TAPE OVER has crafted world's largest Tape Artwork

Berlin-based collective TAPE OVER has decorated the bare concrete walls of the CityCube conference centre in Berlin with the world's largest tape artwork. DERMA TAPE: 100 square metres of art for medicine that complements the architecture.


Art and science brought together in an age-old combination that still works in 2017. A huge installation with a huge visual impact in Berlin, one of the latest artworks by the TAPE OVER team of artists who specialise in Tape-Art. This art movement is a kind of manifestation of street art and uses tape to create images where straight lines dominate. You can see the creative process in action - a bit like an art performance - in their video
 () that showcases how they used 3 km of tape to craft the largest Tape Artwork in the world, at 100 square metres.
TAPE OVER, the Berlin-based art collective faced a dual challenge: on the one hand, to produce a specific artwork reflecting the theme of the 49th German dermatologists' conference, and on the other, to respect the architectural setting, the CityCube conference centre in Berlin's trade fair centre. The building was designed by Code Unique Architekten and built in 2014 and is a large cube of glass, steel and bare concrete - strong materials that are repeated inside.
So TAPE OVER decided to create two artworks, together called DERMA TAPE. One is an abstract representation of the different layers of the skin, the other gives visitors a close-up view of the skin's cells like looking at them through a microscope. To avoid damaging the walls and to make sure the art installation could be removed the two artworks were produced on 50 wood-framed panels and hung as a pair on the foyer wall. 
The result is a mural whose colours and depth decorate the lobby of the conference centre. Nothing at all like the hackneyed rhetoric of advertising banners that you see all the time at conferences, this art installation is a harmonious fit with the architecture and makes a statement about specialist themes.

Christiane Bürklein

Project: TAPE OVER, http://tapeover.berlin/
Location: CityCube Berlin, Germany
Year: 2017
Images: Florian Wilnauer, Maximiliane Wittek
3 km of tape for an area o 100 square metres,
50 wood panels (2 x 1 metres)
200 pieces of wood for the framework