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Graffiti art exhibition

March 27, 2015

The "UrbanArt Biennale 2015" will open on Sunday (29.03.2015) at the World Heritage site of the Völklingen Ironworks, in the Saarland region. It features graffiti art from Europe, Northern America and the Arab world.

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Völklingen Ironworks. Copyright: Gerhard Kassner dpa/lrs
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Kassner

A huge industrial hall where raw materials for furnaces used to be stored will serve as the backdrop of the exhibition. It features urban art created by 81 artists from 21 different countries. This year, the Arab World will obtain a special focus: graffiti served as a privileged means of expression in Egypt during the revolution on Tahrir Square.

"For the 'UrbanArt Biennale 2015' we decided to expand our focus. It now goes way beyond European and Northern American countries," explained the director of the World Cultural Heritage Site, Meinrad Maria Grewenig, during a press conference on Friday (27.03.2015).

The exhibition is expected to be twice as big as the first "UrbanArtBiennale" two years ago. Some areas of the industrial site used for the exhibition have never been accessible to visitors before.

The Völklingen Ironworks is the best preserved ironworks from the iron and steel industry's heyday. The plant closed in 1986 and was declared by UNESCO a World Heritage site in 1994. Today, the Völklingen Ironworks is a museum.

ej/eg (dpa, Völklinger Hütte)