Berlin walls have years

Berlin is a city that weeps with history. Decades after unification it has a skyline like a broken jaw. Buildings conspicuous by their absence are found next to bullet riddled vestiges of the Wiemar years. Soviet space-age architectural excesses and grim utilitarian atrocities now sit alongside shining glass temples to modern capitalism.

The city boasts a gunmetal solid art heritage, or be it a timeline with gaping holes; resulting from the creative repression of National Socialism and later soviet communism. Yet, the years after unification saw a catastrophic explosion of creative activities. Graffiti became permanently associated with the fall of the Berlin wall and the subsequent character of the city.

This rich and terrible past drew LeoSoc’s annual tour tothe city over Easter. Berlin did not disappoint. The group found the city smothered in a thick blanket of snow lending a frigid, oppressive atmosphere our explorations.

The city and its troubled past and present were reflected again and again. A graffiti artist explained the contemporary battles between Turkish immigrants and skinhead gangs, between the relentless march of gentrification and anarchist squatters, all played out on walls through slogan and counter-slogan.

Das Berlinische Galerie featured the tortured attempts of censored artists in the 30s to protest. Das Neues Museum rebuild from a bombed out shell displayed the Egyptian antiquities acquired during Germany’s colonial past.

We saw bulldozers poised to puncture a preserved section of the Berlin wall (Eastside Gallery) to allow road access for a media company’s new offices. As we left the protests failed and the caterpillar tracks were crunching over snow, history still being made.