❓️What happens to artists when art becomes a tool of real estate development?
📢 I’m glad to share my new article, “Artists and urban artwashing in 2020s Berlin: Co-optation, gentrification, and resistance,” now published open access in the journal Urban Geography (Taylor & Francis Group).
The article examines how real estate developers in Berlin commission temporary art to reframe the image of devalued sites and anticipate gentrification processes.
Rather than treating artists as a homogeneous group, it highlights their divergent positions: some engage with these projects, navigating opportunities and constraints, while others refuse, critique, or organize against them.
These tensions point to a more complex picture of contemporary urban culture—one shaped not only by co-optation, but also by contestation from within.
If you’re interested in art, cities, and the politics in between, take a look and let me know what you think: https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2026.2642194
This is the latest (and final) article from my project “Temporary and Tactical Urbanism as 21st Century Planning Trends,” funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and CAPES – Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior from 2020 to 2022 at the Center for Metropolitan Studies – Technische Universität Berlin.
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