From the viewing platform on the hill in Ostpark, a particularly stepped mountain range rises towards the clouds: in the past 50 years, the high-rise buildings on Neuperlach’s Karl-Marx-Ring have rarely been praised for their beauty. This could change soon. Two large works of art have just been completed on the bare walls. The local street art collective “The Blue Bird” and the Italian graffiti artist “Peeta” have provided the opening images for a new open-air gallery in the south-east of Munich.
At the intersection of Hugo-Lang-Bogen, Kurt-Eisner-Strasse and Karl-Marx-Ring, one of those oversized streets that seemed forward-looking in the days of car-friendly urban planning, a flute player now looks down from the eighth floor. A blue bird is sitting on his musical instrument. The picture is a homage to the artist Wolfgang Niesner, who died in 1994. The draftsman and graphic artist moved to the newly created Munich district in 1970. In his Neuperlach printing workshop and studio, he also worked on living in the satellite town. Silhouettes show men walking their cars or lounging with them in sun loungers.
Niesner’s boy with the flute has been reinterpreted and brought to number 75 by the Munich artists’ collective “The Blue Bird”. The works of the five sprayers have been on walls all over Germany for several years, but there are also pictures of them to be discovered in Munich. For example, motifs in the Olympiabad, the bridge pillars on the Isar or the annual Wiesn wall on Tumblinger Straße come from the cans of the street art group. They were also already active in Neuperlach, but not with permanent images. Before the Quiddezentrum was demolished, they designed a colorful zoo there. Frequently integrated into the picture: a blue bird.
The artists Robert Posselt aka “Kult” and Rafael Gerlach aka “SatOne” approached him independently of each other because they wanted to spray paint in Neuperlach, says Florian Mayr from the Munich Society for Urban Renewal (MGS). As district manager, he accompanies the municipal renovation program in Neuperlach. “It’s also about the formation of identity in the district,” he says. Art can do that with the help of art. “We don’t meet at the Karl-Marx-Ring, but at the flute player, which also helps with orientation,” he says.
The Italian artist Manuel di Rita, better known by his pseudonym “Peeta”, has also immortalized himself in Neuperlach.
(Photo: Florian Mayr/MGS)
For the art project, the municipal housing cooperative GWG provided the facades of one of their residential complexes and also contributed money. It was also financed by the cultural department and the street art foundation of the Stadtsparkasse. The Italian artist Manuel di Rita, better known by his pseudonym “Peeta”, also immortalized himself at a height of 25 meters on the GWG tower. He describes his work as “spray can art and beyond”.
In Neuperlach, he created blue-grey, curved shapes in a 3D look on an elevator tower and around some windows. From a distance, they give the impression that the facades of the houses are in motion. “Our plan is for a picture to be created every year,” says district manager Mayr. In the coming years there will be regular festivals for street art and a veritable open-air gallery will be established.