Classroom

Before the fall of the wall in 1989, there was an influx of artists covering the West side walls with art. Starting in the mid to late 70s, artists began painting the walls with political references, jokes, and art pieces till the late 80s. As popularity for the art grew, so did this underground urban street art community. People were able to protest against the division caused by the wall, and the overall discontent it brought to everyday life.Thierry Noir, a french artist who moved to Berlin, is known for leading the art movement. He started painting in 1984 daily with cartoon type of paintings with bright colors. His art covers more than 5 kilometers of the Berlin Wall and his art is considered the classic street art style of Berlin.Immediately after the wall fell, many artists worldwide came and began to paint on the Eastside. There was an overall feeling to celebrate the reunification and the hopes for a better future.Kani Alavi founded The East Side Gallery in order to preserve, protect, and restore artists’ works along the wall. He along with many other artists transformed the Iron Curtain into a symbol of freedom. Some of the pieces in the gallery are Birgit Kinder’s “Test the best”, Kani Alavi's "It happened in November", Gabriel Heimler's "Wall Jumper", and Dmitri Vrubel's "Thank You, Andrei Sakharov" and "My God, help me survive this deadly love".

"Thank you, Andrei Sakharov" by Dmitri Vrubel 

"My God, Help me to Survive This Deadly Love"

The East Side Gallery is one of the largest open-air galleries in the world and a big tourist attraction. It is located at the site of the wall that divided east and west Germany. Many of the paintings in the East Side Gallery illustrated reunification, hopes for the future, and breaking free of oppression.

East Side Gallery 

A tour of some of the most iconic street art found in Berlin. Starting with Victor Ash's Astronaut Cosmonaut this tour explores the East side gallery and work done by famous artists such as Blu, James C, JR and Alias.

In 2007 Victor Ash created one of Berlin's most iconic murals, the Astronaut Cosmonaut. Located on the side of a white building in Kreuzberg, Berlin, the mural features an astronaut floating off into space. The mural is significant to Berlin's history for multiple reasons, one of them being the significance of the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. On August 26, 1978 Sigmund Jähn travelled to space as a part of the Soviet Union's Intercosmos program and became the first German, and the first East German, to go to space. As a part of this achievement Sigmund Jähn was named a hero of the Soviet Union and received the award of the Order of Lenin, the Soviet Union's highest civilian honor. Not only was Sigmund Jähn a hero to the Soviet Union, he was also a hero to East Germany as East Germans believed that his journey to space showed their superiority to West Germany. The mural pays homage to the cultural icon that Sigmund Jähn became.	The mural also represents the desire to escape reality, a desire that Germans, and particularly Berliners, are most likely very familiar with has a result of their tumultuous history including World War I, the Holocaust, and the Berlin Wall. The idea of an astronaut representing this feeling was introduced by David Bowie, who is beloved by Berlin thanks to his Berlin Trilogy. Bowie's song "Space Oddity" tells the story of an astronaut getting lost in space. The Astronaut Cosmonaut mural embodies this by showing the actual depiction of an astronaut floating through space. In Bowie's song "Ashes to Ashes" it is discovered that this astronaut is not an astronaut at all, but rather a junkie using drugs to escape reality. This idea of using drugs as an escape is something the city of Berlin is very familiar with, especially during the 1960s and 70s during the process of reunification when much of Berlin's youth partook in the drug scene to escape from their chasing realities.

In 2007 Victor Ash created one of Berlin's most iconic murals, the Astronaut Cosmonaut. The mural is on a white building located in Kreuzberg, Berlin and features an astronaut floating in space. Though simple in appearance, the mural comments on multiple culturally important aspects of Berlin and has become one the city's most pictured murals, making it an important part of Berlin's cityscape.

Victor Ash's Astronaut Cosmonaut

The pink creature is made up of many entangled smaller people, pushed against one another, many with jarring facial expressions. They are all pink and lack distinguishable qualities and a sense of individuality. There is one however thatremains a different color who is about to be consumed by the masses, losing its individuality. One possible interpretation of this mural is a warning against the dangers of society embracing conformity. The pink people seem lost, in pain, and unaware of why they are trapped there or what they are doing. Erie and disturbing, it relates to Berlin and greater Germany’s history in more ways than one. This mural is one of the most iconic street art pieces and Berlin and is often praised for its reminder of the dangers of a society that promotes conformity.Several of Blu's murals have been covered up by Black paint such as “Handcuffs”, “East and West” and “Global Warming”. The covering up of his large adjacent murals "Handcuffs" and "East and West " that were located near an old checkpoint that was functional during the physically divided Berlin era. The act of covering up these murals, largely recognized to have been orchestrated by the artists themselves reignited an existed debate about street art's largely unintended influence on gentrification. In more recent years, street art and murals have had the power to influence and inflate rent prices, one very prominent example being famous street artist Banksy. In a way the ability of the appearance and disappearance of Blu's art to generate conversation is a unique and impressive characteristic.

This famous mural was done by famous Italian street artist Blu in 2007, whose work has a unique way of memorializing the historical significance of the piece's location and offering critical social and political commentary. Blu has done several iconic large murals in Berlin but The Pink Man is one of the only remaining pieces that has not been painted over. It is located in Kreuzburg at the west end of the Oberbaum Bridge.

Blu's "The Pink Man"

JR's Wrinkles of the City aims to shine a light on the forgotten of society, the elderly. In 2013 he brought this exhibit to Berlin with 15 paste-ups which he put throughout the city. The elderly of society are so often dismissed, however JR aims to show that they deserve respect and dignity as they have experienced things and events that many people never will. Unfortunately, in many cultures this emphasis on the importance of the elderly is not executed, and for this reason JR made his exhibit international. Remembering history is important for all areas, but particularly for Berlin. 	The Wrinkles of the City exhibit in Berlin forces Berliners to remember what their elderly have faced, the oldest of them having lived through World War II and the Berlin Wall, which were extremely difficult and impactful times for Berlin's history. By looking at paste-ups of their elderly, Berliners are forced to remember the horror, destruction, and attempted genocide that took place during World War II as well as the separation of their city during the time of the Berlin Wall, and how their elderly lived through, and contributed to these events. Today, most of the paste-ups no longer remain, however their important impact not the city does. Remembering history is important for everyone, but it is specifically important for Berliners, and all Germans, as they look at what role they played in history and who they will be in the future. JR encourages and facilitates this reflection in Berlin with is Wrinkles of the City exhibit.

JR is a French artist whose project Wrinkles of the City features paste-ups of the elderly. He began this project in the Spanish town of Cartagena in 2008 with the goal of shining light on the forgotten of society, the elderly. His work can be seen in cities such as Havana, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Istanbul, and Berlin. JR brought his exhibit to Berlin in 2013 by putting 15 paste-ups all over the city. Most of the paste-ups have been destroyed throughout the years, however their influence on Berlin remains.

JR's Wrinkles of the City 

Alias quickly became one of the most prominent street artists in Berlin by "Capturing their subjects in the moments of quiet introspection, Alias focuses on the theme of harshness of life in everyday society, the theme he cleverly underlines by choosing the right location for his artworks, exposing his vulnerable subjects to the hostile urban environment". His murals tend to play with human emotions through his very distinct and recognizable style. Alias is known for taking advantage of the cityscape to create pieces that interact to become part of Berlin rather than an addition to it. These unique placements have taken advantage of fences, bars, and building's architecture. Many of his pieces intentionally do not have faces and yet they remain still emotionally relatable to the human experience and feeling without the use of telling facial features. Most of his work is done with stencils in a Black and white scale, although he often incorporate effective use of red that give his work an intense edge. In an article about the best street artist in Berlin, Alias's ability to connect to strangers through his work is highlighted, "The lonesome, somber figures provoke strong emotional response from the passersby, inspiring compassion and empathy on a humane level". While newer works from Alias are less common on the streets of Berlin today, his existing pieces continue to be appreciated by street artist enthusiasts and everyday people who stumble across them.

Street Artist Alias is based in Berlin and his smaller scale murals from over the years can be found all over the city, other locations in Germany, India, and Istanbul. He is a stencil artist and well known for incorporating the location and materials around his piece in its significance. Some of his most iconic works in Berlin include "Cut it out", "Faceless", "Hiding", "Game Over", "Praying", and "Batter Up".

Alias's Berlin Murals

James Cochran is a very well respected Artist from Australia who is known for his portraits and narrative paintings. When asked about the process of creating this mural Cochran remarked, "When I read some of the writings of Anne Frank, I realized too that she was an artist, a writer, who just wanted to pursue her talent and realize her dreams. I hope that I can give new meaning and color to her portrait with the spray can". The Anne Frank Zentrum is filled with many interactive experiences, video interviews, photos, a copy of her original diary and informational panels dedicated to sharing and educating about her life. Cochran's welcoming portrait of Anne Frank and the many surrounding works are a creative way of memorializing history while inviting the public to learn while they experience the unique aspect of Berlin's culture that is street art. There are undeniable positive influences of street art that the art sponsored by these projects seem to embody. They have the ability to raise awareness for issues of political and social importance, to represent different aspects of communities, pay tribute to a location or person's significance, as well as the intrinsic value of art and expression in itself.

This portrait was done in 2012 by street artist James Cochran and is located directly outside of the Anne Frank Zentrum. This is located in Haus Schwarzenburg, one of the most famous areas in Berlin for street art. This piece is one of many filling the streets outside of the exhibit that is part of a greater project to support and bring attention to the exhibit which is in partnership with the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.

James Cochran's Portrait of Anne Frank

Every year The Urban National Museum for urban Contemporary Art invites artists to create murals that comment on current issues. In 2020, they invited one of the most influential street artists in Berlin since the 1990s, Jim Avignon. Avignon has many exhibitions, live paintings, concerts, murals on the East Side Gallery, and an Urban Nation One Wall located in Berlin. Avignon's Urban Nation One Wall features a hot air balloon designed to look like earth with a slew of colorful characters sitting in the gondola. The characters include a dollar coin representing capitalism, a chimney representing industry, a smartphone representing communication, a house representing the home, and a blank crossword puzzle representing uncertainty as well as personal projection. His mural aims to comment on the uncertainty of the future in our changing world and how we as a human race must decide how to incorporate all of these aspects (capitalism, industry, communication, home, uncertainty) to create a unified earth. The mural shows optimism as well as pessimism through the facial expressions of the characters, demonstrating the uncertainty the our future holds as well as the possibility for the future to be positive or negative.The issue of Berlin's identity in the future has always been an uncertain topic. The turmoils of World War I, World War II, and the Berlin Wall left Berlin, and the entire country of Germany, reflecting on their role in history and how they can understand their wrongdoings of the past, however this reflection left little room for Berlin to plan their identity in the future. Because of this the question of what Berlin's identity would become has always been up in the air, and is still something the city is determining to this day. Though the mural comments on the identity of the unified earth as a whole, this message holds extra weight to the city of Berlin.

Every year the Urban Nation Museum for urban Contemporary art invites 5-6 artists to create a mural in Berlin that comments on current issues. Jim Avignon, an influential street artist in Berlin since the 1990s, unveiled his mural on June 18, 2020. The mural features a hot air balloon designed to look like the earth with colorful characters in the gondola. Avignon's mural is located in Artwork Tegal on the facade of Neheimer Straße 8.

Berlin's Iconic Street Art Tour

East Side Gallery

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources