photos: Google Street View.
Berlin, much like many of its soul-searching inhabitants, is a creation always in progress, never quite complete. In fact, sometimes it’s quite hard to keep up with all the newest urban developments, so much so that even Google didn’t manage to update all of the Street View services to the present day state yet. We’ve taken screenshots of the most surprising sights – featuring the nostalgic memories of White Trash Fast Food and the Beate Uhse Erotic Museum – read on to see them and travel back to the not so distant noughties!
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by Michalina | Stories
Case Maclaim
Discovering new street art murals in Berlin has been a great pleasure for us recently. Over the years Berlin has seen so many new ones. Some are ever changing, some disappear again, some are becoming iconic sights of the city. Especially initiatives like Urban Nation have brought a lot of paint by international artists onto the walls, such as the great new mural by Herakut in Prenzlauer Berg. But also the gift to Berlin from the Italian region of Puglia is a real gem at Moritzplatz. And than there are all these other classic ones from the past years that have all been part of some exhibitions. After the jump we have collected our favorite murals in Berlin with details where you can find them. You know any other great ones? Let us know in the comments.
And as we have already mentioned the mural from the region of Puglia that was painted by Italian artist Agostino Iacurci, we would like to remind you of the competition that is connected with this artwork and your chance to win a trip to the beautiful beaches of Puglia. More info on that after the jump.
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by Frank | Art
Black is the new Blu, photo: Dario-Jacopo Lagana’ / CC
Last night the giant street art mural near Schlesisches Tor got painted over in pitch black. There are various speculations behind who did it and for which reasons. What I found most plausible was a statement found in a Polysingularity article, claiming that it was the italian artist Blu who commissioned the cancelation of his own artwork.
“(…)the artists decided to paint them all black, so that nobody can take advantage of the original work… A “fuck you” gesture towards the city, towards the real estate company, but most of all – to all the people who love this artwork and everything that it’s come to represent. The argument of the people who are doing that is that Berlin is not the same anymore, that the real estate company will just use the artwork to sell apartments more expensive, that a new statement needs to be made at this new moment of time… In a way, they are doing exactly what the artwork says: “reclaim your city”.”
The rest of the article goes on about how pessimistic the destruction of the artwork is. That it is not the right message the city needs right now in this turbulent time of turbo-capitalism & neoliberalism, remodelling Berlin into a Lego-Gotham. Even if I can relate to the arguments, in regards to the artwork, I don’t agree 100%. I share my thoughts on the repainting, along with some videos showing the artist at work, after the jump.
UPDATE (March 12, 2016): BLU has done it again. In a protest against the city’s plans to “secure” street art to be displayed in a museum he painted over numerous of his works from the past 20 or more years in Bologna, Italy. Read more about this here.
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by Claudio | Art, Kreuzberg
