From Kleve to Leverkusen
Discover Beuys by bike
Düsseldorf is the city of great art, and it used to be Joseph Beuys’ chosen home. He often rode his bike from his living studio at Drakeplatz, in the Oberkassel quarter, across the bridge over the Rhine to the Art Academy. Lovers of art can now follow his tracks on their own bikes, looking for traces of his work in the cultural metropolis.
The old town used to be the starting point of political campaigns, as well as a centre for exchanging ideas for him. This is where he established a meeting point for political public relations work in 1970. This is also where he collected his students around him as a professor in order to discuss upcoming projects and the local art scene with them in the Ohme Jupp and Zur Uel pubs.
Visitors taking the tour along the Rhine will pass the landing point of the legendary dugout campaign, where Beuys’ master student Anatol Herzfeld dropped off his teacher from his self-made boat after rowing him across the river. A Beuys granite head created by him at the Rhine dyke in Büderich still tells of the crossing, which made history following the teacher’s dismissal from the academy.
