Walking route along poetic art in the city center.

The word DAMALS has been applied on the side wall of the Werkmanhuis near the second floor, in memory of the Groningen printer and artist Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman who had his printing business here from 1923 until he was murdered by the Germans in 1945. Artist Peter de Kan was inspired by The Next Call, a series of nine notebooks that Werkman published clandestinely between 1923 and 1926.

For the ninth and final Next Call, published in 1926 and dedicated to the Serbian avant-gardist Ljubomir Micić, Werkman wrote the poem Damals, which echoes despondency and resignation as well as longing and a longing for a lost paradise:

Damals als die Erde noch nicht rund war.
Damals als die Kunst noch keine Kunst war.
Damals als die Ameise noch nicht fleiszig war.
Damals als er noch jung war.
Damals als sie noch klein war.
Damals als meine Mutter noch sang.
Damals als es Sommer war.
Damals als es noch vorgestern war.
Damals als gestern noch nicht heute war.

You will find the next work of art on the route when you enter another work of art*: An oasis in the city. This city garden was designed in 1999 by Noud de Wolf.

Follow the winding 'senses path' past special plant species to a bubbling spring. Halfway along the path, at a circular terrace, look up. On the wall hangs a granite slab on which De Wolf has sandblasted a poem by photographer and poet Rommert Boonstra. This evokes the atmosphere of the (former) Natuurmuseum:

The museum opens its gates at ten o'clock.
The night has departed from the high halls,
But none of the animals wake up.

I dreamed of strong water,
Butterflies in boxes, tranquil vistas;
And I still dream the same as me
Go up the spiral staircase to the attic.

All eyes that look at me are made of glass.
There's no point in moving.

In this world, dead and immortal,
Are we the pauses in an endless silence.

* The nearby Museum aan de A arranges the opening and closing of the city garden. In general, Oasis in the City is open from Tuesday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Ook Hier ('Here Too') is a special work of art. De Kan had the word ‘(weggehaald)’ (‘('removed')’) milled out of the facade. In this way, he wants to emphasise the loss and emptiness in the Jewish and Groningen community after the Second World War. Placing the word between brackets accentuates not being present. De Kan wanted to show “that it is gone, without putting back what is gone". 

The inconspicuous location of the artwork also has a special reason. According to the artist, it is a subject that no longer lives with everyone, it has disappeared to the margins of attention. That's why he placed his artwork in the sideline, outside the direct field of view.

In five streets in the city, Akerkstraat, Schoolstraat, Burchtstraat, Grote Kromme Elleboog and Nieuwstad, words could be found on curbs that together form a text: ALLES WAT/HEILIG IS/MOET/EEN VASTE PLAATS/HEBBEN ('Everything That Is Sacred Must Have A Fixed Place'). 

The text is a corrupted statement by a medicine man from Papua New Guinea ('everything that is sacred has its place') taken from the book Wild Thought  by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. "This corrupted statement touched me", said Harry Vandevliet, the artist who was asked to create the artwork in 1979 by the artist initiative De Zaak.

Harry Vandevliet saw his act, engraving text on curbs, as a kind of glorified graffiti that will disappear due to the changing environment. And so it happened: there is now only one part left in the public space: "HEBB", which can be seen opposite Nieuwstad 12. However, the edge is so damaged that it appears to say "HERR".

This work of art opposite Gelkingestraat 32 is half of a duo: the other half can be found in the Oosterstraat, which runs parallel to Gelkingestraat. Together they form Bus Stops, a work of art by Loes Heebink and Shlomo Schwarzberg. When the artwork was realized, Gelkinge and Oosterstraat were still two busy bus routes. This came to an end on July 17, 2022.

Both works consist of two stainless steel pillars with a marquee between them, and they are both crowned with a neon-lit organ shape: in the Oosterstraat a heart - a symbol for the beating heart of the city -, in the Gelkingestraat lungs - a reference to the green periphery of Groningen.

The illuminated newspaper shows texts by writer and poetry teacher Jacques Brooijmans. They are about travel, buses, heart and lungs, and are often poetic or philosophical in nature.

Do you want the fastest route to the Oosterstraat? Then walk via the Donkersgang, where you will find the entrance between Gelkingestraat 42 and 44. When you arrive at the Oosterstraat you will find the second bus stop on the other side of the street, opposite number 36.

This statue is a tribute to the Groningen poet and visual artist Hendrik de Vries (1896-1989). The image evokes an atmosphere that matches the artist's poems and paintings. Anyone who is absorbed in his work ends up in an ominous dream world. Desolate volcanic landscapes, evil fairy tales, the fiery grace of Spain (the country of his travels and dreams), yearning for eroticism and threatening female figures are the most important themes in De Vries' work.

Norman Burkett has developed all these elements in the image. The bronze statue shows a kind of dream figure with the head of Hendrik de Vries. The strangely composed torso consists of a number of elements that are more or less recognizable upon closer inspection. For example, the hunchbacked figure with bare buttocks is partially wrapped in a bullfighter's cape that is at the same time a magician's pouch and a dragon's wing. Furthermore, a lion's head, a boy's face, an eye and the skeleton of a hand can also be recognized on his back.

A Danish children's song prompted Gunnar Westman to create this image of dancing children. Bro Bro Brille (literally translated 'Bridge Bridge Brille') is a crawl-through-sneak-through game, which, judging by the lyrics, is not too gentle:

Bro, bro, brille!
Klokken ringer el’ve,
kejseren ståar på sit høje, hvide slot,
Sa hvidt som et kridt,
Sa sort som et kul
Fare, fare, krigsmand,
Døden må du lide,
Den som kommer allersidst,
Skali den sorte gryde.
Første gang så la’r vi ham gå,
Anden gang da ligeså,
Men tredje gang så ta’rvi ham
Og putterhami gryden!

Translation:

Bridge, bridge, 'brille'
The clock strikes eleven.
The emperor stands on his high white castle
As white as chalk
As black as coal (anthracite)
Ries, journey warrior (warrior)
You have to like killing (you like to suffer)
The one who comes last
Will go into the black 'pot'
We'll let him go the first time.
The other time too
But the third time we catch him
And put it in the pot!

The Groningen poet Jean Pierre Rawie, who made his debut in 1979 with his collection of poems Het meisje en de dood ('The Girl and Death'), is now one of the most read poets in the Netherlands.

The poem in the facade of the Waagstraat complex, where the municipal administration is also located, refers to the history of this place, which has been the administrative heart of Groningen for centuries:

The eternally changing sky vaulted
over the same ground for centuries,
where the city, always different
and always the same, found itself again and recovered;
 
much of what has risen here over the years
has been again knocked down over the years,
but it was always this place that
defined Groningen's city and surrounding countryside,
 
that, each time new and old are
warily put at risk again,
and retained for future generations,
when these walls, too, have been torn down.