Looking Past the Paint: How Understanding Street Art Can Reveal Berlin’s Social Discourse Over the Years

             Berlin East Side Gallery (Photo: Grey Frame, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr)

In many ways, the history of humanity has been closely tied to that of graffiti. Was early cave art not just another form of graffiti, after all? Were the names scribbled on the walls of the Reichstag by Russian soldiers in 1945 also not just another form of graffiti? Over the millennia, graffiti has distinguished itself as an essential record of historical events and general culture, from Mexico, to New York, and all the way in Penang. This is no less the case in Berlin, ‘the graffiti Mecca of the urban art world.’ This oasis for graffiti and street art clearly stretches beyond the likes of the famous East Side Gallery and Tripadvisor street art tours. In the nooks and crannies of Berlin, these seemingly innocuous works actually serve as a vital measure for discontent in its varying forms. Let’s take a closer look at the evolution of graffiti as a manifestation of social discourse.

Graffiti first entered the mainstream of Berlin culture when artists such as Thierry Noir and Keith Haring took to painting the Western side of the Berlin Wall in the early 1980s. This inspired others and, over the course of the decade, every inch of West Berlin’s wall was covered in colourful murals and street art. For many, street art served to demonstrate solidarity with the East Germans or an act of defiance against a regime dividing the city and its inhabitants. It was after the fall of the wall, however, that graffiti and street art more notably gained their significance. Artists from East and West Germany alike marched into Eastern neighbourhoods like Mitte, Friedrichshain and Prenzlauerberg to transform these grey and dilapidated zones of the city into vibrant art districts. This effectively functioned as a reappropriation of the space, a rejection of the regime of days gone by.

An artist under the alias of Tower entered the art scene within this context, with a mission of reclaiming Berlin for the good of the people. His tags sprung up on bins, post boxes, fences, walls, or anywhere with a flat surface. While these may at first have seemed unremarkable, they were actually a reference to Berlin’s communist TV tower, ‘built not for the people who lived there, but for the egos of the people that ran them.’. In doing so, Tower hoped to reclaim the word as a symbol of strength and declare that change should be made from the grassroots, rather than  from above. Tower’s example, as just one of many who embarked upon this empowering mission, demonstrates how artists across Berlin took graffiti and transformed it into a tool for place making.

Following the example of Tower, it was in these areas of East Berlin that the unique qualities of street art came to be more fully exploited. Artists recognised their unique opportunity to interact with an audience, to engage with the community away from the cloistered setting of the traditional art gallery. They stirred controversy and aimed to provoke, to manifest their newly found freedom. This is exactly what Roland Brückner achieved in his poster series ‘Linda’s Ex.’ Everyday, for over a year, Brückner anonymously revealed a new poster, variously depicting a boy mourning his break-up with Linda. At first, people paid little attention, but as more and more posters appeared, people could no longer ignore them. Everyone in the Friedrichshain area had an opinion, people phoned into radio stations, one person even wrote in a newspaper, ‘He loves you Linda.’ Even though Brückner later revealed that Linda did not exist, he succeeded in provoking discussion in the community and exhibited the unique qualities of street art.

With this in mind, it seems that inciting a Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl (sense of belonging) has played a significant role in the creation of graffiti and street art over the years. This is still the case today. It has, however, assumed a different tone to that which characterised the post-unification years. Artists are now turning to street art to denounce the wave of gentrification which has swept across Berlin in recent years. This is perhaps most manifest in the phenomenon of Schwabenhass (Swabian hate). This refers broadly to the anger felt towards Southern Germans, who are seen as displacing locals from areas of East-Berlin. Slogans such as ‘Welcome to Schwabylon’, ‘Ostberlin wünscht dir eine gute Heimfahrt’ (‘East Berlin wishes you a safe return’) and ‘Wir sind ein Volk. Und ihr seid ein anderes’ (‘We are one people. And you are another’) sprung up across the former squatters’ districts in Berlin. They took well known national stereotypes and reworked them in order to convey their sense of betrayal. Though this disdain is directed specifically towards Southern Germans, it testifies to broader fears surrounding gentrification in the city.   

This is similarly evidenced by the graffiti and street art which has sprung up in response to the over-saturation of Airbnb properties in the housing market. In Kreuzberg, Friedrichshain and other areas of East Berlin, it is not unusual to find stickers and graffiti from the ‘Berlin Hates You’ campaign. Though this may seem specifically directed towards anti-touristification and gentrification, it is also part of this wider discussion of belonging, of what it means to be a Berliner. Although this form of graffiti has now assumed clearly negative overtones, it still conserves those initial motivations of the post-unification street artists: the desire to reclaim Berlin.

This may seem to quite literally paint a negative picture of Berlin. However, what is paramount  to understand is that important messages are nestled between the beauty, colour and vibrancy of Berlin’s street art. While these may sometimes take the form of satire, they testify to the very real social issues which continue to plague Berlin. By placing their works on Berlin’s street corners, Berlin’s street artists offer an insight into their unique perspective and, most importantly, inspire a meaningful social discourse.

Graffiti by Thierry Noir at the East Side Gallery Berlin, Germany (Photo: Florian Christian, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr)