, to shake your head with a smile and to laugh at. It is a "journey into the world of humor, the surreal". As befits a museum of this kind, visitors entering the HARLEKINÄUM have to slip into felt slippers, which are displayed here as "fun slippers" in the form of tiger paws or crow's feet.
Literature
Bien, Helmut et al: The cheerful and cheeky Harlequin encyclopedia. Lach- & Sach - Mal! Lexicon, Wiesbaden 1990.