The graffiti in Berlin left us with very mixed feelings. On one hand it was absolutely fantastic to see so much street art. There is an incredible array of different styles, including some that would classify as sculpture rather than strictly graffiti, and it was really impressive to see some of the multi-story pieces that cover wholes sides of buildings.
The bad, though was the fact that there were tags over everything – including some absolutely stunning works of street art that must have taken a huge amount of effort to construct. It really hit home for me when we saw that people had tagged a famous piece by Blu (look him up if you don’t know who this is – it’s well worth it). The same was all over the east side gallery (an open air mural that was painted on a large remaining section of the Berlin Wall). While the lack of censorship has clearly led to the burgeoning street art scene, it’s a shame it’s also led to people scrawling their name on every available space. We couldn’t help but think it’s only a matter of time before people become fed up with the rampant tagging, and stop the whole thing.
Despite the obvious idiots, we loved the sheer diversity of the art, including many of the tags that had some thought put into them, and the sense of edge that it gives the place.
4ks an hour 