EAST SIDE GALLERY - History - Intention

 

The East Side Gallery is a special place, where art has become the expression for a unique point in time of the history of a separated Germany.  It is a meeting point that talks about an old Berlin and a new Berlin, a separated and a unified Germany.

 

Between Oberbaumbrücke (Oberbaum Bridge) and the Ostbahnhof, along the former borderline that ended at the Spree and Mühlenstrasse, stretches a unique picture palette that marks a sign of overcoming inhumanity.  After the Wall came down in 1989, hundreds of artists from all over the world gathered and transformed the eastside of the Wall that had been untouchable up to now, with their paintings, giving the Wall a new face in a new time.

 

In spite of the gallery being protected,  through the initiative by single artists and supporters of the East Side Gallery and by the historical building code, the images that used to go around the world are now and the Wall itself is crumbling.  Even though the East Side Gallery is a tourist attraction and welcomed by Berliners, it testifies to the history of the last few years: to a sad handling of our past.  According to 'if you don't see it, you don't think of it', the East Side Gallery gets more and more forgotten, and the quiet hope of some, that it might disappear into the air, seems to become  reality in a certain sense.