Graffiti in Berlin

For specialists in the field, there is no doubt that Berlin is the graffiti and urban art Mecca. While this affirmation may be just too emphatic, it would be hard to discuss the relevance that urban art in Berlin has produced and continues to produce, from the modern origins of this fascinating form of expression, whose first manifestations were shown one way or another in the first cities in history.

Legend has it that during the period from the late seventies and the fall of the Wall, when the citizens of East Berlin succeeded in getting to the other side, what first attracted their attention were the extraordinary graffiti that ran like a multicolored palimpsest around the entire surface of the other side of the wall, memorably documented in films like Wenders’ Wings of Desire. It was a golden time for urban art in Berlin, free of all constraints of government restrictions.

With the fall of the wall, urban artists began to work mainly in the east of the city, preferably in neighborhoods such as Mitte, Friedrichshain and Prenzlauer Berg which had been occupied for decades by the military. Unsurprisingly, new artists appeared rapidly in the former East Berlin, whose energy and ingenuity, fueled by their need to express themselves more freely, quickly let them take over and place their art in the real forefront, becoming the new standard.

It was the era of artists such as Tower, who printed his name on a huge variety of colors and typographic forms throughout the city, while claiming the right of the majority to shape the urban space.

In summer 2003, with the work of Linda’s Ex, name of war of artist Roland Brueckner, who built a narrative around the supposed loss of his girlfriend that involved much of citizens in a constant exchange of messages on all type of urban media, began to develop a new trend whose chief representatives are perhaps XOOOX, Alias, and Mein Lieber Prost, based on the continuous presence on the streets and provoke active responses in those who saw renewed his art almost daily.

This is a scene so strong, that even guided tours are organized regularly by its key points (http://alternativeberlin.com/). However, there are always critics who argue that the fertile Berlin street art scene, has become a large and lucrative industry with less radical than at first glance might seem favored, although not exactly legal, for municipal authorities and not a few merchants who find in it a considerable claim for tourists from around the world and one of the reasons why the city was named, The city of Design by UNESCO.

Paul Oilzum

That would be in direct contradiction to one of the fundamental characteristics of urban art; to be made from the margins. Get your own opinion about it, when you rent apartments in Berlin

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