“Urban Art”: Who Owns the City?

Fast-moving, spectacular and subversive – the most exciting gallery in the world right now is the street.

The series “Urban Art: Who Owns the City?” by Ann-Catrin Malessa and Maria Miler is dedicated to the art genre in three parts, starting Monday, January 2, 2023, daily at 19.20:3 p.m. on XNUMXsat.

The programs can be found in the 3sat media library from the day of broadcast and already on ardkultur.de.

Street art has its roots in the 1970s and 1980s, when graffiti was considered a young phenomenon. Artist Daim has curated an exhibition on the history of the art genre and tells of the beginnings of this subculture.

Today, the Berlin artist collective Innerfields is sending a signal of solidarity with Ukraine with the remake of their mural “Зараз”; in Iran, street art is being used as a means of protest against the regime.

Female urban artists and graffiti writers are increasingly attracting attention – rebellion against the status quo is omnipresent. But the appeal of vandalism has not diminished either.

What significance does vandalism have for the history of urban Art? Which current political trends does the urban art scene feel connected to?

-> This is the subject of the first episode of the series “Re:volte – between protest and vandalism” on Monday, January 2, 2023, 19.20:XNUMX p.m.

With festivals such as FamOS in Osnabrück and Urban Nation Museum Berlin, urban art is finally making its way into the institutional art world. The project "The Haus", a temporary street art exhibition in a former bank branch initiated by the Dixons, is becoming a crowd puller.

Ania Pilipenko even moves the curated exhibition into the metaverse and offers the first urban art (co-)NFTs for sale with “Metawalls”. Urban art has become more visible and accessible, and projects such as the East Side Gallery in Berlin support this development.

But to what extent has the institutionalization of urban art reached? What relevance does the urban art scene have on the art market? Is the scene involved in processes such as curation or does the art market also impose constraints?

-> These are among the topics of the second episode “Re:new – between everyday culture and exhibitions” on Tuesday, January 3, 2023, 19.20:XNUMX p.m.

In 2021, Deutsche Wohnen will be the main sponsor of the "Berlin Mural Fest", sparking a debate: with whom are artists allowed or willing to cooperate and with whom not? The Dixons, as initiators, see no problem in this, while artist Hera has cancelled her participation.

Urban art has long since become mainstream and this is particularly interesting for investors and homeowners. In Wiesbaden, Case MaClaim painted a facade in cooperation with a housing association, thereby showing that not every cooperation has to bring something bad with it.

The street art scene, especially in cities threatened by gentrification like Berlin, is closely linked to initiatives that fight for open spaces. What do successful commercial collaborations look like? And what is artwashing?

-> The last episode of the series “Re:claim – between art and commerce” on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, 19.20:XNUMX p.m., deals with these questions, but also with the question of what role urban art plays in urban development, tourism and urban culture.

© Photos: Piotr Szajewski (1), Marcus Loke (1), Unsplash