Street art in Vienna – Part I.

Vienna is believed to be a very ‘classy’ city. Vienna means Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven, the Opera ball, Wiener Symphonikern, Klimt’s ‘ The Kiss’ and Princess Sissi. But the city also has a ‘wild side’. 

This week we decided to find out more about the Viennese street art.

First, we went out to the streets and looked for some famous works and took pictures, which you can find below, and then researched about them a bit more. Though I’m a laic and I don’t know a lot about this kind of art, I find it interesting – and hope that so will you.

The BLK river festival

The BLK river festival is in a different place every year. 2011/12 it took place in Vienna. The BLK festival invites artists from all continents and then the artists make different street art and projects.

They create street art across the city on the highest international level. The result: beautiful art, such as in Vienna.

You can still see some of the pieces for instance

Inoperable Opera

It is a street art “gallery” run by many artists. These people try to make Vienna look like New York or Berlin, even though we know it is not possible.

The gallery is dedicated to exhibiting street art, pop surrealism and lowbrow art from around the globe.

Inoperable functions through a word of mouth network, where artists are connected to the public via the Inoperable Gallery space. Hosting around ten openings a year, it allows people to wander through its doors to experience a range of works from various artists. The guys also have a rotating wall on Siebensterngasse and are also the force behind Shutter Land on Naschmarkt.

Levin Statzer

One of the most famous street artists in Vienna is Levin Statzer.  He was part of the first generation of urban artists in Austria and one of the first ‘graffiti-writers’. In 2005 the 30 year old artist died in a car accident. In memory of Levin Statzer (1975-2005) his family and friends decided to initiate a foundation with the goal of supporting young talents in the field of urban / street art. Most of their works you can find in Vienna around the Donauinsel.

Shutter Land

It is street art on shutters of shops, or rather market stalls, on Vienna’s famous Naschmarkt. That means if you want to see the art you have to go at night, when the shops are closed, or on Sunday.

Vienna street art pool on flickr

On http://www.flickr.com/groups/streetart_vienna/pool/, a web viewer, you can view hundreds of Vienna street art´s photos quickly and easily in one seamless 'river of photos' - never needing to hit 'next' to load the next page.

Some of the graffiti we found and took a picture of: