Düsseldorf 2025 - A calendar by Henk Wyniger & Sven-André Dreyer
Henk Wyniger & Sven-André Dreyer and how they see the city
Lost Places, Loved Places & Insider Tips - Henk Wyniger and Sven-André Dreyer have created a calendar for Düsseldorf that opens up new perspectives on the city. Henk Wyniger is an illustrator and designer and has already captured his home city of Düsseldorf several times with his clear lines and unmistakable style. The 2025 calendar features twelve illustrations that show new facets and perspectives of Düsseldorf. The literary contribution comes from Sven-André Dreyer, who wrote the non-fiction book "Keine Atempause. Music from Düsseldorf". Each of his calendar stories is closely linked to the place depicted in the drawing. However, you should not expect the obvious, but rather follow the sometimes enigmatic, occasionally disguised narrative.
We are pleased to be able to offer you a story to read, October. On the calendar page, Henk Wyniger has a man in a felt hat walking through the rain. Sven-André Dreyer came up with the man's inner dialog.
If you want more, you can buy Düsseldorf 2025 from our souvenir store.
54° 7′5″ N, 8° 22′ 0″ O
"The future we want must be invented. Otherwise we will get one we don't want."
Joseph Beuys
Around 500 kilometers from Düsseldorf as the crow flies, the Sueño fought an unequal battle against the rough, foam-crested waves of the North Sea on April 14, 1986. The spray water jumped over the railing, the salt in the air cleansed and healed the lungs of the sailors and their passengers; no illnesses, no inflammations. The ship so small, the German Bight so big, but what is size? And: Isn't Sueño called a dream?
My artistic concept began in thinking. My sculptural process consisted of making thinking tangible. Think, people, think! If you don't want to think, you're out! An irrepressible will to create, an urge, a compulsion, never a break. And always provocation. Provocation generates polarization generates thinking. Provocation generates resistance. A true opposition. That creates movement in the mind. Movement. I liked cycling. From Drakeplatz, from Wildenbruchstraße over the Oberkassel bridge to the academy. And back. Even in the semester break. Even on Saturdays. And I looked at the Rhine. Deeply. For a long time. The great river that may never run dry. I like water. Fluxus. And it's always the idea, not the work. The idea: production processes that flow into life. Art and life are inseparable, running, cycling. I dream. Of vast landscapes, of wet meadows, of still waters. I dream of dead-straight avenues, cobbled with cobblestones, I dream of willows in the mist, only shadows around me, wet and cold and like cobwebs that I have to wipe from my face. The river had a magical attraction, especially in the rain.
However, it was not foreseeable that they would dedicate a section of road, a section of bank, to me of all people. Coincidences. And sometimes more than that. There had been trouble with the authorities, I had had to explain myself, again and again, and yet they didn't want to understand. They had brought me home on the Blue Wonder, from the left bank of the Rhine to the right bank, the sky was overcast, a gusty wind and strong waves on the Rhine. We didn't dock at the Schlossturm because of the strong current, we docked at the Nordbrücke and celebrated in the Ohme Jupp. I put my coat collar up on this gray day, throwing thoughts into the wind. Shaping a social order like a sculpture, that was my task and the task of art. I cut myself and bandage the knife, I dream, dream of the shattered fuselage of a Ju 87 lying in the snowy no man's land, dream of metal splinters in my body, of Tartars anointing me with fat and wrapping me in warming felt to protect me from the cold and thus from certain death. I had fallen from the sky and was rescued, born a legend that the cracks in the piled-up blocks of fat tell over and over again.
The creativity and creative energy of the individual can be described as the capital and potential of a society. Documenta, here I come! My hair is gray now and rough is the world out there that I want to embrace, that I had to let go of. In the sky only a blue hole from which the sun shone, I cast a large shadow, I was a tool, I am a tool, I wrote a body of work, not a CV. Hands on my chest like crows' claws, I dream of coyotes - Little John - and dead rabbits, I like America, and America likes me.
It became the most beautiful fall, it became an icy winter, the Arctic wild geese, great egrets and stonechats were not my companions. It became spring, the sun wearily remembered the summer, a flag hung on the mast and did not fly.
I dream. Of vast landscapes, of wet meadows, of still waters. I dream of the last oxbow lakes of the river, of wild geese and great egrets and stonechats. I dream of cobbled, dead-straight avenues, dream of pollarded willows in the mist, only shadows around me, wet and cold and like cobwebs that I have to wipe from my face. I dream of the beginning, of Moortgat, Meunier and Minne, I dream in a fever.
The Sueño fought an unequal battle against the rough whitecaps of the North Sea. 54 degrees, seven minutes and five seconds north. Eight degrees, 22 minutes and zero seconds east. The ship is so small, the bay so big, but what is size? And: isn't Sueño called a dream? I pull my scarf tighter, turn up the collar of my coat, my hat low on my face. Now I am sea and wave and wind, I am black clouds pushed together over the sea, I am a white tower of clouds, I am everywhere and nowhere, I am flowing like thoughts, like water, like art, like life.
Information
Sven-André Dreyer works as a freelance journalist and author. He organizes reading stages and has published several volumes of literary texts. In 2018, he published the non-fiction book "Keine Atempause. Musik aus Düsseldorf" (Droste Verlag), which serves as the basis for the regular musical city tour "The Sound of Düsseldorf". He curated the online exhibition "Music, Makers and Machines" for "Google Arts & Culture".
More information about the tour "The Sound of Düsseldorf".
Henk Wyniger works as an advertising illustrator and designer. He was born with a talent for drawing, so studying illustration in Strasbourg and Offenbach was an obvious choice. Henk first expressed his enthusiasm for clear lines in three comic albums for the renowned Carlsen publishing house. Since then, the creative all-rounder has been transforming his talent into packaging designs, characters, comics and colorful advertising worlds for well-known brands with the design studio he founded in 1996.
Illustrations: Henk Wyniger
Calendar story: Sven-André Dreyer
