First day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, and what better sign of renewal than a fresh Urban Nation bloom—sprouting defiantly among the dried leaves, cigarette butts, and abandoned Berliner Pilsner bottles?
As part of an ongoing conversation with curator Michelle Houston about the latest show at Urban Nation, LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY, we find ourselves drawn to the echoes of the Situationists, those restless wanderers who believed the city wasn’t just a place but an experience—one that tugs at your emotions, plays with your psychology, and sometimes leads you straight to an impromptu picnic on Görlitzer Park’s slightly suspect grass.
The show isn’t just a tribute to urban spaces; it’s a love note, a protest, and a collection of insights into the streets that shape us and our experience.
Video credits: Commissioned by Stiftung Berliner Leben. Shot by Alexander Lichtner & Ilja Braun. Post-production, additional footage, graphics, and a final version by Michelle Nimpsch for YAP Studio/YES, AND… productions GmbH & Co. KG
This is a new mini-installment from our interview with Michelle Houston about the current show at Urban Nation, LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY.
“Why is public space not about public discourse and the things that are happening?,” asks Houston. “Why, have we got cigarette adverts and not conversations about social mobility?”
Even during these cold Berlin winter days, Urban Nation lights a warm fire inside your mind and imagination and gives you ideas to discuss and consider – and questions to ponder. Whose city are we living in?
Video credits: Commissioned by Stiftung Berliner Leben. Shot by Alexander Lichtner & Ilja Braun. Post-production, additional footage, graphics, and a final version by Michelle Nimpsch for YAP Studio/YES, AND… productions GmbH & Co. KG
Urban Nation’s Love Letters to the City, curated by Michelle Houston, is both an exhibition and a fulsome, sophisticated incantation. It invites audiences to confront the layered realities of urban life through the interpretation of its anonymous visual rebels, graffiti writers, and street artists and a generous representation of activists.
The show embraces the chaotic energy of unsanctioned art in the streets while seeking to decode its deeper meanings. It moves beyond the aesthetic to probe the social and political forces that shape these messages, sometimes manifestos. With themes ranging from urbanization and gentrification to environmental degradation and social inequality, Houston challenges visitors to imagine and reimagine the role of art in public spaces and consider its potential to transform the everyday into something with weight and impact.
“Painting in public spaces is inherently political,” Houston says, emphasizing the power of public art to reflect and react to the environment in which it exists. This exhibition showcases that power, exploring how artists navigate and reinterpret public spaces to create works that are as much about dialogue as they are about visual impact. The concept of “love letters” broadens here to encompass affection, critique, sarcasm, and hope—as multifaceted as the modern city.
One of the exhibition’s defining features is its indoor and outdoor elements integration. Lady Pink’s monumental mural on Urban Nation’s façade is a vivid testament to her approximately fifty-year legacy of painting on city walls and the interconnected histories of New York and Berlin. Her work, swirling with trains and iconic tags, serves as a personal love letter and a broader commentary on the universal city—a place of movement, reinvention, and resilience. Inside, installations like Moses & Taps’ suspended parcel truck and Rocco and His Brothers’ reconstructed graffiti writers’ benches disrupt the museum space with some of the raw energy of the street, blurring the lines between the institution and the public sphere.
The show also delves into Berlin’s complex history with walls and paint, with artifacts from the Stiftung Berliner Mauer prompting viewers to consider the dualities of oppression and liberation that define the city’s narrative.
“What is it about the glorification of a symbol of oppression by painting one side, and how was that commercialized?” Houston asks, pushing audiences to think critically about how art interacts with history and commodification. These questions resonate deeply in a city where the walls bear witness to decades of struggle and transformation.
The exhibition combines an impressive roster of artists, from early pioneers like Blek le Rat and Shepard Fairey to contemporary innovators like Bordalo II and Jazoo Yang. Each work offers a distinct perspective on the urban experience, whether through critiques of environmental decay, explorations of social identity, or celebrations of urban resilience. Houston’s curation creates space for these voices to intersect, offering unity and tension as the exhibition’s themes unfold.
At its heart, Love Letters to the City is a call to reconsider how we interact daily with the designed/built/neglected/destroyed human-made environment. It asks us to see the city as a backdrop and an active participant in our lives—a canvas where personal and collective histories collide.
As Houston asserts, “Paint in public space has a different potency in the city than anywhere else.” That potency lies in its immediacy, ability to provoke, offend, and inspire, and capacity to reflect urban life’s complexities. Through this exhibition, Urban Nation affirms the enduring relevance of this kind of public art and its power to illuminate the cities we call home.
2501, Banksy, Blek le Rat, Bordalo II, Carlos Mare aka Mare139, Chop ’em Down Films, Crash, Dan Witz, Daze, Drew. Lab_One, Elfo, Evol, HA Schult, HOGRE, Isaac Zavale, James Reka, Jaune, Jazoo Yang, Joel Daniel Phillips, Johannnes Mundinger, Jordan Seiler, Kenny Scharf, Lady Pink, Liviu Bulea, Martha Cooper, Matthew Grabelsky, MILLO, Moses & Taps, Nika Kramer, Octavi Serra, Owen Dippie, OX, PAINTING DHAKA Project, Mr. Paradox Paradise, Rocco and his brothers, Sebas Velasco, Shepard Fairey, Stephanie Buer, Stiftung Berliner Mauer, Stipan Tadić, Susanna Jerger, Tats Cru, THE WA, Vhils, and Zhang Dali.
Video credits: Commissioned by Stiftung Berliner Leben. Shot by Alexander Lichtner & Ilja Braun. Post-production, additional footage, graphics, and a final version by Michelle Nimpsch for YAP Studio/YES, AND… productions GmbH & Co. KG
LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY
September 14, 2024 – May 30, 2027. For a schedule of events, hours of operation, directions, and more details click HERE
Berlin is teeming with artists of all kinds—not just street artists and graffiti writers—from around the world. For decades, the city has been a natural magnet for creatives. In conjunction with the new exhibition Love Letters to the City, Urban Nation brought around 20 artists to the streets surrounding the museum. The diverse techniques and styles showcased here reflect the incredible talent in the city—a convergence of dreams, aspirations, and life paths intersecting in this urban landscape. Below is a selection of walls and images we captured during the UN celebrations.
URBAN NATION MUSEUM’S EXHIBITION “LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY” is currently on view. The Community Murals are also on view and free to the public. For schedules and further details click HERE
Join BSA this week in Berlin as we celebrate the opening of “Love Letters to the City,” the new exhibition at Urban Nation Museum. We’ll also be tooling around the city and sharing whatever catches our eye.
“Love Letters to the City is a homage to the city, the idea of the universal city,” curator Michelle Houston reflects while seated at a picnic table outside a Thai restaurant in Berlin’s Schöneberg neighborhood. As final installations are taking place in Urban Nation, Houston’s gazes upward at the new mural on its façade being painted by OG train writer Lady Pink on a cherry picker at the museum. This mural is part of Houston’s upcoming show, “Love Letters to the City.”
“I think paint in public spaces has a different potency in the city than anywhere else,” Houston explains, discussing the exhibition’s outdoor and indoor installations. She highlights the various ways Urban Nation is presenting the evolution of graffiti and street art, noting its role in urbanization, gentrification, and even social conditioning. “It does much more than just present pretty images.”
The museum’s exhibition features a diverse array of works, including full-scale three-dimensional installations and sculptures. A significant portion of the pieces are borrowed from the museum’s permanent collection, while others are newly commissioned from both national and international artists.
Currently, Lady Pink, born Sandra Fabara in 1964 in Ecuador, is working on her mural two stories above the bustling street. Her piece, an illustrative and fantastical love letter of her own, features a swirling train reminiscent of the NYC subway trains she became famous for painting in the early 1980s. Her work includes improvisational tags of other iconic figures from that era. In Berlin, where graffiti and street art have transformed entire neighborhoods and established it a magnet for creativity in the public space, her mural is a testament to the city’s rich artistic history.
For Houston, the mural is just one example of “the ingenious ways that artists hack and appropriate public space.”
Urban Nation Museum in Berlin invites New York legend Lady Pink to paint the museum façade to open the new exhibition, “Love Letters to the City.”
Opening at the URBAN NATION Museum on Friday, September 13, 2024, this multi-factorial and dynamic showcase, curated by Michelle Houston, celebrates the city’s essence through the eyes of over fifty international and Berlin-based street artists.
Keeping the focus local, the festivities with the Bülow Streetart Jam start Monday, September 9, with the Bülow Street Festival leading up to the grand exhibition launch. Hosted by the Berliner Leben Foundation and Gewobag, the community-centered event will invite participants from all over to be part of the art-making. The day after the exhibition opening, there will also be a Fresh A.I.R. Open House on September 14; where artists will offer a behind-the-scenes look at their current projects.
“Love Letters to the City” invites you to consider how art transforms and reflects urban spaces, our adoption of and reaction to them, and, ultimately, how they become part of the definition of a city. The new exhibition aims to spark critical conversations about urbanization, gentrification, and social issues. Among the extensive offerings are powerful works that challenge our perspectives and possibly inspire change within our shared human-built environments.
Come to Berlin to celebrate with BSA and UN as we explore the profound impact of street art on our cityscapes.
Exhibition Opening: September 13, 2024, 7–11 pm URBAN NATION Museum, Bülowstraße 7, 10783 Berlin
Participating artists: 2501, Aniruddh Mehta, Banksy, Blek le Rat, Bordalo II, Carlos Mare aka Mare139, Chop ’em Down Films, Crash, Dan Witz, Daze, Drew.Lab_One, Elfo, Evol, HA Schult, HOGRE, Isaac Zavale, James Reka, Jaune, Jazoo Yang, Joel Daniel Phillips, Johannnes Mundinger, Jordan Seiler, Kenny Scharf, Lady Pink, Liviu Bulea, Martha Cooper, Matthew Grabelsky, MILLO, Moses & Taps, Nika Kramer, Octavi Serra, Owen Dippie, OX, PAINTING DHAKA Project, Paradox, Rocco and his brothers, Sebas Velasco, Shepard Fairey, Stephanie Buer, Stiftung Berliner Mauer, Stipan Tadić, Susanna Jerger, Tats Cru, THE WA, Vhils and Zhang Dali.
BÜLOW STREETART JAM September 9 to 14, 2024 Bülowstraße around the URBAN NATION Museum
The week before the grand opening of the exhibition LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY creative people from all over the world will paint new Community Walls and create Floating Murals. Among the highlights is the new museum façade of the URBAN NATION by Lady Pink, a tribute to the city. The artist Jazoo Yang invites you to become part of a unique community wall, where you can put your fingerprint on a wall at Bülowstr. 95 and leave a colorful trace. Join in on September 14, 2024, 12-6 pm.
FOR COMPLETE LIST OF PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AND SCHEDULE CLICK HERE
BÜLOW STREET FESTIVAL September 13 to 15, 2024 Zietenstraße, 10783 Berlin, at the URBAN NATION Museum
In conjunction with the opening of the LOVE LETTERS TO THE CITY exhibition at the URBAN NATION Museum and the Berlin Democracy Day month of action, we are focusing on diversity and creative exchange in our city. The Bülow Street Festival brings together social and artistic projects committed to an open and inclusive society. It offers an opportunity to discover art and culture together and be inspired by the city’s creative energy. The weekend attracts visitors with artistic workshops, temporary floating murals, rousing music, exciting performances, delicious street food and more. Come celebrate with BSA as we will be in Berlin all week – come Celebrate with us!
OPEN HOUSE at Fresh A.I.R. #9 September 14, 2024, 4-8 pm Bülowstr. 7, 10783 Berlin
Fresh A.I.R.’s OPEN HOUSE offers an exclusive look behind the scenes and the unique opportunity to talk to artists and peer over their shoulders. Come by on September 14 between 4 and 8 p.m.
A great project has just emerged from the collaboration between Urban Nation Museum and the dynamic Berlin-based street art duo Various and Gould. This new addition to the ONE WALL series has been expertly curated by Michelle C. Houston, with valuable production support from YAP. The project bears the name ‘We all belong to this community’ (Wir alle hier gehören zum Wir). At a time when xenophobia has been on the rise in many Western societies, public art has taken on a crucial role in educating and reconnecting people and communities.
What makes this project in the Berlin-Spandau district truly captivating is its engagement with local kids at a youth center through an inspiring art workshop. During this workshop, the artists introduced their mural concept and collaborated with the young participants to create captivating collages and individual portrait photos. The mural is an eclectic collage sketch that beautifully incorporates elements from the participants’ faces, effectively symbolizing a collective identity for the neighborhood.
The artists behind this remarkable piece tell us, ‘Our mural is based on a collage from our ongoing Face Time series, which we initiated back in 2015 to celebrate human diversity and question conventional beauty standards.’ Throughout the mural’s creation, the artists meticulously inscribed numerous first names on the wall, including those of workshop participants and other individuals they encountered in the neighborhood. Remarkably, the project seemed to tap into the live pulse of community sentiment as kids and adults gathered on the sidewalk below, joyfully shouting out their names to be included in the mural. A local legend named Moha even stepped in to lend a helping hand by sending lists of names up to the artists’ phones.
As Various notes, ‘When you paint a mural, it’s an exhilarating journey where every day and hour counts, and you must transform your sketch into a grand-scale masterpiece.’ It’s a process that demands intense concentration, all while under the watchful eyes of local residents. Gould adds, ‘Our playful approach might make it seem effortless, but each step of the way is filled with intensity.’ This is evident in instances such as when they found themselves stuck in a lift – and during the tumultuous, rainy hours when painting was challenging.
In essence, this mural project not only showcases the remarkable creative talents of the artists but also underscores the significance of community and diversity in the face of pressing societal issues like racism and exclusion. Their manner and message both serve as powerful reminders of the need for every member of society to feel valued and included.
Various and Gould would like to express their gratitude and extend a heartfelt shout-out to Luis Limberg for his daily production assistance and offer many thanks to their fellow artist friend, Tavar Zawacki, who joined them for a day on the cherry picker, contributing to the project’s success. Our special thanks to Sebastian Kläbsch, Luis Limberg, and @MOHA for sharing their photographs with BSA readers.
URBAN NATION has launched an exhibition to address mental health concerns and issues in today’s society. The exhibit was prompted by feedback from museum visitors, who were asked to suggest topics that needed to be discussed. UN reports that the majority of responses focused on mental health, and the exhibit is a response to this concern.
The featured artworks explore emotions and modern life’s stress on mental health. One of the main issues addressed in the exhibit is loneliness. The COVID-19 pandemic only worsened feelings of isolation and disconnectedness; with more people, particularly young people, reporting that they were experiencing anxiety, depression, and self-harm, often compounded by social media.
The exhibition Loneliness and Other False Friends is part of the M series that began a decade ago, now in its 19th edition, or Project M/19. Associated with the main museum’s current exhibition Talking… & Other Banana Skins aims to raise awareness of mental health issues and spark conversations about this critical topic. By showcasing these artworks, visitors are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences and the experiences of others, perhaps spurring meaningful discussions of a deeper quality.
As is often the case with the community-centered vision and voice of UN lead curator Michele Houston, the exhibit is an excellent opportunity to learn about mental health and how it affects individuals and society. Through transference and reflection, the exhibition may catalyze analysis of topics that are often elusive to describe or quantify, in this case providing visitors tools to countenance the emotional toll that modern life can take on people, raising awareness of the importance of mental health.
PROJECT M/19 LONELINESS AND OTHER FALSE FRIENDS URBAN NATION Project Space BÜLOWSTR. 97, 10783 BERLIN EXHIBITION DURATION: 28 APRIL 2023 – 18 AUGUST 2023
ACCOMPANYING THE EXHIBITION On the occasion of the ceremonial opening of LONELINESS AND OTHER FALSE FRIENDS and in conjunction with Gallery Weekend, URBAN NATION presents a programme beyond the exhibition. 5 Berlin-based artists will create new murals, to join what is collectively called the C-Walls (Community Walls). Each will reflect the exhibition theme on and around Bülowstraße. PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: CARO PEPE, DEVITA, HONEY BEEBS, LAKE AND MATE.
The exhibition serves as a space for public discourse, conversations, and workshops. Event highlights include a mural design with artist Honey Beebs in collaboration with the Anna Freud School. In addition, there is the art workshop “Talk about it” with artist Fehmi Baumbach and photographer Darius Ramazani in partnership with Freunde fürs Leben e.V. for children in grades 11 to 13.
Inside the exhibition, there is a large seating area where visitors are encouraged to engage with the works and receive further reading material on mental health topics.
Bülowstrasse 7 10783 Berlin Germany info@urban-nation.com
Click HERE for more details, hours of operation, tickets, etc.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: 1. URBAN NATION 2022 – “Talking… & Other Banana Skins” – on FWTV 2. Flower Punk”- Azuma Makoto 3. JR: Can Art Change the World?
BSA Special Feature: URBAN NATION 2022 – “Talking… & Other Banana Skins” – on FWTV
In his first official visit back to Urban Nation since its opening in 2017, Fifth Wall host Doug Gillen finds a more democratic collection of artists from various points in the street art/urban art constellation. That impression is understandable due to the heavy presence of commercial interests involved in the selection of bankable street art stars and OGs chosen to represent five decades of graffiti/street art at the opening of a new institution dedicated to the scene. Curators were careful to program several relative unknowns and lesser-recognized artists into that initial grab-bag collection, but we take the point.
It’s refreshing to hear the current show’s curator Michelle Houston speak about her personal and professional philosophy toward street art and our collective relationship to it. A hybrid of the existing UN permanent collection and new works, it comes off as a rather wholistic approach that respects more players and their contribution to what has proven to be a very democratic grassroots art movement on streets around the world.
With decidedly less focus on the ever-more codified, commodified, and blue-chip-ivy-league-endorsed criterion of exclusivity that plagues the ‘art world’, this varied collection may represent a retaining wall against trends we witness that threaten to erect the same sort of structures of exclusivity that unbridled art-in-the-streets set out to destroy. Of course, every modern counterculture eventually gets transformed on its way to accepted culture, and we’re somewhat resigned to that reality. However rather than zapping the life out of the free-wheeling nature of graffiti and street art, Urban Nation may be staking a claim of departure from peers to defend some of those original tenets – in this insistently self-defining scene.
And speaking of every modern counterculture that eventually gets transformed on its way to accepted culture, we present the Punk Florist, artist Azuma Makoto, who uses plants in a sculptural manner. It is a practice that he hopes can connect humanity and nature. It may help if you are listening to Dead Kennedys or Black Flag – or perhaps something more industrial, or no-wave. But when he and his team send a ragged bundle of beauty literally into space, all bets are off. It’s a new game.
We’re proud to announce that our exhibition Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures will be featured during the prestigious European Month of Photography (EMOP) in Berlin this October for Urban Nation Museum’s very first photography-based program.
The European Month of Photography is a network of European photo festivals which began in 2004 when photography enthusiasts in Berlin, Paris and Vienna decided to put photographic art at the center of public attention for one month at least every two years. It is Germany’s largest photography festival.
Today EMOP it is a network of photography and visual arts institutions from seven European capitals: Berlin, Budapest, Bratislava, Ljubljana, Luxembourg, Paris, and Vienna with aims “to confront expertise in curatorial practice in photography and the intention to develop common projects, notably exhibitions, including exchange of information about the local photographers and artists concerned with photography. Founding members include the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, the Cultural Department of the City of Berlin (Museumspädagogischer Dienst Berlin headed by Thomas Friedrich) and the Department for Cultural Affairs of the City of Vienna (director Bernhard Denscher).
Martha Cooper:
Taking Pictures combine
photographs and personal artefacts in this retrospective that traces her life
from her first camera in nursery school in 1946 to her reputation today as a
world-renowned photographer. The exhibition covers Cooper’s wide range of
subject matter. Many of her photographs have become iconic representations of a
time, place, or culture and are distinguished by their frank human vitality,
with an eye for preserving details and traditions of cultural significance.
#emopberlin
We’re grateful for this recognition
of the exhibition and look forward to participating in the EMOP 2020 this October
and we hope you can join us at Urban Nation – if not in person then please join
us ONLINE for our LIVESTREAM opening October 2 ! https://www.facebook.com/events/3400074053384213 All are welcome!
Our special thanks to our entire team at Urban Nation including but not limited to Martha Cooper and Director Jan Sauerwald and Melanie Achilles, Dr. Hans-Michael Brey, Carsten Cielobatzki, Sean Corcoran, Annette Dooman, Steve Fiedler, Seth Globepainter, Florian Groß, Sven Harke-Kajuth, Nancy Henze, Michelle Houston, Hendrik Jellema, René Kaestner, Kerstin Küppers, Nika Kramer, Barbara Krimm, Tobias Kunz, Jean-Paul Laue, Beatrice Lindhorst, Nicola Petek, Carlo McCormick, Selina Miles, Michelle Nimpsch, Christian Omodeo, Christiane Pietsch, Dennis Rodenhauser, Jens Rueberg, Dr. Anne Schmedding, Malte Schurau, Janika Seitz, Anna Piera di Silvestre, Skeme, Markus Terboven, Reinaldo Verde, Lennart Volber, Akim Walta, Samuel Walter, Rebecca Ward, and Susan Welchman.
As we draw closer to the new year we’ve asked a very special guest every day to take a moment to reflect on 2018 and to tell us about one photograph that best captures the year for them. It’s a box of treats to surprise you with every day – and conjure our hopes and wishes for 2019. This is our way of sharing the sweetness of the season and of saying ‘Thank You’ to you for inspiring us throughout the year.
Today’s special guest:
Michele Houston, enfant terrible, storyteller in the Queen’s English, curator at Monumenta festival Leipzig, at Zwitxhermaschine Gallery in Berlin, for this years very successful Wandelism, and co-founder of Berlin Art Society.
In times where the world seems to have gone mad, with segregation rather than inclusions and the unthinkable such as Brexit becomes a reality.
The photograph I selected is a night street view of the exhibition: “Bonjour Tristesse” by artist KITRA.
The show is titled after the infamous graffiti just off Schlesisches Tor (Berlin), which has crowned the building opposite the exhibition for the past 37 years, which translates to hello sadness and seems to embody the zeitgeist of now.
The public from all walks of life were invited to literally walk in to an artwork, as the walls, ceiling and floor were painted by the artist. It was an exhibition like a candy shop, where one could immerse themselves inside of an artwork.
In 2019 I wish for more colour and light to break through the impending darkness.
A tiny gallery pop-up show at Zwitxhermaschine Gallery in Berlin quickly illustrates quite literally the narrative that is often on the street between different pieces and players.
In this case the photographs by Manfred Weber, the only two on display in this storefront space, were entirely unconnected until author Nora Linneman joined them in her mind and her imagination.
The calligraffitist Parisurteil literally tagged the story across the two pieces, a painted tattoo of text that wends across the walls, ceiling and floor of the space in such a way that you may become dizzy standing in the all-white box as you follow the narrative thread around the space.
The photographer, the writer and the urban calligrapher all come together to create “Einen Tag lang für immer” (roughly translated as “For one day forever”) – an uncommon story told by many.
“In very few circumstances do you get this kind of mix of people together,” says Michelle Houston, who co-curated the show with Denis Leo Hegic. “We were looking to make a collaborative piece and we think that bringing different disciplines together is quite unusual.”
If you are in Berlin this weekend and would like to hear Nora Linnemann’s enchanting story read by the author at 4 pm Sunday September 9th.
Einen Tag land für immer is organized by Denis Leo Hegic and Michelle Houston at the Zwitschermaschibe Galerie in Berlin. The exhibition closes on September 12th, 2018.
For a decade, SaveArtSpace has transformed New York’s streets into open-air galleries, reclaiming advertising spaces as canvases for public expression. …Read More »
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