The sight that met me every day when I stepped out from the main entrance of the house we were staying were two enormous paintings or murals on the gable end of 2 houses on Hofmuhlgasse. They were both thought provoking and an inspiring feature in the urban landscape. They caused me to have an inner dialogue with myself about who the artist/s might be, what had inspired them to paint the murals, and how they had come about and ended up on a huge gable. One of the paintings featured a painting of a man with a young child on his shoulders, and different symbols were coming out of the child’s head – I was wondering ‘what is that child thinking with those symbols or signs surrounding the head? What is going on in her/his mind? Is that man the father?
Vienna has become a hot spot for street art. Apart from graffiti, there are wall paintings or murals appearing through out the town and its districts. It was great to discover that in the district of Mariahilf where we stayed on 2 streets alone, I saw 4 murals. The 2 murals on Hofmuhlgasse were both curated by Calle Libre, an art collective or group who describe themselves as a festival for Urban Aesthetics.
They started their first annual festival in 2014 by curating wall spaces together with other cultural groups and organisations along the Danube Canal to create a dialogue between the wider public and national/international artists. They are redefining and broadening the concept of what street art is and is doing this through engaging with the public by offering workshops, exhibitions, discussion events, and urban art tours and annual festivals. In the subsequent years they have teamed up with urban administrators as well as more artists, curated more painting space and lots of new murals are popping up everywhere as a result.
Calle Libre means “Let the streets be free”, and they aim to draw attention to the nature and potential of street art as a form of ART. To come to Vienna on just a short stay, as I did, seeing all the street art and the sensing the thoughts and imagination it generates, feels like a breath of fresh air.
The mural of the Man with a Child on His Shoulders is painted by Stinkfish (Columbia/Mexico) and Ruin (Austria).