Now that the quarantine rules seem to be easing down and more and more people start to brave the outdoors, we’re all turning our attention to the surrounding environment that some of us tried to avoid for many days. The art project Claude is making this experience more inspiring by placing artworks in the urban space for all of us to discover.
The project Claude is devoted to creating unconventional encounters between art and audiences. Rather than rescheduling their program of events due to the pandemic, the creators behind the project decided to tackle the challenge in a creative way and did not fail to bring the art ”closer to the people”.
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by Michalina | Art
photo: Nika Kramer.
Last Autumn, the incredible Urban Nation museum for contemporary urban and street art has given us one of the most memorable exhibitions with their own Biennale. Using the empty space underneath the subway train viaduct right in front of their main building they installed a walk-through immersive installation featuring countless urban artists from around the world. The main museum building was a sight not to be missed as well, as huge tentacles were sticking out of the windows as if the museum had been invaded by a giant octopus.
It’s incredibly sad what is currently taking over the building: nothing. Because of the pandemic, it had to close much like any other big gallery, museum and cultural space until an unknown point in the future. The current exhibition is excellent and features works from iconic artists such as D*FACE, Nychos, Martin Whatson, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Vhils, and THE LONDON POLICE. If you haven’t seen it yet, now there is a new way to experience the museum. Following the lead of several other art spaces, Urban Nation has now released a virtual tour, and it’s actually a guided one with hosted by art dealer Markus Georg.
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by Frank | Art, Videos
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Today we want to introduce you to a very special event that will tickle the interest of both street art lovers and runners alike: The On Art Run.
Our new guest writer Laurent has already introduced himself to you as a running enthusiast who likes to combine this sport with other activities and also compiled a list of the best running routes in Berlin for us. To our big delight this week there is a chance for all of you to go out running with him for the On Art Run that will take place on Thursday starting in Kreuzberg and going all the way Friedrichshain past some of the most iconic street art murals of the city including the cosmonaut by Victor Ash that was recently illuminated by a spectacular video mapping.
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by Frank | Events, Wellness
photo: Vismante Ruzgaite.
Whether you are just getting into running or are already a regular runner, Berlin is the right place for you. The city has one of the largest and most dedicated running communities in the world. Berlin is the only city in Europe besides London to be part of the World Marathon Majors, the world’s most prestigious running events. Some of the most popular running groups were born in Berlin and then spread around the world. Nowadays, running goes beyond sports, it’s a lifestyle. Everywhere you go in Berlin, you can really feel the presence of the running culture. For me, running has been a great way to discover a city, to connect with its people and of course, stay fit!
I am happy to share with you my top 5 running routes in Berlin that I enjoy the most.
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by Guest Author | Wellness
As one of the newest museums in the city and with a focus on such a young and developing genre the team of Urban Nation, Berlin’s first permanent museum for contemporary urban art and street art, have a lot of explaining and educating to do. While urban and street art is still fighting for recognition in the otherwise quite elitist world of contemporary art the wide audience of the art enthusiasts and art-curious have long embraced it – especially because this particular genre of art is so open and accessible on various levels.
With their artist in residence program, Urban Nation is continuing on that path of making art, the artist and the artistic progress accessible to everyone who is interested – no matter if they are an art collector or curious grandmother. Embracing the fact that the house the museum was constructed in used to be a regular residential building, part of it is still occupied by apartments that function as living studios for the artists participating in the residencies. Right now the first batch of artists has finished their time and open their apartments for the public to see the results of their work. What you step into is not just a regular apartment or artist studio, they are like little art installations almost as if you were to step into the mind of the artist. It’s a great way to understand more about the creation process and the personal aspects of the works. If you are lucky that the artists are there at the moment of your visit you will also get to chat with them about their motivations, techniques and artistic visions.
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by Frank | Art
After a year of suspension and anticipation it’s finally the time: Germany’s first street art and urban art museum Urban Nation is celebrating its big opening this coming Saturday (September 16th 2017, at 19h) and we had the chance to take a sneak peek and snap some pictures in advance!
Urban Nation has a really compelling history here in Berlin. Founder Yasha Young started the project in 2013 by organizing exhibitions on the many empty facades of Berlin’s building. We owe many of Berlin’s cool street art murals to her. Before that she used to run an urban art gallery in Berlin and New York, but the few walls of a gallery space were simply not big enough for what she envisioned. With Urban Nation of course there was a masterplan behind it. Funded by the Berliner Leben foundation and designed by prestigious architecture bureau Graft she created the first museum for street art and urban art in Germany – right in the heart of Schöneberg. Thanks to the ever changing murals in the neighborhood the whole area around Bülowstraße has now been transformed into a hot spot for urban art. Whole building facades are covered with artworks there which is quite the contrast to the many grey residential buildings in Berlin.
Urban Nation aims to become not only an exhibition space for artists who used to present their work on the streets, but also an archive for urban art like it never existed before anywhere. It’s an exciting edition to the art and museum scene of Berlin and we are excited to see what the future holds for this place.
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by Frank | Art, Galleries, Museums, Schöneberg
Andrea Wan
The pair of the upcoming two weekends is one of those you should be looking forward to with extra intensity. The Gallery Weekend is an annual initiative during which you have the chance to discover galleries and exhibition spaces through numerous art openings and exhibition. Because one weekend is certainly enough there are a few independent shows already opening or already open on this weekend before it gets official on the final weekend in April next week. You’ll definitely find something special in our list including numerous painting exhibitions, a paper-mache project with the Marx and Engels sculptures, and even a virtual reality techno show.
by Michalina | Art
The Street Art Museum, photo: Urban Nation.
‘Urban Art to me, means to hold a conversation in public’
Yasha Young is visibly thrilled. The director of Urban Nation, a network for street art and Urban Contemporary Art is celebrating the upcoming opening the world’s first Street Art Museum on September 16, 2017.
“Urban Art is a contemporary witness, who shows himself to everyone”, Young says with her voice shaking lightly. And with this year, this witness is about to be seen by even more people, right in the midst of Schöneberg.
Get more information about this unique project and see first drafts and a trailer for the museum after the jump. Read on…
by Yasmin | Galleries, Schöneberg
Berlin-based artist Vermibus uses fashion advertisements as his canvas, transforming misinterpreted glamour and beauty into deformed, ghoulish entities. You may have already noticed his works in the streets and subway stations of Berlin – his intriguing advertisements are hard to miss. Not only that, these so-called “ads” are not what they seem. Using collected advertising posters from the streets as his base; Vermibus opposes the act of painting by erasing the images with solvent; a similar process that creates pieces by removing parts of the image to reveal a new character. In doing so, Vermibus initiates discourse on contemporary ads, criticizing the representation of humans through the media’s lens. The streets of Berlin play an essential role, as people stop and stare at his dehumanized figures that were already depersonalized, no longer seen as trivial photographs, which stripped the models of their identities, replacing them with the identities of the brands. Catch a glimpse of some of his works, and find out about his upcoming exhibition in Berlin after the jump. Read on…
by Skylar | Art
Dabs Myla, Shoot The Moon
This Saturday, Berlin Schöneberg’s Bülowstraße will see a very exclusive group of international and local urban artists unpacking their stencils, cans, tapes, brushes, glue, cutter, foil, paperboard and so on, to utilize the shop windows and facade of a building that is currently mostly unoccupied. This is “Project M/“, a temporary art project that has the goal and objective to improve the neighborhood, to push creativity and to connect artists and communities. Urban Nation with director Yasha Young is the creative force behind this exciting art project.
For the installation this Saturday she joined forces with L.A.-based Thinkspace Gallery and together they came up with an amazing roster of artists from around the globe: Alexis Diaz (La Pandilla) from Puerto Rico, stencil artist C215 from France, Nosego from the US, the Aussies of Dabs Myla, the Berlin-based Low Bros and many more will be part of the project. Once the artists are finished with their work on the evening of May 17, a large, colorful Open-Air Gallery will be realized, on view for all passers-by until the next round of Project M/. And as if that’s not enough the Urban Nation office just across the street opens with a huge pop-up show named LAX/TXL on Saturday, too. More info about that one after the jump.
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by Guest Author | Art
