2003

öffentlich zugänglich

Georg-Brauchle-Ring / Ecke Hanauerstraße, 80992 München

Wandgestaltung, Edelstahltafeln

Wandgestaltung / wall installation (je/each 120 m x 7.50 m)
Material: Edelstahltafeln und Edelstahlwellblech mit Digitaldruck / powder-coated stainless steel plates and corrugated stainless steel with digital print

Architecture: Burkhard Schäffer/ Baureferat U-Bahnbau

Photos: Wilfried Petzi

Text: QUIVID

On October 18, 2003, the Georg Brauchle Ring subway station, with its enormous wall installation The Great Journey by Franz Ackermann, was opened. The station is one of a new generation of subway stations in which contemporary art will play an influential role. Within the framework of QUIVID, the City of Munich’s public art program, three international art competitions for the stations Georg-Brauchle-Ring (realization: Franz Ackermann), Olympia Shopping Center (realization: Olaf Metzel) and Olympiapark Nord (realization: Rudolf Herz) were launched in 2000 by the Hauptabteilung U-Bahnbau des Baureferates (the Building Department’s Department of Underground Construction) in collaboration with the Munich Art Commission. For the Fröttmaning subway station, which provides access to the Allianz Arena, a commission went directly to the Viennese artist Peter Kogler in cooperation with Bohn+Bohn architects.

As an extension of subway line 1, the Georg Brauchle Ring station connects the city’s Moosach quarter [LMW1] to the subway system. A second extension to the Olympia Shopping Center was completed in 2004. The location and development of the Georg Brauchle Ring station was determined by the architect Christoph Ingenhoven’s high-rise project Uptown Munich, as well as the construction and planning of other larger office and administration buildings in this area. Furthermore, the station is close to the Olympiapark has a visual relationship to it. Therefore, high user frequency, including international passengers, is expected.

The artist Franz Ackermann, who studied at the art academies in Munich and Hamburg, is himself a professor at the ZKM in Karlsruhe, and his work has been seen in many exhibitions around the world. Ackermann became known for his expansive pictorial worlds and large installations. In terms of content, he is often interested in people’s longings and desires and researches how they are influenced and shaped by advertising and the cultural industry. In particular, he pillories tourism—one of the most profitable sources of income in the Western world—in his work. “Tourists are money” sang the British punk rock band The Sex Pistols in 1977 in their song “God Save the Queen.” Twenty years later Franz Ackermann picked up on this phrase for his show Urban Living, writing it in black letters on the wall of the exhibition space. Since then, ways of occupying sites have comprised his artistic theme. He reflects upon how tourism can turn into colonialism.