{"author":"Jan Brennenstuhl","categories":["Street Art"],"cover":{"alt":"German City Starts Preserving Street Art!","height":1396,"src":"https://www.urbanartcore.com/german-city-starts-preserving-street-art/blek-le-rat-stencil.jpg","width":2480},"credit":"","date":"2012-05-13T10:12:54Z","description":"Preserving Street Art: Blek le Rat's Madonna in Leipzig is a masterpiece. Should street art be preserved? In this case, Leipzig says yes!","html":"\u003cp\u003eShould graffiti be preserved? In the case of \u003cstrong\u003eBlek le Rat\u003c/strong\u003e’s \u003cem\u003eMadonna\u003c/em\u003e masterpiece in Leipzig, the city says yes and what begun back in the early 1990s as a true love story, has now become an original precedent!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeveral years ago, Blek le Rat - who nowadays is regarded as a stencil art pioneer - spray-painted a \u003cem\u003eWoman with Child\u003c/em\u003e on an apartment building in Leipzig. He dedicated the Madonna to Sybille, the woman he was in love with. Today, they are already married for 20 years and the stencil art piece is still there and it will stay there for at least the next decades!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe reason for that development is that the piece is now on Saxony’s state list of historical monuments! It’s a German precedent - whereas Great Britain (with \u003ca href=\"/banksy-myths-legends/\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBanksy\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/a\u003e) and Switzerland (with \u003cstrong\u003eHarald Naegeli\u003c/strong\u003e) already started preserving street art, in Germany nobody would have ever thought to classify certain street artworks as culturally valuable\u0026hellip;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTypically, only bygone eras are represented on such lists, and it can take a long time for a monument to be chosen. But Le Rat’s Madonna was granted protected status in just three months. It’s not enough for a work to be recognized as high-quality art, it also should be representative of the time period it comes from.\u003c/em\u003e (\u003ca href=\"http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15933463,00.html\"\u003edw.de\u003c/a\u003e)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn my eyes, this is a great story and although preserving street art works against the temporary character of street art, this Leipzig precedent could open more possibilities for artists to become more accepted in common opinion. It’s a perfect chance - we just need to use it!\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVia Mazi Kretzschmar, thx!\u003c/p\u003e\n","markdown":"\n\n\n\n\n\nShould graffiti be preserved? In the case of **Blek le Rat**’s *Madonna* masterpiece in Leipzig, the city says yes and what begun back in the early 1990s as a true love story, has now become an original precedent!\n\nSeveral years ago, Blek le Rat - who nowadays is regarded as a stencil art pioneer - spray-painted a *Woman with Child* on an apartment building in Leipzig. He dedicated the Madonna to Sybille, the woman he was in love with. Today, they are already married for 20 years and the stencil art piece is still there and it will stay there for at least the next decades!\n\nThe reason for that development is that the piece is now on Saxony’s state list of historical monuments! It’s a German precedent - whereas Great Britain (with [**Banksy**](/banksy-myths-legends/)) and Switzerland (with **Harald Naegeli**) already started preserving street art, in Germany nobody would have ever thought to classify certain street artworks as culturally valuable...\n\n*Typically, only bygone eras are represented on such lists, and it can take a long time for a monument to be chosen. But Le Rat’s Madonna was granted protected status in just three months. It’s not enough for a work to be recognized as high-quality art, it also should be representative of the time period it comes from.* ([dw.de](http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15933463,00.html))\n\nIn my eyes, this is a great story and although preserving street art works against the temporary character of street art, this Leipzig precedent could open more possibilities for artists to become more accepted in common opinion. It’s a perfect chance - we just need to use it!\n\nVia Mazi Kretzschmar, thx!\n","tags":["Urban Planning","Blek Le Rat","Stencil Art","Street Art Germany"],"title":"German City Starts Preserving Street Art!","url":"https://www.urbanartcore.com/german-city-starts-preserving-street-art/"}