Down Town Gallery. A Krefeld bunker becomes a place of art for street art.

About strong children, colorful flowers, thoughtful adults, and abstract frames

A little girl is sitting among almost psychedelically colorful flowers and butterflies. She is looking down on the tiny bird that has settled on her hand. She simply enjoys a wonderful moment. The French artist Jamila Hamaida aka Floya Jam captured a peaceful moment in dazzling colours. The strong work shines bright in the darkness of the bunker room, illuminated by large spotlights, as well as all the other street art works of art.

And Floya Jam’s work is just one example of what a “shelter” can be, and what associations such an unusual art place, a bunker, brings with it. Not only physically, as a space that surrounds people in a protective way, but also psychologically. As a kind of “mental shelter” and an inner world to find one’s way in an often threatening outer world. The Krefeld bunker in Hansastraße is not only a very special place, but currently an art space for street art. And there are  very personal images to be discovered. Optimistic and luminous, or thoughtful and introverted, sometimes even threatening. Mostly figurative, or even quite abstract. Inspiration through the special place has brought highly individual results.

Street art. What is this exactly?

A general description is not that simple. Because street art is multifaceted, as colourful and varied as the many brilliant colours it is made with. It conquers public space, is direct communication, is literally directed at everyone who passes by. As a picture or as a graffito. Anonymous, under a pseudonym or even with his or her own name. There are artists who are only known by insiders, and others who are among the “big names” in the whole world.

The messages are direct, often full of explosive energy, in rich layers of colour and intense tones. Very small, but often enough, they are hugely large. They jump right into your eye. They are funny, bizarre, political, explicit or cryptic, technically often highly versed. Sometimes with a message, sometimes “just like that”. Painted, sprayed, glued or stencilled onto the wall. Often they appear overnight, and then are not ordered under any circumstances. And they are often discussed very controversially, not only for that reason.

“Down Town Gallery” in the Krefeld bunker, curated by Fredda Wouters , has brought together artists for a joint project. They were invited to an unusual place: a shelter for humanity.

“A shelter for humanity”

Curated by street art artist Fredda Wouters, a total of 21 local and international artists, from Mönchengladbach to Mexico, have explored the bunker spaces for themselves and brought their personal “shelter” ideas to the walls. And that’s to the very walls they find. With all their corners and edges, and the faded numbering for the parking spaces that once existed here. And thus, Ruben Poncia also playfully incorporates an already existing neon tube into “Reflex”. It becomes the glowing eyes of an eagle, who is the gatekeeper of his idea. Another nesting of an illusionistic three-dimensional work. With a spot on the ground that marks where you have to stand to experience magic in 3D.

In short, the artists conjure up their art with every means at their disposal. They worked with markers, brushes and paint rollers, spray cans and stickers. Probably during the actual creation of this monumental joint project, the air of paint fumes and smell was “too thick to cut”. And the result? It’s very worth it. Because very different artists, both technically and in content, not only bring their ideas to this place to the walls, but also create a kind of huge overall concept with various facets. From highly abstract to illusionistic three-dimensional. Images in which the viewer can “dive right into”.

A joint project

The street artists have inspired each other in their work. And then it could also be, that someone who actually only sprays has also taken up a brush or a role. Or vice versa. There are not only formal frames, such as the work titles created in graffiti calligraphy, and the sprayed, baroque vignettes on the columns with the names and countries of origin of the individual artists, but also the sometimes extremely surprising cross-references and dialogues.

This is how a very self-confident and optimistic looking little girl in a dotted sweater, who is key in the center of Carloalberto’s work “A Future that breathes”, finds herself in another picture as well. One bunker floor down in the work of Jarek Masztalers. With “It’s that time again” Case Maclaim paints a man who is holding a bomb to his ear and listening as the fuse hisses. And he looks a bit like his artist colleague who designed the neighboring picture.

A house as shelter

This year, the city of Krefeld has dedicated itself to building culture, proving that buildings are much more than four walls and a roof. Under the heading “change of perspective”, the aim is to experience the various places in the city, perhaps to discover them in a new and different way. Especially those places that are not otherwise in the focus: unspectacular, or simply too remote. Perhaps also a “building sin”, an aesthetically, politically or otherwise unsuccessful building project, which is anchored in the architecture of the city like a kind of memorial to supposed misplanning or inadequacy. Or a place with which it has a very special connection.

The Krefeld bunker on Hansastraße is such a place, which certainly still has a significant place in the memories of the older Krefeld people. During the war, in 1942, more than twelve thousand people lived here and found a safe place. A true shelter. In the middle of the city. Right next to the main station. After the war, this protective and life-saving function was lost. First the conversion into a large garage was planned, then the memorial was to be concealed and hidden with ivy. The building was colorfully painted, later extended by more parking spaces. Musicians had their rehearsal rooms here, it was to become part of a cinema complex. Today it belongs to a building investment company and is currently empty. And still it reminds those who remember of the dark times of war.

The bunker tours on the history of this house, which take place together with the street art project, are actually always booked out immediately. Not only by the people who remember and perhaps have lived here themselves, but also by those who want to know what it was like and who want to get to the bottom of history at a place of remembrance.

Change of perspective

The narrative of a shelter still exists, no matter what use or non-use the building is currently experiencing.

With the street art project “Down Town Gallery” the bunker temporarily becomes a place of art, stimulating a “change of perspective”. And this actually forms the final point of the exhibition, which has become an image and a text. Based on a text by Paul M. Zulehner, Fredda Wouters has written a closing word and put it on the wall that can be read forwards and backwards. The message is pessimistic and negative, or optimistic and courageous. You decide the reading yourself. It’s all a question of perspective.

There is much to discover. Come, look and marvel. And the informative guided tours to the art, but also to the bunker itself, are a real recommendation. Until the end of September, every Friday and Saturday.