Gallery tour of Newcastle upon Tyne - August Sander on show at Side, war photography at University Gallery, Vane Gallery and the International Print Biennale, Opus Art goes Fresh Cream and GoSee Fish & Chips

An alluring side alley did not take us to the London Dungeon but the SIDE GALLERY. Since the 1970s, the gallery has been home to photography in all its forms and incarnations. We noticed with some surprise that no less than two German photographers adore the walls of the gallery at the moment.

Born in 1891 in Germany as Helmut Herzfeld, the artist renamed himself to John Heartfield as a protest against the First World War. During the Weimar Republic, Helmut was a member of the Berlin DADA Club. He published his collages in the political magazine 'Der Dada' and he assisted in organizing the first international DADA fair in Berlin in 1920.

Although his works had been banned in the Third Reich, they enjoyed a revival by the end of the 1950s in the GDR and many graphic designers and artists were influenced by him. Some of his work is delightfully evil – as exemplified by the exhibition in the Side Gallery.

One floor up, you can find the works of Cologne photographer August Sander from the gallery's stock. His portraits of Germans have an air of ambiguity and capture the spirit of the first half of the bygone century – from Jewish rural workers to industrial magnates. Feisty, careworn, daft – it's all there. We could not help but smile a little when we took a glance in the guest book, in which we found the following British-laconic comment: “What a happy bunch the Germans were (much nicer than these days). Both exhibitions will run until the 3rd of December.

One phenomenon typical for Newcastle is not only the multitude of bridges of all kinds and styles, but also the outlandishly narrow development above the roofs in Newcastle’s Quayside.

On the way to the elevated city centre, home to Grey's Monument (a homage to the name giver of the Earl Grey tea), one passes the Milburn House, a fancy Art Nouveau building and home of the Opus Art Gallery. Opened in 2005, the gallery shows contemporary art, 'Fresh Cream' being the latest one, which shows the cream of the crop of the most recent Central St. Martin's and RCA graduates.

The UNIVERSITY GALLERY is also worth a visit and located a bit off the shopping mall, home to both established and new talents. Until the end of November, the gallery is exhibiting war photographs by SEAN SMITH (Frontlines), who has been travelling in war zones in the Middle-East and Congo.

VANE Gallery is currently showcasing work by two young artists. ‘This is where we meet’ is the second solo exhibition by Simon Le Ruez (born in 1970), who lives in Sheffield and Berlin.

"For Simon Le Ruez’s second solo exhibition at Vane, he presents a new body of work including painting, sculpture, installation, and drawing. The show’s title suggests something definitive, a collision of ideas perhaps; it extends a pertinent invitation to the audience whilst remaining aloof about where this may lead. With an emphasis on materiality, reduction, deconstruction and remaking, the work of Le Ruez thrives on both aesthetic and psychological tensions," - the gallery on Simon's work.

Adam Burke shows abstract imagery in his first VANE exhibition, entitled ‘Absolute Colour Space’.

Both artists also contribute an edition to the International Print Biennale, which gathers galleries and museums from the North-Eastern part of England and runs until the 19th of November.

For refreshments, we recommend some traditional Fish & Chips. If you dare to sample the cuisine of Northern England, we would like to point you towards these restaurants: Barluga, NO28, Cafe Twenty One, Café Royal, - as we learned first hand from a proper 'Geordie'.

We can also recommend the elegant journey on the North Sea, if you ever entertain the idea of paying a visit to Newcastle. The distance between the ferry in Ijmnuiden at Amsterdam and Newcastle is 500 kilometres.