I hopefully have another trip to Berlin in the works but I realised the other day that I had forgotten to share something from my last adventure in Berlin. Since I’ve been several times now, it’s a joy to be able to relax and just see a few things, instead of frantically running around trying to see everything like I usually do on a weekend break.
So today I wanted to talk about the East Side Art Gallery in Berlin. The East Side Art Gallery is an incredible monument. What used to be a massive chunk of the Berlin Wall has been turned into the world’s longest open-air gallery (about 1.3 km).
As soon as the wall came down, 118 artists from over 20 countries immediately got to work painting on sections that were still standing. It officially opened as a gallery in 1990 and one year later it was granted protected memorial status.
There are more than 100 paintings, but the busiest and most popular seem to be Dmitri Vrubel’s ‘Fraternal Kiss’ and Birgit Kinders’ ‘Trabant’. Because the gallery is open to all the elements, there are regular efforts to restore it and protect the work from exposure to the weather. There’s an artists’ initiative to protect and restore it and the original artists have come back to restore their own pieces, in many instances.
It would be almost impossible for me to pick favourite pieces, though I do love ‘Fraternal Kiss’ and the works of Thierry Noir. After going on a street art tour of East London, I see love being able to spot his work.
I was a baby when the Berlin Wall came down, but it still boggles my mind that I was alive for something so momentous and historical. It’s always been something that we studied at school so it seemed incomprehensible and perverse that it has happened in my lifetime. It’s hard for me to imagine a wall separating a city, a country, a family for nearly 40 years. Even just imagining what it would be like if half of London was inaccessible and enforced with violence is awful.
It seems really fitting that some of the art is highly political, some is touchingly beautiful and some is meant to entertain and amuse you. A combination of horror and hope. Some of them have been graffitied over with political statements relevant to our current state of affairs. For example, Ines Bayer’s “Es gilt, viele Mauern abzubauen” (“It’s Possible to Break Down Many Walls”) piece has been tagged with some colourful language about Donald Trump and his border wall plans.
As the East Side Art Gallery is outside in the open, it’s free to see 24-7. Though I do recommend that you go during the day.
It’s located at Mühlenstraße 3-100, 10243 Berlin, Germany. To get there, take the S-Bahn to Berlin Warschauer Straße station or Berlin Ostbahnhof which is slightly closer at its western end and stroll all of 600m downhill to the eastern tip of it. From there, it’s pretty obvious and well sign-posted.
Have you visited the East Side Art Gallery?
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like:
24 Hours in Berlin
A Vegan Guide to Berlin
10 Things to Do in Berlin
Dinner at Kafer in the Reichstag
Scandic Hotel Berlin
Berlin’s TV Tower
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