“They have lived in the same small room for years, surrounded by plain gray walls. All that can be seen from the window is another gray wall. They are permitted to leave this room just once a day, to spend an hour in another room. This other room is also gray.
That is the daily life of a prison inmate”
Malik, initiator and artist 4661m2

In the Swiss town of Lenzburg, however, the situation is somewhat different: from fall 2012 to spring 2014, well-known Swiss street artists designed 4661 square meters of wall space at the new local penitentiary. They were free to draw or spray paint anything they wanted. In more than 25,000 hours of work, a total of 1,400 spray cans and 200 liters of paint were used to turn a barren, cold concrete bunker into a lively and unique comprehensive work of art. This impressive and tangent art across eight recreation courtyards, five colonnades, a staircase, and two oversized exterior walls remains, similar to the prisoners themselves, locked up behind the heavily guarded gates and walls.
The wall paintings and graffiti are made available to the public in this art book. In addition to a presentation of the works of art, 4661 m2 also provides an insight into the work processes while also allowing the 16 involved artists to speak about their efforts.

Participating Artists:
Chromeo (1982, lives and works in Winterthur)
Lain (1981, lives and works in Aarau)
Malik (1977, lives and works in Aarau)
Mizzo (1982, lives and works in Zurich)
David Monllor (1986, lives and works in Lenzburg)
Nevercrew (Pablo Togni, 1979, lives and works in Gudo /Christian Rebecchi, 1980, lives and works in Lugano)
Note (1986, lives and works in Zurich)
Onur (1979, lives and works in Basel)
Sarah Parsons (1980, lives and works in Zurich)
Robert Proch (1986, lives and works in Poznan)
Shark (1972, lives and works in Zurich)
Benjamin Solt (1986, lives and works in Lucerne)
Toast (1974, lives and works in Zurich)
Daniel Zeltner (1984, lives and works in Basel)