Wanderlust Social Club

Description

It takes a keen eye to spot the miniature paintings created by the Wanderlust Social Club, a group made up of Liège artist Mary Limonade and her colleague Jiem from Nantes. The works produced in the city of Völklingen for the Urban Art Biennale 2024 are typical of the self-taught duo: an exploration of urban space that takes subjects and situations specific to the location and transforms them into distinctive mini murals. One of these, painted on an electrical cabinet near the bus stop on Völklinger Platz, captures the fleeting moments that occur here every day when, for example, people pass one another on their way to work and back again. Since the early days of the Völklingen Ironworks, this route to and from the railway station has witnessed many such encounters. In the heyday of the ironworks, thousands of people would be on the move at shift changes. The figures depicted in the mini mural are based on artists who formed the Gesellschaft der Stadtwanderer (Company of Urban Wanderers) as part of the Biennale and also on local graffiti sprayers – a Gruppenporträt (Group Portrait), so to speak. 

Daniel Bauer

Description

Seen from a distance, there is nothing unusual about the stickers that fans of the football club 1. FC Saarbrücken have stuck to the city map in front of Völklingen train station. Step closer, however, and it is quickly clear that the stickers are populated by tiny figures bearing the Saarbrücken colours of blue, black and yellow. Created by the Wanderlust Social Club, which teamed up with the Gesellschaft der Stadtwanderer (Urban Wanderers Society) for the Urban Art Biennale 2024, this miniature work commemorates a piece of recent history. Between 2016 and 2020, while renovation work was being carried out at the Ludwigspark Stadium in Saarbrücken, the men’s first team of 1. FC Saarbrücken played their home matches at the Hermann Neuberger Stadium in Völklingen. During this time, ultras from Saarbrücken would arrive at the station by train and then march en masse to the stadium. Countless stickers still mark their route today, recalling the period of the “Völklingen diaspora”, when high-ranking teams such as Bayer Leverkusen and Fortuna Düsseldorf also visited Völklingen for the 2019/2020 cup competition. For some of the people of Völklingen, this may well have brought back memories of the 1970s, when local team SV Röchling still played in the 2nd division of the Bundesliga…

Daniel Bauer

Description

An electrical cabinet provides the surface for this miniature mural from the Wanderlust Social Club. Drawing directly on its location in the parking garage of the Globus hypermarket, the painting depicts a scene from the flea market that regularly takes place there on Sundays. By providing space for the flea market, Globus helps create a vibrant urban scene that is unusual inasmuch as what is essentially an anti-consumerist event is taking place at a temple of consumption. That said, it does help the hypermarket maintain its power of attraction even on Sundays, when it is closed…

Daniel Bauer