Updated August 18, An overview of Dresden street art, with some cool pics of street art found around the city and interview with an amazing Dresden street artist, Kaweek. Do you know what the name means?
It was almost totally burnt to the ground after the famous Allied firebombing on the night of February 14th, Seventy years later, the glory of the Baroque Altstadt , the old town, has been restored, but the result is at least in my opinion a cold, sterile, open-air museum. The name, per se, is a contradiction β the old town is in fact new, having been rebuilt in the second half of the 20th century, and the new town is old, being the only part in town that was partially spared by the bombs.
The Dresden Neustadt is the alternative centre of town, and a popular nightlife destination. One of the first things that caught my attention around Neustadt was that street art seemed to be everywhere. There were a few big pieces, but the vast majority seemed to be smaller stuff. A paste-up here, a stencil there β I found myself walking around staring at the walls, not wanting to miss anything.
Dresden street art was cryptic, hard to interpret. Taking pics of the best pieces was not enough, I found myself intrigued and wanting to know more. Danilo showed us some of the places that made the history of the area. A bar that remained open for the whole of the war, supplying families with hot water every Sunday. The famous Kunsthofpassage , where local visionary artists used buildings as their canvas, taking inspiration from animals and the four elements.
Another bar with a putt-putt pool table, sadly recently sold off to developers, housed in a former coffin factory. Being around Neustadt, we saw a lot of street art on the tour. Danilo was a street art enthusiast and he illustrated some of the works for us, showing once again how much more there is to this art form than meets the eye.
