The street art pioneer is back in Düsseldorf

Harald Naegeli in the Bilker Bunker - it would be hard to find a more fitting exhibition venue for the "Sprayer of Zurich" in Düsseldorf. For Düsseldorfers, the spray figures are part of the collective subconscious, and anyone walking through the city with open eyes will still spot them on bridge pillars and facades: Graffiti by Harald Naegeli. In 2025, it will be around 40 years since the "Sprayer of Zurich" came to Düsseldorf. An exhibition in the Bilker Bunker traces the precise vitality of his strokes. At the center: the artist's graphic work.

Location Bilker Bunker and just around the corner is where Harald Naegeli used to live, on Karolingerstrasse. The now 85-year-old lived there before moving back to his parents' house in Zurich in 2020. For three and a half decades, Düsseldorf was a kind of exile for him - in the early 1980s, the "sprayer of Zurich" faced a court hearing and ultimately a prison sentence in his home city for "repeated and continued damage to property". The first spray drawings by Naegeli had already appeared in Zurich in 1977. He, the author, remained undiscovered for two years.

Iconic eye and red flamingo

"Harald Naegeli was a pioneer," says Christina von Plate, managing director and curator of the Bilker Bunker. Built in 1942, the shelter on the corner of Aachener Straße and Karolingerstraße is now an art and cultural venue - and bears witness to Naegeli's work. Two of the Swiss artist's figures can be found on the meter-thick concrete walls of the former bunker. Directly at the passageway from the Bilker Bunker to the inner courtyard: the first original, a Naegeli eye. It is not only Düsseldorfers who are inclined to call this motif, which was sprayed many times by Naegeli - executed here in a continuous black spray line - iconic. "We discovered the eye under a fire department sign during the renovation work," says Christina von Plate and then asks if we had spotted the second Naegeli in the inner courtyard: a dynamic, no less characteristic stick figure "hanging around" somewhat hidden near the garbage cans.

The new addition is more exposed: the red flamingo. Its base, a Ytong wall, was once part of a petrol station on Bachstraße. When this was due to be demolished, efforts were made to save the flamingo, says Christina von Plate. Under the leadership of her colleague Tobias Rösgen, everyone pulled together to save the flamingo - the heritage office, the project developer for the Bachstrasse property, the Ten Brinke company, and the art commission. This was also necessary: the crumbling wall fragment that had to be transported weighs almost a ton. "Now the flamingo is in our inner courtyard, which is municipal and open to the public."

"Protest against the inhospitality of cities"

The idea of bringing Naegeli's art inside the building had been around for some time. The artist himself has said that he also sees his spray actions as a "protest against the inhospitality of cities", and one can imagine that a revitalized, transformed place like the Bilker Bunker would appeal to him. Yes, it's a good match, confirms Christina von Plate. Naegeli also said that he found it exciting to exhibit in a place like this. Exhibit? Yes, what actually? In addition to the well-known graffiti in public spaces, Naegeli has created an extremely extensive body of drawings in his studio on Hildebrandtstrasse, mainly works on paper, with pencil, ink and brush. Anna-Barbara Neumann, Managing Director of the Zurich-based Harald Naegeli Foundation, explained at the exhibition opening that the 85-year-old still draws today. Naegeli also rarely works in large areas with a spray can. "A spray figure takes between five and ten seconds and then it's finished, not much is set down," says Christina von Plate. Behind this is Naegeli's "truly outstanding draughtsmanship". This perfection has made him internationally renowned alongside his pioneering work.

Particles of a life's work in the Bilker Bunker

The spectrum of the exhibition in the Bilker Bunker is not only historically comprehensive - the oldest works on display are from 1980, the most recent, the so-called flash collages, date from the last three or four years. Sketches of Naegeli's spray works meet delicate drawings
and graphics, often in miniature format. As the flamingo suggests, animals are among Naegeli's favorite subjects. But the collection also includes landscapes captured in fine strokes. "Some of these landscape works were created on the train, on the journey from Zurich to Düsseldorf along the Rhine. Naegeli has tried to capture the landscape as it passes by the train traveler. You can feel the living moment," says Christina von Plate.

Naegeli's "Urwolke", a work that is at least superficially non-representational, is also on display in the Bilker Bunker. More precisely, five parts of it. They are suspended in the room as individual sheets. The "Urwolke" currently consists of 400 to 500 pen and ink drawings, each composed of filigree strokes and dots. Associations with the particles that are created during spraying are not accidental, says Christina von Plate. For Naegeli, this is a very contemplative work, probably a kind of meditation. Naegeli himself describes it as his "life's work", as a drawing that is "endless" and "supra-personal" and his "main legacy".

Harald Naegeli - The Düsseldorf heritage

The legacy that Naegeli bequeathed to Düsseldorf is still present in the cityscape. The columns under the Rheinkniebrücke bridge form a veritable Naegeli gallery. Some of the spray-painted figures are on display in the exhibition, including photos. Have they not long since been removed or painted over where they were created? That is still the fate of a sprayer today, even one of world renown: Harald Naegeli still had to pay compensation for a flamingo graffiti in Düsseldorf in 2019. A map integrated into the exhibition guides visitors to the works still preserved in Düsseldorf's urban landscape - visitors can tear off the photographed motifs and their location from small blocks and take them home with them. At the same time, they are invited to report their own "Naegeli finds" via a QR code. "I recently discovered another work behind ivy in a backyard on Bilker Straße," says Christina von Plate.

Support for Joseph Beuys

In a film documentary projected on the wall, we meet the young, charmingly mischievous Harald Naegeli. It is not surprising that he found a fan and advocate in Joseph Beuys. Beuys and the action artist Klaus Staeck were also the ones who accompanied Naegeli when he turned himself in to the Basel border guards in 1984 after months on the run. Naegeli combines political protest and social criticism with humor and playful lightness. "With his spray-painted figures, he makes some people smile and perhaps even picks them up," says Christina von Plate. Naegeli's rebellion is not only directed against the "nudity of exposed concrete", in Naegeli's words. With his "Dance of Death of the Fish" along a stretch of around 100 kilometers along the Rhine, for example, he reacted to the contamination and fish deaths following the Sandoz chemical accident in 1986. Further "Dances of Death" followed, including in Venice. Naegeli's foundation is dedicated to preserving his art as well as explicitly protecting nature, animals, the climate and biodiversity.

Magic vs. Naegeli

Anyone who has visited the Bilker Bunker knows that Harald Naegeli has been at home here since 2023. "Magic vs. Naegeli '96" is the name of the work that is on permanent display: a new edition of the artistic dialog between Naegeli and Oliver "Magic" Räke - also an early graffiti bird and active in Düsseldorf since 1983. In the 90s, the two had communicated with each other in public spaces through spray campaigns. Naegeli placed a stick figure on a chair sprayed by Räke, Räke gave some of Naegeli's figures speech bubbles. At some point, they met in person. What does street art mean for Düsseldorf? "There is already a large street art community," says Christina von Plate. "And I have the impression that there is also more and more attention in an art-cultural context."

bilkerbunker.de

Text: Eva Westhoff
Photos: Bilker Bunker / kaufmannfotografie.de

Information

The Harald Naegeli exhibition in the Bilker Bunker runs until April 2, 2025.
On March 18, 2025, the film "Harald Naegeli - Der Sprayer von Zürich", directed by Nathalie David, will be shown in the Bilker Bunker at 8 pm.
Discover more
An audio tour of Harald Naegeli's spray drawings in the Bilk district can be downloaded free of charge from the Harald Naegeli Foundation website.

More information at haraldnaegelistiftung.ch.