ABSTRACT
Men and women artists rose to challenge the destruction of living space in the city, to make the public space a place where people could act and communicate independently. The resolution passed in 1973 by the Bremen Parliament to change the existing 'Kunst am Bau' regulation-which tends to put public art in a subordinate position to public architecture - led to a democratization of public art commissions. During the 1970s the great murals painted in many parts of the city, frequently on the walls of World War II bunkers. Cooperation and controversial discourse combined to form strong contours for Bremen's art in the public space, and its reverberations were felt beyond the city limits. The work which asserts itself in the public space is questioned, and a new social dimension-without the liberal demands of the late 1960s - is sought, accompanied by a new public iconography using the forms and materials of the modern world.
