Wermke/Leinkauf: Safe in the City

Artist duo Wermke/Leinkauf has acquired renown by its outlandish and subversive interventions in urban space. Wearing apparel of construction workers, they provoke onlookers by walking on bridge railings, cleaning the windshields of parking cars, or by showing themselves performing a handstand on a city hall tower.

In Karlsruhe the artists question the safety measures connected with the construction of the underground and the new traffic regulations. Installations with flags made of the material used for warning and security vests as well as colorful murals serve as a visual bracket for the duo’s performative interventions in the urban area. Installed behind platforms at the central station, the selfstitched flags thematize the role and function of barriers and prohibition signs used for the protection of the city inhabitants. An absurd seeming construction fence in an unusual place encourages passersby to newly discover familiar objects, to question the significance of conventions, und to sound out the boundary between art and everyday life.

Places

• Main train station (Wall behind platform 1)
• Palace garden (pond), from week 29
• Kriegsstraße (Underpass Hirschstraße), from Sat, July 25, 2015
• City center