An impossible museum becomes reality, and let’s just hope the art will be better than the promotional text on their website, which is full of neoliberal vocabulary. As in their main slogan “Connect. Create. Care.”
More of those commercial buzzwords are to be found allover their homepage:
“The vision of a global art community, a network without limits, will become reality on September 16 when URAN NATION MUSEUM FOR URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART opens its doors. Its Creative Director is Yasha Young, its Managing Director Dr. Christopher Vorwerk. URAN NATION is backed by Berliner Leben, a foundation of Gewobag.”
This picture perfectly resembles what scares me about this: GRAFT Gründungspartner Thomas Willemeit, Kulturstaatssekretär Tim Renner, Museumsdirektorin Yasha Young, Projektinitiatoren Markus Terboven (Gewobag) und Hendrik Jellema (Berliner Leben). It fit’s so good with this promotional verbal abuse:
“Since 2013, URBAN NATION has been transforming Berlin’s facades into a giant outdoor gallery and connecting people with their city using outdoor art and integrative neighbourhood projects.URBAN NATION MUSEUM FOR URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART is set in an Wilhelminian-era building at Bülowstrasse 7 in Schöneberg. An existing building will be converted into a museum to the innovative plans of the architecture bureau GRAFT. In contrast to a conventional museum, the architecture and exterior surfaces will become canvasses themselves, turning the building into an artwork in its own right. The mobile façade elements will be kept and preserved along with the more conventional collection of paintings. The interior of the museums, designed by GRAFT Architects, will also have surprises in store: URBAN NATION is quite literally moving the street indoors. A catwalk stretching across the entire two-storey interior will allow the exhibited works to be observed both from a distance and close up. URBAN NATION connects. It connects Berlin’s people, artists and people interested in art. And it connects across borders. Urban Space all over the world is declared an inspiring, integrative zone of action where artists, creatives and the public come together.
The core of the Museum’s activities will be exhibitions of urban contemporary art. URBAN NATION already possesses a unique collection of artworks which has been gathered continuously in conjunction with the Project-M/ series and will continue to grow. An international team of experts is responsible for the curatorial concept. (…) Contemporary urban art in the real world – presented and discussed in high-end museum exhibitions and on facades in public spaces.”
The only thing I am looking forward to – the MARTHA COOPER library – is not even mentioned in the english version of the homepage. Why did she not give it to the Graffiti-Archive (>>Archiv der Jugendkulturen, Berlin)? Let’s hope for the best.
More info:
