An early “Banksy piece” has been “discovered” in a Berlin art gallery, or rather recovered by carefully stripping layer after layer of newer work until winged angels with smiley faces appeared. The 2003 piece hails from a pre-hype time when Banksy’s stencils weren’t almost legally protected in the UK, chiseled out of rubble in Detroit and looted and smuggled out of Palestine. Read more »
21 artists filed a claim against the Berlin council yesterday for destroying and reproducing their Berlin Wall murals without their permission. The East Side Gallery – a.k.a. a little under a mile-long stretch of the Wall – had undergone renovation two years ago. Artists had a choice: repaint their mural for $4K or someone else will. Read more »
Unlike U is doc about trainwriting in Berlin or, as they like to call it, the “New York of Europe.” The doc lays down the logistics, from gate sawing to the search for “sustainable happiness,” with crime footage a plenty. Now, what’s German for “phat” again?
See an army of known graffiti writers scale walls, take train yards and tag police cars with imaginary spraypaint in the Art of Nothingness video, uploaded by Berlin Graffiti… Is this performance art? Read more »
Earlier this year, bikers poured 130 gallons of paint on Berlin. 2000 cars dragged the puddles around, turning the Rosenthaler Platz into a scattered splatter-rainbow. Now there’s video. Read more »
What a lovely bike subculture! This year, art collective Papergirl celebrates it’s 5th anniversary of American paperboy style art delivery to strangers in the streets of Berlin via a merry bicycle crew. See them in action on Vimeo or submit your art by May 19th to have it chucked at some German people. I wonder how this sort of thing would go over in NYC. My guess is: violently.
A slab of stone painted by Banksy in Berlin is up for auction on Ebay. Sprayed by the elusive artist in 2003, the stenciled rock features a rat painting an “A” for anarchy. The 80-pound painting was once situated on the side of a building at a military graveyard before being cut down, with permission, for preservation and profit. The owner of the auction, currently at $4500, not only offers to help hang the piece of wall, but also cleanse it of several stenciled cowboy heads painted by lesser known vandals.
Some big tributes to Doom, the infamously violent early-90s video game, have been taking over billboards in Berlin. Turning commercial propaganda into potential blood baths, street artists Mr Talion, Epoxy, Baveux and Kone pasted unsuspecting ads with the display from the first person shooter favored by the Columbine High School killers. Read more »
World renowned graffiti writer and frequent subject of controversy, COPE2, had a show in Berlin recently—here he is preparing for it—and this past weekend, a crew of thieves broke into the Skalitzers gallery and stole most of the artwork. The gallery alerted the Berlin police, who are now on the hunt for the stolen pieces, but they’re also “offering a reward, no questions asked, for their return.” Stay tuned! |GraffKingdom|
Two decades after the Berlin wall fell, a new one is being built for the fun of knocking it down again. Nearly 1,000 8-foot tall domino-shaped blocks will be set up on a one-mile stretch of the wall’s former footprint, some painted with “doves, flowers and rainbows,” others with murderous dictators and barbed wire. At dusk on November 9th, exactly twenty years after East Germans began their historic demolition, the new Styrofoam construction will be pushed over, symbolically collapsing in all of eight minutes minus the celebratory musical interludes. |WSJ|
Photos via Fallofthewall
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