At the beginning of the 1980s, Hamburgs urban landscape gradually began to change. The instigators of this transformation were not urban planners, however, but graffiti artists: inspired by films like Wild Style and Beat Street, they moved around the city at night with spray cans and left behind colourful pictures, symbols and writing on walls, bridges and train carriages. Over the course of time, Hamburg - which had been a grey city dominated by postwar architecture - was transformed into a colourful and diverse metropolis which soon became one of the European epicentres of the graffiti and hip-hop scene, alongside Paris, Amsterdam and Munich. The exhibition A CITY BECOMES COLOURFUL. Hamburg Graffiti History 1980-1999, which will run from 2 November 2022 until 31 July 2023 at the Hamburg Museum, tells the story of the origins of this youth subculture in Hamburg. The curators Oliver Nebel, Frank Petering, Mirko Reisser and Andreas Timm have assembled almost 500 exhibits, including photographs, texts, sketchbooks, spray cans, newspapers, magazines, vinyl records and accessories. In their research, they were able to build on their previous collaborative work: they are the editors of the lavishly illustrated book A City Becomes Colourful (published in 2021), from which the exhibition gets its name.

FOREWORD A CITY BECOMES COLOURFUL. ALL CITY WHERE SUBCULTURE CAN THRIVE BATTLE OVER THE OCCUPIED HOUSES THE BREAKDANCE WAVE THE FIRST COLOURFUL LETTERS GRAFFITI CONQUERS THE CITY PORTRAIT OF A SUBCULTURE A STUDENT GETS THE BALL ROLLING FRIEND AND FOE BREAKING ALL THE RULES HOODIES, SNEAKERS, BASEBALL CAPS JAMS, PARTIES, CLUBS INTERVIEWS BEHIND THE CURTAINS EXIT THROUGH THE CITY GLOSSARY THE BOOK IMPRINT