Street Art in München

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

History

Something society will one day read about...

is being written today.

About the art association and its work…

Our Story

What began with a benevolent vision now forms the basis for
one of the world’s most influential and significant institutions of its kind.

2013 – 2023

Street Art in Munich

Public Space

Art association Positive-Propaganda, which specialises in the works and art historical influence of the international street art movement, was founded in 2012. Under the artistic direction of Sebastian Pohl, it has since established itself as the world’s leading institution in this genre, with more than two dozen avant-garde artworks exhibited in public spaces. Thanks to the art association’s hard work, Munich – which back in 2013 had not played host to any of the street art movement’s progressive interventions – evolved in the space of just a decade into the only city on the planet where people can experience the works of the world’s leading contemporary art activists in one place. These include hyperrealistic sculptures by US art activist Mark Jenkins and thought-provoking, large-format pieces by street art pioneers Shepard Fairey, BLU und FAILE. Since spring 2023, they have also included numerous mosaic installations by Paris-based artist INVADER, who came to Munich for Shepard Fairey's New Clear Power – his first individual exhibition in Germany – and spontaneously decided to leave his mark at our Museum and on the cityscape.

2014 – 2019

Street Art Exhibitions in Munich

Exhibitions

In addition to projects and interventions in public spaces, the exhibition context has, since 2014, also been an important place for different parts of society to come together. As well as this, it has been a framework for promoting the artistic discourse on global issues and challenges in the long term. Generating public debate via multiple channels has always been a central aim for the art activists from the street art movement founded in the early 2000s, whose works literally build on street-level concerns and protests.Between 2014 and 2019, art association Positive-Propaganda – working directly together with artists from the street art movement – held regular exhibitions and panel discussions in a workshop that was repurposed as an exhibition room. This also included interaction with British art activist Professor Peter Kennard, who was a formative influence on the impact of the street art movement and above all on BANKSY’s early work, and whose sociopolitical photomontages have been part of the Tate Gallery collection in London since the 1980s.

2020

Art in COVID times

TEMPORARY ART(SPACE)

ADue to its significance and the growing public interest in authentic exhibitions on the international street art movement, in autumn 2017 the art association began looking for a suitable and centrally located venue for future exhibitions. In spring 2020 – as it happens, right at the beginning of the first wave of the COVID pandemic – Positive-Propaganda received a temporary offer to convert a run-down unit in the section of Munich’s city hall on Dienerstrasse and to use it as an exhibition venue. In the time between the two major lockdowns, it held a total of three high-calibre exhibitions before thecontemporary Art(space) closed for good in autumn 2020.

2022 – today

Art & Science

AMUSEUM

On the evening of 5th November 2022 - a date that is also known to many as ‘Guy Fawkes Day’ – , thousands of visitors from all over Europe were already lining several hundred metres of pavement on Schellingstrasse, waiting for street art pioneer Shepard Fairey to open the AMUSEUM of Contemporary Art in Munich. With a name that borrows from the words “amusement” and “museum”, the AMUSEUM is the only museum in the world to date that works directly with artists from the street art movement. A not-for-profit organisation with a hands-on approach, it is devoted to promoting the works and influence of this still-young art movement by staging first-rate solo and group exhibitions. To meet the same high standards in the future as well, the museum – as well as having original artworks created specially for the exhibition – can draw on one of Europe’s most important collections of works from the street art movement.

Structure of the art association

ABOUT OUR INSTITUTION’S WORK

As a longstanding member of the ADKV (Germany’s umbrella organisation for non-profit, member-based art associations), Positive-Propaganda defines itself as a not-for-profit art association with an exclusively ideological agenda. The association’s work is based on the same binding personnel structures that are found in other established organisations and cultural institutions.
As well as this, Positive-Propaganda does not accept commissions, arrange contract work or act on behalf of commercial entities or in the interests of third parties. The art association consists of supporting members all over Germany with a passion for art and of employees of different ages and backgrounds whose main priority is to identify high-calibre yet avant-garde art, to promote it and to make it accessible to a wide audience, both throughout Germany and all over the world.

Please note that an art association – or Kunstverein in German – is not a self-serving consortium of artists, an interest group of commercially active creative artists or a voluntary leisure-time initiative.