Recap: Cash, Cans & Candy Festival Hits the Streets of Vienna

Cone the Weird, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

In the summer, the city of Vienna, Austria quiets considerably as renowned opera houses and classical institutions take a break from their year-round fanfare of traditional cultural ventures. But on the streets, a nascent art festival is making major waves despite this year only being its second iteration. HilgerBROTKunsthalle is a spacious gallery nestled between other contemporary art spaces in a former Ankerbrotfabrik (bread factory) building. The space – opened by esteemed gallerist Ernst Hilger – organizes the annual Cash, Cans & Candy festival and its concurrent gallery exhibition, an operation dreamt up by curator Katrin-Sophie Dworczak. Running for the months of summer and into the start of fall, the festival consists of new murals by a myriad of artists well-known in the ever-evolving contemporary street and urban art scene.

In the gallery space of HilgerBROTKunsthalle, the works of these artists dot the walls. Outside the space, the artists – who were also invited to Vienna for a residency – take to the streets, putting up murals that not only interact with Vienna’s turn-of-the-century architecture, but provide a different lens through which to view contemporary art in the city. “I hope people who have nothing to do with art will appreciate [Cash, Cans & Candy] even more because when art takes place in public space, it’s so accessible, and that’s what art should be,” says Dworczak of the project. “If you want to see art, you shouldn’t be forced to pay for it; you can experience it in a different way.” Last year, Dworczak invited a coterie of top drawer artists to Vienna to spruce up walls and buildings – the list included Shepard Fairey, FAILE and RETNA.

“We had murals and dance performances, walks in the city, bike tours with another gallery, and a lot of collaborations too,” says Dworczak of the inaugural iteration. “This year, we’ve come up with the Bring-A-Friend concept, in which we invite artists, and they themselves will invite friends or someone they’ve always wanted to work with.”

The festival kicked off with a collaborative mural by Lakwena Maciver (UK) and Emily Evans (UK) and continues with walls by C215 (France) and Epsylon Point (US), Nychos (Austria) and Cone (Germany), Know Hope (Israel) and 2105 (Italy), JANA & JS (Netherlands) and Graphic Surgery (Netherlands), and CYRCLE. (US) and Gaia (US). Currently, the latter pair is collaborating on a mural at the foot traffic-heavy Westbanhof train station, exploring and overturning the definitive concepts of heritage and history in architecture.

The exhibition runs until September 6 and from now until then, artists will be continuously coming into Vienna to paint the city.

Cone the Weird with his work, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Cone the Weird, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Collaboration by Lakwena Maciver and Emily Evans, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Lakwena Maciver and Emily Evans with their work, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Collaboration by Know Hope and 2501, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Know Hope painting, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Know Hope, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Know Hope and 2501 on the lift, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Cyrcle and Gaia collaboration, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Cyrcle at work, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Detail from Cyrcle and Gaia’s wall, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Detail from Cyrcle and Gaia’s wall, photo courtesy of Gallery Ernst Hilger/Oliver Juric

Gallery install:

Emily Evans

Cyrcle

Nychos and Cone