East Side Gallery (1990)

Gallery Created from the Berlin Wall

The East Side Gallery in Berlin is an open air gallery, which has been created from 1.3km of the Berlin Wall. This is the longest part of the Berlin Wall that still exists and is located on Mühlenstraße in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. The gallery is located by the East Berlin border and was painted after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Various paintings were created by artists on a section of the Berlin Wall, the different styles of art combine the work of 118 artists from 21 different countries, and is full of different styles, combining both old and new art on the original remnants of the Wall. Supposedly there are 106 paintings, which makes the East Side Gallery the largest open air gallery in the world. In keeping with the artistic forms of film and media, the East Side Gallery provides a vibrant and visual memorial for the freedom that came with the fall of the Wall. It is an accumulation of stories, emotions and responses to the history and politics of the Berlin Wall, which had an overwhelming impact on people from all over the world. Evidently the Gallery is a symbol for cultural diplomacy, because of the fact that the canvas for the artwork; the Berlin Wall, was the centre of the Cold-War confrontation between the two superpowers of the world at the time; the United States of America and the USSR. Not only did Berlin become a point of confrontation between two centres of power who were competing for control of Europe, it also became a point of confrontation between two ideological systems and essentially different societies, cultures and peoples. The fall of the Berlin Wall signaled the start of freedom and cultural exchange, thus the East Side Gallery represents the commemoration of past events by different communities.