All posts tagged: We Broke Night

She Broke Night – Olek and Performers Inside/Outside UN in Berlin

She Broke Night – Olek and Performers Inside/Outside UN in Berlin

“Strong individual artistic statements in the streets can create these magical, deeply human moments in your everyday routine and push you out of the frame,” says Sebastian Purfürst. “It’s an alternative and amazingly uncontrollable channel of human to human communication.”


Multi-dimensional artists like the Polish-now-Brooklyn-based OLEK find it difficult to describe their work because they fall into many categories; installation, sculpture, performance, theater. Often they create their own category entirely, unconcerned with labels and dogmatically narrow definitions. Thanks to the elastic quality of her crocheted art materials, you may see people wearing them at official events, at dinners, in a swimming pool, or simply crossing a busy Berlin street on a Friday night.

Olek. We Broke Night. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Sebastian M. Purfürst | Lem-studios.com)

As guests shuttled back and forth across Bülowstrasse to see the shows inside the raw space of the soon-to-be UN museum and the polished gallery space of the UN Project M/12 show, you may have caught one of those Olek moments where her costumed performers traipsed and cavorted along the sidewalks, momentarily distracting attention from the sex workers whose neighborhood this is.

“For me street art has the potential to turn the anonymous, commercial urban space into a walkable, immersive space to think and to feel, provoking new perspectives, ideas and communication,” says photographer Sebastian Purfürst, a Berliner who captured these inside/outside images last week and likens them to Street Art as much as live performance that occupies and activates public space.

Olek. We Broke Night. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Sebastian M. Purfürst | Lem-studios.com)

A video/new media artist and musician whose sound and visual design has appeared in commercial, artistic, theatrical and academic settings Purfürst tells us that he was mesmerized by the immersive spectacle that unfolded and transformed the environment. “Street art has the chance to act and react fast, directly and in a totally unexpected way – literally over night. It’s a direct physically manifested response to a world.”

The warmth of the spring night made their languorous limbs entangle as the Olek performers  danced, posed, capered and marched, silently interacting with traffic and passersby, their creator strolling languidly among them in an impossible corset and red-rimmed round glasses.

Olek. We Broke Night. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Sebastian M. Purfürst | Lem-studios.com)

“Strong individual artistic statements in the streets can create these magical, deeply human moments in your everyday routine and push you out of the frame,” says Sebastian. “It’s an alternative and amazingly uncontrollable channel of human to human communication.”

They were just a few moments to experience, and we’re glad Purfürst captured them. The images are full of energy and an insouciant charge of electricity and blood and flesh elevating the senses, street ephemera that wafts into you, through you, past you.

Olek. We Broke Night. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Sebastian M. Purfürst | Lem-studios.com)

Performers are:

Hugo Bailly
Kevin Bright
Mila Bollansee
Carla Cixì
Aleksandra Szkopek
and Olek

Olek. We Broke Night. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Sebastian M. Purfürst | Lem-studios.com)

Olek. We Broke Night. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Sebastian M. Purfürst | Lem-studios.com)

Olek. We Broke Night. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Sebastian M. Purfürst | Lem-studios.com)

 


 

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BSA Images Of The Week: 05.21.17 – Berlin Edition

BSA Images Of The Week: 05.21.17 – Berlin Edition

BSA-Images-Week-Jan2015

This week in Berlin we had the chance to meet so many great folks as a result of the final Urban Nation events before September’s opening of the museum. All the curators were in attendance, including your BSA friends here, for the “We Broke Night” show along with the artistic director, managing director, architect, and about 40 artists in the 225 person party that featured breakers on pedestals dancing with flourescent tape, Shepard Fairey as DJ, and plenty of new artworks created just for this event.

Along with the main museum space show, across the street was another exhibition, the Project M/12 show called “What in the World” with mainly European former graff writers/now-fine-artists curated by Evan Pricco from Juxtapoz. Overflowing from the main space, the sidewalks were a parade of aesthetes, fans, business people, graff writers, archivists, politicians, and sex workers… It’s a wild mix and it gets very rowdy and everyone is reacting to the dynamics at play and wondering aloud how a museum like this will pull this off.

We’re not wondering, however. The sheer volume and variety of interested artists and related art lovers and community supporters tells us that this museum is a success before it has even opened. Here are a few images from the last few days for you to take a look at from outside and inside.

Here’s our weekly interview with the streets, this week featuring: Besonders, BustArt, Cranio, Daniel Van Nes, Fin DAC, Herakut, Lora Zombie, Millo, Nasca, Nuno Vegas, Sebastian Wandl, Shepard Fairey, Stikki Peaches, Snik, Tank Patrol.

Top image: FinDac. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FinDac. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

FinDac. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nasca. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stikki Peaches. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Shepard Fairey in Berlin translates his No Future piece for the words apathy, sexism, xenophobia, and racism. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Cranio. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BustArt. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lora Zombie. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art in Conjunction with Project M/12. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Pfui Teufel!” Ms. Merkel hears some disturbing news in this sticker placed on a post box.Unidentified Artist. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Bleib Besonders. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Obey . Sura. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Sebastian Wandl. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daniel Van Nes. Detail. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Daniel Van Nes. Detial. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Herakut in purple light for the “We Broke the Night” exhibit inside the space that will be the Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Stencil majicians Snik. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

BustArt. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Tank Petrol. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Millo. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Lora Zombie. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Nuno Vegas. Urban Nation Museum For Urban Contemporary Art. We Broke Night. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

Untitled. Berlin, May 19, 2017. (photo © Jaime Rojo)

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