Brightening up the streets: Two artists are designing “Community Walls” on Bülowstraße for URBAN NATION in February

No mercy for dull grey! The urban artists La rouille and Jaune are getting to grips with Bülowstraße in February and designing two walls on the street. Neighbours and anybody else interested in the project are more than welcome to turn up and look over their shoulders as they create their unique works of art.

Part of the idea behind the unique programme curated by the URBAN NATION MUSEUM FOR URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART is to ensure that art also appears in the city’s open spaces so that it is accessible to everybody. As such, URBAN NATION works outside 70 per cent of the time and regularly gets international street art greats and newcomers to design façades and walls. Between 19 and 25 February, in conjunction with the artistic director Yasha Young, two further walls (so-called Community Walls) will be created at Bülowstraße 97, Berlin-Schöneberg. Two artists with different design approaches will bring the grey walls to life and add a splash of colour to the neighbourhood.

About the artists

La rouille (France)
Planned work dates: 19–25 February
Location: Bülowstraße 97

La rouille was born in 1981 in Chambéry, France, and now lives and works near Rennes. He has no formal artistic education and discovered painting at a late age when he began to explore urban settings in Brittany. Attracted by the unique atmosphere of abandoned urban landscapes, he focuses on the decay caused by time: both physical deterioration and the loss of memory. His blurred, ghostlike portraits and silhouettes blend into their environment and often resonate with the ghosts of various locations. La rouille – French for “rust” – constantly strives to capture the temporal changes and melancholic spirit that pervade many ruined buildings, which is why he prefers to use materials found on-site during his explorations to recreate the natural wear and decay. There is a real sense of anticipation about how the environment on Bülowstraße will influence the artist’s work.

Jaune (Belgium)

Planned work dates: 20–25 February
Location: Bülowstraße 97

Jaune is a stencil artist and urban interventionist from Brussels, Belgium. His work addresses the dichotomy between the visible and invisible, with sanitation workers as the main protagonists in his humorous installations and paintings – an idea that was born from his own experience working in the profession. He observed that although the workers perform a vital public service and wear garish fluorescent clothing, they exist in the background of the urban environment, becoming almost invisible to the average person. In 2011, Jaune decided to free these characters from their roles by symbolically placing them in absurd, whimsical scenarios in and around the city streets, using multilayered stencils: the people who are supposed to keep the world tidy now became harbingers of chaos.

About Community Walls

On a smaller scale than the façades in the famous One Wall series, the Community Walls projects around Bülowstraße invite people to follow the design process and look over the artists’ shoulders as they create their works of art.  The individual works and the artists’ perspectives will enhance the streetscape and encourage visitors to view spend time viewing works of art outside the museum setting.

Both La rouille and Jaune as well as the artistic director of URBAN NATION, Yasha Young, are available for interviews.
If you are interested, please contact pr@urban-nation.com

We will be happy to provide you with photos of the finished works of art free of charge.