V\u00d6LKLINGEN, Germany (AP) \u2014 Dozens of urban artists from 17 countries have converged on one of Europe\u2019s most important industrial landmarks for a show that takes advantage of the former ironworks\u2019 sprawling spaces and aura of abandonment.<\/p>\n
At the V\u00f6lklinger H\u00fctte, or V\u00f6lklingen Ironworks, the Urban Art Biennale 2026 is getting underway, continuing what has grown into a biennial tradition over the past decade and a half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis location is at the core of street art and graffiti art,\u201d said Ralf Beil, the general director of the site, which is open to the public as a museum. \u201cIt all began in industrial places like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Artists \u201clove this place and they do works for the V\u00f6lklinger H\u00fctte, in the V\u00f6lklinger H\u00fctte, with the V\u00f6lklinger H\u00fctte,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s show features 50 artists. They include France-based Tomas Lacque, whose installation features a small van, a pile of tires, toys and debris covered in a coat of paint. Standing in a hall where furnaces once worked, it appears to evoke fossil-fueled mobility being covered in ash like Pompeii. <\/p>\n
Spanish artist Ampparito has painted the words \u201cno hay nada de valor\u201d (roughly, \u201cThere is nothing of value here\u201d) in huge white letters on the roof of one of the site\u2019s massive sheds \u2014 a work best seen from a viewing platform 45 meters (148 feet) above ground level. <\/p>\n
Dutch artist Boris Tellegen, better known as Delta, contributed a massive green-and-black wooden sculpture that lights up the interior of the ironworks. French-based collective Vortex-X, who recycle salvaged material, stretched rays of white industrial fabric across one of the building\u2019s halls in a work titled \u201cMemory in transit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ironworks spreads over a 6-hectare (nearly 15-acre) site, a maze of chimneys and furnaces in which visitors still encounter ominous industrial-era signs warning of risks such as a \u201cdanger of crushing.\u201d They dominate the town of V\u00f6lklingen, near Germany\u2019s border with France. <\/p>\n
They have been on UNESCO\u2019s world heritage list since 1994, recognized as \u201cthe only intact example, in the whole of western Europe and North America, of an integrated ironworks that was built and equipped in the 19th and 20th centuries.\u201d <\/p>\n
The furnaces have been cold since 1986, when production ended, and the site has been preserved as it was then. But its appearance is much older, as no new installations were added after the mid-1930s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s so dusty and it\u2019s so old, but it\u2019s beautiful, you know, there\u2019s beauty in decay,\u201d said British artist Remi Rough. \u201cI think what I\u2019ve done makes you kind of just perceive it in a bit of a different way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rough contributed small paintings that he said were meant to be \u201cvery clean and clinical,\u201d in contrast to the site.<\/p>\n
Danish artist Anders Reventlov said he felt \u201chumble to be able to do something here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAs somebody told me … it was hell to work here,\u201d he said. \u201cNow it\u2019s not hell. It\u2019s like a nice place, people walking around, there are bees, there are beautiful flowers, but yeah, we still remember the history and that\u2019s super important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beil said that organizers \u201cwant pieces which are really original for this space and this also is then prohibiting (them) from being commercial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an installation for the space,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is pure art.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Biennale opens Saturday and runs until Nov. 15.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"V\u00d6LKLINGEN, Germany (AP) \u2014 Dozens of urban artists from 17 countries have converged on one of Europe\u2019s most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[10190,10192,926,151,60,122,5,124,10191,10189,10188,1896,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-11323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-anders-reventlov","9":"tag-boris-tellegen","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-germany","15":"tag-international-news","16":"tag-ralf-beil","17":"tag-tomas-lacque","18":"tag-unesco","19":"tag-visual-arts","20":"tag-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}