East Side Gallery: Berlin's Most Famous Graffiti... Murals on the Berlin Wall

One last "street" find I forgot to post last time :-)

The East Side Gallery is a segment of the Berlin Wall that was preserved and painted by invited artists from countries all over the world after the fall of the Wall on November 9, 1989. Now it serves as a memory to the spirit of the generations who fought against totalitarianism.

It's also a widely visited tourist site. It kills me that these murals were defaced by common graffiti to the extent that every 10 years or so they have to (and will have to) petition the artists for permission to "repair" them. This is not state-of-the-art restoration, they simply repaint them completely. They were repainted very recently and already the work has been defaced. It makes me angry that stupid tourists, who paid thousands of dollars in plane tickets and hotels, hostels, and food, waste it all to come here, to ooooh and ahhh at "the Berlin Wall" which is now devoid of its authenticity at their own hands. FYI if you do visit Berlin, there are still many meters of authentic Berlin Wall intact, as well as a "documentation center" that is worth a visit (its not quite a museum). It's in another part of town but worth the look.

I've told you why you shouldn't go to the East Side Gallery, but everyone (including me) still does. That's okay. The colors are bright, you forget it was only painted last year and revel in the strange and wonderful imaginations of artists from around the world. Some of the designs are quite good, some quite famous, some quite strange... Here are my favorites:

Varda Carmeli/ Israel 

Hey there! 

Also, it is called the East Side Gallery because while under Soviet control the side of the wall facing East Berlin was guarded by soldiers with machine guns. Where the side facing West Berlin frequented graffiti, the East Side of the Berlin Wall remained bare. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, it seemed a novel idea to paint the formerly guarded side with messages of freedom.

Probably the most famous East Side Mural of them all.

Interesting graffiti here... Look closely the quote is actually "He who wants..." but someone added an "S" to make it a "She who the want the world..."