All posts tagged: Urban Nation Museum

The “Unstoppable” Works Inside : Looking to the Future at Urban Nation

The “Unstoppable” Works Inside : Looking to the Future at Urban Nation

September 21, 2017

A view inside at the inaugural exhibition of “UNSTOPPABLE” at Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art, opened September 16, 2017 in Berlin.

We never doubted that this museum would open. We only hoped it would look this exceptional.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

The elevated bridge walkway that wends up and down and through and above the spaces creates so many dynamic opportunities to see and re-see art. Painted all white for this inauguration, this is the first museum of its kind dedicated to Urban Contemporary Art, and with this show the house in Berlin Schöneberg has blasted the doors open with 150 of today’s Street Artists, graffiti artists, urban artists in a spirit of celebration and recognition for their contributions to an ever changing scene.

The labels we use today to describe the artists and the art rarely fit them very well and are frequently contested, derided, embraced. With thoughtful and informed planning, programming and curatorial decisions this place will showcase the work of progenitors, superstars, and unsung heroes over time.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

A scene born in rebellion and transgression on the streets of cities around the world for a half century now morphs into studio practice and more traditionally formal visual art forms. Often courting collectors passions, gallery shows, auctions, commercializing influences, and academics’ study, we know that the roots of this movement are much more than an object to behold in a frame under good lighting. But the scene and its roots and many branches contain these things as well.

No one said this would be easy for our studied, enthusiastic, knee-deep-in-it, world traveling curatorial team and Director Yasha Young to find a perfect balance with this collection, so ultimately we just trusted each other. Our consensus of course reflects us, the next show will reflect its curators. We agreed to present relevant artists and directions catalyzed in this moment with a respect for what came before; a cross section that we know leaves many out but contains works that speak for themselves about the multitude of rivers that flow through urban streets in 2017 out here, in here.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

With 150 artists inside, 40 outside, and hundreds curated into shows and walls and festivals across continents over the last four years leading up to this, this is one look at Urban Nation. A worldwide scene that took flight and merged with every form of art-making in public space, a scene where the majority of the artists are still alive and which continues to re-shape, to re-define itself.

Pedantic, cryptic, confusing or revelatory. The most you can hope for are moments that distill it like these, helping to make sense of a movement in motion. We’re grateful that Carlo McCormick agreed to do the contextualizing work of didactics in the exhibition and that Christian Omodeo is agreeing to help organize the Martha Cooper library with an eye toward archiving and scholarship.

As but two of the founding curators, we’re excited to foster the fullness of programming that teaches about the roots and the philosophies as well as the techniques of this generous Street Art/graffiti history, that invites communities to take ownership of their museum and to look forward. Along with the artist residencies offered in studios above the museum’s formal exhibition space we hope there will be room for scholars to study the materials here and to write, hold panels, publish works. Here’s to the future of Urban Nation, a place we can all learn from.

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

First level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper Library. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper Library. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Martha Cooper Library. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Second level. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, September 16, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Here’s a home made video showcasing the show in its entirety, via BrooklynStreetArt.com

A note of thanks:
This project took roughly five years in the making from its initial concept to opening night. We wish to express our heartfelt gratitude to Yasha Young the museum’s Artistic Director for her passion, for her unique commitment to the arts of the streets and for inviting us to be a part of this journey with her. Thank you to our fellow curators Marina Bortoluzzi, Marcello Pimentel, Johnathan Levine, Roland Henry, Andrew Hosner, Roland Henry, Charlotte Dutoit, Rom Levy, and D*Face a.k.a. Dean Stockton, for their insights, guidance, hard work and camaraderie.

To the Urban Nation team, those who are still a part of the team and those who have left, for their extraordinary patience, grace and endless hours working hard to help us make this dream a reality. To the production team at YES AND…productions who with their optimism and positive outlook labored tirelessly to make certain we had what we needed always. To Schrenk & Schrenk who organized all the auxiliary events and made sure we enjoyed the festivities, to Spring Brand Ideas for their assistance in the whole process, to Thomas Willemeit and Denis Hegic of GRAFT architects for such vision to showcase works and invite the visitor, and to project initiators Markus Terboven (Gewobag) and Hendrik Jellema (Berliner Leben Foundation) who have been there with us from the beginning.

To Martha Cooper for always being there and for inspiring us. Finally to all of the artists in all the venues for their talent, guts, and commitment to dig deep, take chances and to produce the best work possible for this multi-headed monster called UN.

With gratitude from Jaime and Steve.

 

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GAIA and Fereshta Ludin – “Persons of Interest”

GAIA and Fereshta Ludin – “Persons of Interest”

March 9, 2015

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BSA is in Berlin this month to present a new show of 12 important Brooklyn Street Artists at the Urban Nation haus as part of Project M/7. PERSONS OF INTEREST brings to our sister city a diverse collection of artists who use many mediums and styles in the street art scene of Brooklyn. By way of tribute to the special relationship that artist communities in both cities have shared for decades, each artist has chosen to create a portrait of a Germany-based cultural influencer from the past or present, highlighting someone who has played a role in inspiring the artist in a meaningful way.
 
Today we talk to GAIA and ask him why he chose his person of interest, Fereshta Ludin.

It has been nearly 12 years since Afghanistan-born German Muslim school teacher Fereshta Ludin won the right to wear her headscarf in the public school system and the topic remains very hot around the country. For one thing, eight German states forbid the practice and as the website DW reported “the verdict’s results continue to spur controversy and leave some asking what is more oppressive: wearing a headscarf or excluding those who do?” . If this teacher and Afghanistan advisor/minister had tried to get a job as a sales clerk at Abercrombie and Fitch in the United States, Ms. Ludin might have been part of a headscarf case before the US Supreme Court this spring.

Street Artist Gaia typically studies the society and culture in which he paints murals and depicts figures who reflect the history and forces of change and stasis that characterize that neighborhood, town, or city. A leader in what we’ve been calling the New Muralism, Gaia has produced these amalgams of symbols, history, and persons – these glocalized paintings – around the world in cities from Seoul to Perth to Honolulu to Baltimore to Miami and Johannesburg, among others in the the last five years.

Since his earliest days as a Street Artist in Williamsburg and Bushwick, Brooklyn, Gaia has engaged the personal, social and political with his artistic ability; first as linotype prints, later as full-blown aerosol murals. So it is no surprise that he chooses as his subject for this show a figure who has held a pivotal role in the evolution of a necessary conversation in classrooms, boardrooms, courts – and the court of public opinion. It is here in the public sphere that Gaia has always drawn inspiration and energy and returned it back with an impetus to spark examination, discussion and debate.

“The proposal for ‘Persons of Interest’ features a portrait of Fereshta Ludin superimposed over a sky and images of peace,” Gaia says.  “I chose to focus on Fereshta Ludin because of her advocation for multicultural understanding and cooperation in the face of intense national debate regarding the sphere of religious expression in German politics.”

 

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A Gaia lino print piece based on a photograph by Martha Cooper in Baltimore, 2011 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Gaia in New Jersey 2015 (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon and Turkish Immigrants – “Persons of Interest”

Swoon and Turkish Immigrants – “Persons of Interest”

March 8, 2015

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BSA is in Berlin this month to present a new show of 12 important Brooklyn Street Artists at the Urban Nation haus as part of Project M/7. PERSONS OF INTEREST brings to our sister city a diverse collection of artists who use many mediums and styles in the street art scene of Brooklyn. By way of tribute to the special relationship that artist communities in both cities have shared for decades, each artist has chosen to create a portrait of a Germany-based cultural influencer from the past or present, highlighting someone who has played a role in inspiring the artist in a meaningful way.
 
Today we talk to Swoon and ask her why she chose her persons of interest, Turkish Immigrants.

54% of Brooklyn residents age 5 and older speak English at home as a primary language, followed by Spanish, Chinese, Russian and many others. The immigrant story has always been part of the Brooklyn story actually, including a flood of new German immigrants in the mid 1800’s to New York and Chicago which changed and formed the country. [note] Historic Overview: Germans in Chicago, Goethe Institute [/note]  Today Berliners talk about the largest ethnic minority in Germany, Turkish immigrants, who account for about 4% of Germany’s total population, according to the census 2011 [note] File Migrationsberichtdes Bundesamtes für Migration und Flüchtlinge im Auftrag der Bundesregierung, Migrationsbericht 2012)[/note]

The topic of immigration is relevant to both sister cities and their artists communities, as they grapple with age-old questions about absorption and assimilation into the culture and whether traditions and behaviors can accommodate one another. Naturally, emotions can run high and rhetoric can be very strong at times and as usual art on the streets reflects society back to itself in an ongoing dialogue. If New York’s reputation as a melting pot is any indication, eventually people do find a way to coexist despite our sometimes marked differences.

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Swoon “Cairo” in Brooklyn. September 2009. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

When Brooklyn Street Artist Swoon first learned about PERSONS OF INTEREST, she first thought of the many times she has been to Berlin and the artist community with which she has worked and played over the last few years. Known for her intricate paper cuts and linotypes that depict an inner world of a person, often you can read the interior of her forms as a diary. To join the two cultures and her experience of it Swoon also thought of the rich Turkish community she became familiar with in Berlin and she decided to dedicate her portrait to them.

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Swoon “Cairo” in Brooklyn. Detail. September 2009. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

“This portrait is a celebration of the cultural diversity of the city of Berlin, and specifically of it’s large and vibrant Turkish community,” she says. A hand painted linoleum block print with cut paper elements, Swoon says she thinks of this installation as “a long distance love letter to the city that informed so much of my early work, and which inspired and embraced the creative evolution of art on the streets like few other places in the world.”

Olivia Katz, an artist who has worked closely with Swoon in studio, agrees with her sentiment about this piece and expands on it. “This piece celebrates urban diversity,” says Katz. “It is meant to reflect on cities as densely pluralist environments that are built upon countless different people and communities living and working together. It is essential to recognize each other as neighbors, each living our lives soulfully and with meaning, and to nourish relationships that cross even the widest cultural chasms.”

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Swoon “Cairo” in Brooklyn. Detail. September 2009. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon “Cairo” in Brooklyn. Detail. September 2009. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon “Cairo” at her studio in Brooklyn working on another version of “Cairo”. January 2011. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon in Brooklyn (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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Swoon in Los Angeles (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Check out the Facebook page for PERSONS OF INTEREST

See Full Press Release HERE

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“Urban Xchange: Crossing Over” A New Festival in Penang, Malaysia

“Urban Xchange: Crossing Over” A New Festival in Penang, Malaysia

December 11, 2014

Urban Exchange: Crossing Over 2014 is a brand new street art festival in George Town, Penang in Malaysia. In November they hosted 16 artists to paint walls throughout this city of two and a half million on the Strait of Malacca.

It is not a city that has hosted Street Art traditionally and one that frowns strongly on graffiti, but ever since Lithuanian Street Artist Ernest Zacharevic did some very successful installations here in 2012 which drew crowds and cameras, the citizenry and elected officials have become very hospitable to the idea — and have even enacted a formalized process for approving public art.

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Skolo brings tradition, sport, and modern communications together in this brand new mural for Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Today we travel to Penang to see the brand new pieces for this first-year show, co-curated by Gabija Grusaite and Eeyan Chuah, who run Hin Bus Depot Art Centre, a creative space in the ruins of a bus depot that hosted a corollary gallery show. Alongside Berlin based Urban Nation’s director and curator, Yasha Young, the two invited a mixture of local and international artists to complete murals and to host some community workshops.

“There’s never a dull moment at Urban Nation’s exchange program,” says Young, “after a year in the planning we were excited to finally make the journey.”

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Tank Petrol at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

Among the various murals you’ll see a selection of figurative, realistic, and illustration styles that carefully walk a community moderated fine line, hoping to bring locals to be more actively engaged in the program. As a novelty outlier, you’ll also see Brooklyn’s Mr. Toll installing his colorful hand formed clay sculptures in unusual spots if you keep your head up.

In an interview with Malay Mail Online, Ms. Grusaite says, “We want to create an artistic international cultural exchange so that local artists can learn from international artists who will be here for the project while the international artists will get exposure to the local culture and art scene.”

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Tank Petrol. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

As is the case more often, with Urban Exchange we are again seeing a new model of public art developing where at the forefront are artists who have laid their groundwork in graffiti rather than university exclusively. We’ve been using a term we’re calling the “New Muralism” to indicate the grassroots nature and populist generation of these works and we still think its definition is evolving. Not quite community murals in the strictest sense, and not seeking the approval of gate-keeping institutions either, these artists are looking for and finding new ways to challenge themselves creatively in the public sphere while being responsive to needs of the public. Huh!

Included in the Urban Exchange project are Antanas Dubra (Lithuania), Bibichun (Malaysia), Don John (Denmark), Donald Abraham (Malaysia), Elle (United States), Ernest Zacharevic (Lithuania), Fauzan Faud (Malaysia), Karl Addison (Germany), Kenji Chai (Malaysia), Rone (Australia), Sk10 (Singapore), TankPetrol (United Kingdom), Black Fritilldea (Malaysia), 4Some (a crew from Kuala Lumpur consisting of Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo),  Mr Toll (New York) and Vexta (New York)

Our heartfelt thank you to Henrik Haven, who took a trip from Copenhagen which took 31 hours (and four different flights) for sharing his excellent photographs here with BSA readers.

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RONE at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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RONE on the left with Karl Addison on the right. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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RONE. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Ernest Zacharevic at work on is wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Ernest Zacharevic. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Ernest Zacharevic. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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4Some Crew at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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4Some Crew (Donald, Black, Fauzan and Jojo) Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Vexta at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Vexta. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Vexta. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Bibichun. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Nikko Tan)

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Don John at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Don John. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Elle at work on her wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Elle. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Elle. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Karl Addison at work on his wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Karl Addison. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Karl Addison. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Antanas Dubra at work on their wall. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Antanas Dubra. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Sliz assists Skolo. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Mr. Toll installing his clay sculptures. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Mr. Toll. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

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Collaboration between Ernest Zacharavic and Etoja. Urban Xchange: Crossing Over. Penang, Malaysia. (photo © Henrik Haven)

 

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