A new urban art artwork by the internationally renowned artist Falk Lehmann alias AKUT has been shaping the cityscape of Cologne-Kalk for a few weeks now. At Rolshover Straße 99, he transformed the previously gray corrugated iron façade of a parking lot of an office property of the OSMAB Group into a large-format mural that picks up on the district’s industrial past and brings social issues into the present.
The area used to be an industrial site and is now part of a commercial cluster with a total of eight OSMAB existing properties. Art already plays a recognizable role in two existing properties, for example in the form of a hanging installation in the large lobby at Gottfried-Hagen-Straße 20 and a 3D wall design in the stairwell at Gottfried-Hagen-Straße 46-48. With the new mural, OSMAB expands this approach for the first time with a publicly visible work of art that not only beautifies, but also consciously accepts irritation.
The motif ties in with the working-class and industrial history of the site, and reverses role models that are still effective today. Wealthily dressed female entrepreneurs, smoking cigars and counting money, determine the business. Men, on the other hand, toil in the factory hall, with babies in slings around their bodies, family responsibility visible in front of their bodies, physical work visible behind them. The scene is deliberately exaggerated.
The huge mural opens up a resonance chamber. It is reminiscent of a place where business, physical work and family responsibilities were inextricably intertwined. To a place where value was created, often by people who received little recognition for it. It refers to questions that are more topical than ever: Who wears? Who benefits? Who remains invisible? And what would happen if the roles were actually reversed?
“We not only want to develop locations economically, but also to enhance them culturally and visibly revitalize them. A work of art like this changes not only a wall, but the perception of an entire place. It respects the history of Cologne-Kalk and at the same time confronts us with issues that still have an impact on our society today. For us, this is exactly what is part of contemporary site development,” says Anton Mertens, CEO of OSMAB Holding AG.
Artist Falk Lehmann emphasizes: “I’m interested in what happens when we turn over images that we take for granted. Art is not intended to confirm, but to irritate. Only then does the conversation arise, which we otherwise often avoid.”
