Street Art: the voiced passions of the people

Berlin has had an interesting history. With both World Wars, which Germany lost, there has been many opportunities for graffiti and street art to emerge into a beautiful and powerful movement.

Noah, John and I took an "Alternative Tour". They showed us the street art and graffiti that Berlin in known for, and that which is not well known. We were informed there is a difference between graffiti and street art. The difference has to do with the quality of the object and the content. Graffiti is usually letters and signage while street art is a scene or graphic. Street art is often commissioned, but a lot of times artists go out at night and put up their work. Non-commissioned work is technically against the law, but no one spends the time or money to remove or cover up the work.

Paste-Ups along the train tracks

A type of street art is called 'Paste-ups' this is where people print their image and paste it up on a wall, pretty self explanatory. Above is done by a famous Artist called SOBR and this scene is a part of a series called "it's time to dace".

Street art and graffiti has shown the history of Berlin in the most unique way. I never truly realized how much street art was in Berlin until I arrived. Even on the train ride I could see the progression of street art/graffiti as we got closer to the city. During our tour, I learned how much impact the history of Berlin had on the world of street art and the relaxed penalty system.

After Germany lost WWI, they had great economic downfalls. There were many poor people and a lot of people went hungry. The police force was not properly funded during this time so they prioritized which crimes were worth penalizing and which ones were not. Property defacing did not make this list, so this allowed people to express their passions and political views. During the reign of Hitler, the economy had boomed and there was a bigger priority of property damage, so there is not a lot of work from this time. When WWII had ended, most of Berlin was destroyed from the bombs and was split between the Soviet Communist (East) and the American, British, French (ABF) Capitalist (West). West Berlin with its capitalism allowed for that economy to grow and rebuild Berlin. While East Berlin was struggling under its communist economy. During this time, there was not enough federal funding for the police force, so again street art emerged. The East built a wall around the West to stop people from fleeing the Soviets to the ABF. As many know, this caused a lot of conflict between the countries involved and the citizens living there. When the wall came down, there was a period where the local government had to be re-established and abandoned buildings became occupied and were remade to the new inhabitants needs. This time also allowed for street art and graffiti to emerge one more time and has been growing since. Berlin is still trying to pick up the pieces from the last 100 years of wars and economic crisis. Today you can see all the commissioned and non commissioned street art all over Berlin.

From the nooks and crannies at Haus Schwarzenberg....

To the Berlin Wall....

And everywhere in between.