With its new, rich and colorful exhibition called “TALKING… & OTHER BANANA SKINS”, URBAN NATION Museum wants to tease and invite the viewer to a dialogue with Urban and Contemporary Art.

The show, curated by Michelle Houston, acts as a catalyst for a conversation about some of the most critical questions of our time by addressing the polarization of our society, and encouraging visitors to question their own perspective and the multi-layered nature of conflicts and issues which cannot be pigeonholed.

The artworks presented in the eight chapters of the exhibition question how and what is communicated in society and in the urban environment, putting the focus back on exchange and dialogue.

From paintings to installations, from sculptures to videos, “TALKING… & OTHER BANANA SKINS” covers the entire spectrum of Urban and Contemporary Art, and includes artists such as Rocco and his Brothers (Berlin), Icy and Sot (Tabriz/NY), Various and Gould (Berlin), Joséphine Sagna (Hamburg), Low Bros (Hamburg), and Broken Fingaz Crew (the internationally renowned Israeli collective that redesigned the Museum’s facade) among others.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
1UP, AEC INTERESNI KAZKI, AMARTEY GOLDING, ANA BARRIGA, ANDREAS ENGLUND, ANNA LUKASHEVSY, BILL POSTERS, BJÖRN HEYN, BROKEN FINGAZ CREW, DAVE THE CHIMP, DENIS CHERIM, DISNOVATION, EL MAC, FAISAL HUSSAIN, FAUST, FRANCO FASOLI AKA JAZ, HIJACK, HIN, HOT TEA, HUGO BAUDOUIN, HUH?, ICY AND SOT, IDA LAWRENCE, ISAAC CORDAL, JAN VAN ESCH, JEFF HONG, JIMMY TURRELL, JOSÉPHINE SAGNA, KNOW HOPE, LE FOU, LOOK THE WEIRD, LOW BROS, NOEMI CONAN, OLEK, RICH THORNE, ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS, SEPE, SIMON MENNER, SPLASH AND BURN, SPY, TEZZ KAMOEN, THE WA, VARIOUS AND GOULD, VERA KOCHUBEY, YOANN BOURGEOIS

As is well known, the first golden rule of Graffiti is “do not paint over other writers’ work”.

Started and curated by Munich-based art duo Layer Cake (consisting of Patrick Hartl and Christian “C100” Hundertmark), The Versus Project broke both the aforementioned rule and the physical distance that the whole world had to deal with in the years of the global pandemic.

The project features several international artists, all with different styles and techniques, who were asked to complete each other’s artworks by sending them back and forth till they were happy with the outcome.

The result is both a challenge and a collective experiment in communication, where each piece has a unique touch given to it by the distinct talent and personality of each artist involved.

The Versus Project is an ongoing and itinerant project. After the success of the first exhibition in 2021, URBAN NATION Museum was pleased to host Layer Cake duo again for its second edition in 2022, while the third chapter took place in Miami at The Museum of Graffiti in February 2023 bringing with it new collaborations.

After 10 months of pre-production, artwork management preparation, shipping and countless Skype-on-screen exhibition design sessions with the curatorial duo Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington of Brooklyn Street Art (Brooklyn Street Art) from New York, we produced the first retrospective museum exhibition on legendary photographer Martha Cooper at the URBAN NATION Museum in October 2020.

Martha Cooper is a pioneer of photography. Her career ranges from 1943 to the present day. She and Henry Chalfant are the authors and creators of the world-famous graffiti bible Subway Art. The retrospective exhibition at the Urban Nation Museum is the most important and poignant display of her work and personal artefacts, shedding light on the woman behind the photographs, her extensive career and the influence her work has had on generations of graffiti writers, urban and street artists.

Fresh A.I.R. is a scholarship programme of the Stiftung Berliner Leben (Berlin Life Foundation) that offers time, space and resources to artists and cultural practitioners from the field of Urban and New Contemporary Art to dedicate themselves to an artistic project within the framework of a specific thematic complex. Up to 11 scholarship students per year are invited to Berlin for 6 months. The premises extend over three floors, 11 flats and 1,100 square metres of living and working space above the URBAN NATION Museum for Urban Contemporary Art.

The Museum of Now (MON) opened its doors for the first time on October 17 with the Berlin Edition. The travelling museum presented 15 artists from all over the world in a show of about 100 artworks – from spectacular, large-scale light installations to miniature works in oil on canvas. Together with the Estrel Hotel Berlin and the Berlin Art Society, YAP presented the “Museum of Now” for ten days in an impressive 1920s industrial factory building in Neukölln. In the process, as producers of the overall show, we took care of the operation and the production of the impressive works on site, creating the highlight of the Berlin scene this year.