Artists of Berlin

The walls of Berlin talk. In this city famous for it's wall, every concrete surface seems to call out for my attention.

Most of my week in Germany I stayed in an apartment in East Berlin, a few miles south of the City center. The view from the balcony of the 6^th story apartment was beautiful. Lush green trees spill through the cracks of terracotta red roofs; the steeple of an ancient church pushes out to dominate the skyline. At street-level, however, the green trees are overgrown with weeds and the bushes hide broken glass and soggy leaflets. The buildings are old and often ill-kept and the cobblestones of the streets shine with discarded metal bottle caps. Some parts of Berlin shine new and untouched, catering to the busloads of tourists that flood in every day. The greater part of the city, however, has an unkempt feeling. It's overgrown islands, dilapidated buildings and, of course, graffitied walls.

I have to admit that I love graffiti. Even in Honduras, where the spray-painted walls are often the product of violent gangs or an angry protester, I love reading the words scrawled on the walls. And when graffiti moves past these crude marking on a wall, it is not only interesting but truly beautiful. Graffiti has the freedom of a charcoal drawing with the permanence and size that allows it to communicate to huge crowds. It is an incredible way for art to retain its presence in our everyday lives.

I've been wondering how graffiti became so prevalent in Berlin, since it seems more common in this city than in any other place I have visited. While I was in Berlin, I saw an old photo of young men and women dismantling the wall. In the background stood a man holding posters and brushed. I like to imagine people, angry at their government, angry at the injustice of their situation, angry at the wall, grabbing a brush, a can, and shouting it out. I imagined the colors spreading: from the wall, through alleys, over roofs and under bridges, carried across the city on the subway. Plastered across whole buildings, until it even started creeping into homes, galleries and restaurants, embraced as more than just a sign of protest.

Somehow the graffiti that covers the walls of Berlin don't make it look run down. To me, the kaleidoscope on the walls hint at a culture that is wide awake and ready to to talk and to change. Maybe the graffiti is merely vandalism, but I like to think that there's more to it. In a city that often looks like no one cares for it, men and woman have painstakingly painted it's walls. And there is something to be said about that.