Graffiti, an industrial harbor, ships, railway tracks, and thousands of visitors watching the process from across the water: for this year’s Frankfurter Osthafenfest, Das Dreckige Dutzend brought together artists from across Germany to transform a massive wall in Frankfurt’s Osthafen into a new landmark – powered by Montana Cans. The approximately 100-meter-long and five-meter-high wall belongs to a bulk-material handling facility located directly in Frankfurt’s eastern harbor. The company wanted the surface redesigned in connection with the Osthafenfest, turning the painting process itself into part of the weekend’s attractions.
With around 270,000 visitors at the previous edition, the Osthafenfest is one of those events that hardly needs an additional program. For that reason, Das Dreckige Dutzend deliberately decided not to organize a separate side event around the painting. There was also a very practical reason: the wall sits directly alongside the tracks of the harbor railway, while the adjacent harbor basin has no barriers. Opening the painting area to the public would simply have created too many potential safety hazards. Instead, the harbor itself became the viewing platform.
100 Meters of Styles, Characters and Harbor Life
Throughout the weekend, visitors could watch the mural develop from the opposite side of the basin. Tables and benches along the waterfront provided the perfect place to sit down and follow the artists as an empty industrial wall gradually turned into a fully painted piece stretching around 100 meters along the harbor. Artists from different parts of Germany filled the entire surface with styles, characters and imagery inspired by the harbor, water and its surroundings. Despite the scale of the wall, the shared theme tied the individual approaches together and created a mural that feels right at home in its industrial waterfront setting.
The line-up consisted of:
AZURE, BELT, BLAZIN VIBES, BROSART, CASC ONE, CURLY, DEFNOTES, DOSAR ONE, FOXY, KAST, KESOM, MENNI96, POKAR, PUCK, RINA, ROGGE DAS FELL, SEAN, SEGA and SPLIFF ONE.
All images by Das Dreckige Dutzend Jam