wie bouwt er nooit eens luchtkastelen - 1986
Under the title 'Who never builds castles in the air', Nijmegen artist Bart Drost created a wall painting over two façade walls in the alley between In de Betouwstraat and Eerste Walstraat in Nijmegen. The painting was temporary in nature and intended to span a period of 5 years.
In the narrow street, one wall has the text and fragments of blue abstract shapes. The opposite wall shows a structure of green leaf shapes.
The Lower Town Committee, which visited Drost's studio during the design phase, was also involved in the preparations. Drost was inspired by elements that are indispensable in a city: 'green', 'leeway' and 'air'. The wall with green leaves marks the Kronenburgerpark; the light blue figures are the residual shapes of boy figures that Drost sawed from plywood for his exhibition 'a socker pitch' in 1985. The green side is said to be 'overcrowded', the blue side almost 'virgin'.
In the final phase, Drost added the text 'who never builds castles in the air'. A sigh, a hope, a wish. That we continue to believe in the possibility of realizing dreams ...
The painting is well received by the young graffiti community in Nijmegen: they decide not to spray over it. But the years pass, the graffiti group changes composition and miscreants add their own symbol / text / graffiti over the painting. Every 5 years or so, Drost paints the wall with the leaves, over the graffiti.
In 2012, Drost was commissioned to adapt the mural: the graffiti on the cream-colored wall was considered inappropriate and Drost painted a number of boy figures that were part of 'a football field' at the time.
In 2019, the work of art is definitively destroyed by the owner of the leaf wall: he paints a 2-meter high black track and then has a graffiti-style advertisement applied to it in 2021.