Are Berlin’s urban artists destined to paint a creatively sanitised future for their own neighbourhoods?

Berlin is not one of the world’s most conventionally good-looking cities, but it is certainly one of the most decorated. Throughout the last century, public spaces in the German capital have been defined by a language of urban and contemporary art. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, scrappy murals and graffiti works have told a story of freedoms discovered in the wake of the messy fall of the authoritarian government of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In contrast, architectural murals such as Unser Leben (Our Life) created by Walter Womacka between 1962 and 1964, and Die Presse als Organisator (The Press as Organiser) completed by Willi Neubert in 1973, pre-date the fall of the Wall and can be considered historic tools of propaganda of the GDR; harnessing public art to showcase favourable depictions of East German society.

Almost 13 million tourists visited Berlin in 2024, with many of them embarking on tours that promise to provide a curated chocolate box of the city’s most iconic urban artworks, including the political murals of the East Side Gallery. The gallery is one of the only preserved sections of the Wall, and was reimagined as an open-air art destination in 1990, complete with 1.3km of artwork from 118 artists. These murals have since become symbols of reunified Berlin, and are continually reproduced as posters, postcards, keyrings and across social media as a snapshot of the city. But what lies beyond these fleeting experiences of Berlin’s most public art? Who gets to profit from them and why do artists paint them in the first place?

When considering why so much urban and contemporary art exists in today’s Berlin, it is important to acknowledge the abundance of ambiguously owned and minimally policed property that was available during the early post-Wall era, as well as the accrued cultural capital the resulting works have offered to local government and developers in the last two decades, but the story of graffiti culture in Berlin begins as early as the 1970s, says Berlin culture expert Lutz Henke.

He explains: “On 21 July, 1971, The New York Times published an article titled 'Taki 183' Spawns Pen Pals, highlighting how the graffiti writing subculture had suddenly exploded when everybody thought it was dead already. And then you had the war against graffiti. There were films, like West Side Story and also Style Wars, and then Wild Style, and in 1984 all of this suddenly arrived in West Berlin. You had these somehow-invented four elements of hip hop, and you had some kind of break dance and graffiti subculture, and almost nothing of that in the east of the city. And there was this huge wall, so people painted it from the west side. It created some kind of tradition of painting property that was not yours.” He adds, “The Berlin Wall belonged to the east side of the city, to the GDR, so you also wouldn't expect to be jailed for painting it.”

Today, Lutz is director of culture for Berlin’s official tourism organisation VisitBerlin, but his career in urban art and culture began on the streets of Berlin, the city that raised him. He is a co-creator of two infamous murals by Italian artist Blu, which were located in the Kreuzberg district of the city before being controversially painted over by Blu and Lutz themselves, as a protest against the gentrification of the neighbourhood.

Lutz’s anecdotes from the era in which the murals were created suggest that bureaucratic processes were more informal then, making it easier to realise these large scale works. He admits that the creative duo took an ‘act now, ask for forgiveness later’ approach to seeking permission to create the original murals, stating that the permits arrived two days after they actually painted them.

Both Lutz and Berlin-based curator of urban and contemporary art Michelle Houston cite that more significant issues arose when brands and developers realised the potential commercial value of these artworks and their audiences. Reflecting on the Kreuzberg murals, Lutz believes that he and Blu created a work of public art that became “one of the main gentrification drivers in the neighborhood” and that they ultimately expelled themselves from the area by inadvertently playing a role in the process.

While these works became unintended tools of gentrification, their impact also provided advertisers with a playbook for connecting with audiences through pseudo-cultural points of engagement. Billboards were first invented in the 1830s, and since then household names have been paying eye-watering sums of money to get their large-format promotional campaigns into public spaces. But suddenly they could see mural and graffiti artists doing the same thing; often virtually for free, and without the indignity of having to admit to advertisement.

Michelle believes the subsequent commodification of murals by brands, even if painted by mural artists on commission, depletes the artistic integrity of the work as it throws into question the motive to create and the framework within which the creative expression itself is contained. She adds, “Public art is always a bit of a time capsule of what is now and what is the discourse of people in that moment, and how is that then translated to the streets. Freedom of speech, whether we like it or not, is something actually still to be protected.”

Thus the quandary arises, if the speech is paid for, can it still be free? Can brand-commissioned urban art’s authenticity be viably brought into question when so many urban artists are, themselves, commodifying their art to sell t-shirts, books and other memorabilia?

So much of the narrative of urban and contemporary art in Berlin has been shaped by the so-called freedom that the city has built its 21st Century identity on; as a hub for creativity, liberation and diversity of lifestyle and opinion, bolstered by a potent anti-capitalist set of values that transcended the collapse of the GDR and continue to permeate many Berliners’ day-to-day thinking.

So what does it mean for the future of the city’s urban art landscape when expression is monetised by commercial entities? And who emerge as curators of the urban landscape? As Michelle remarks, it could be that the people employed to clean graffiti off the city’s streets are the real curators, but are we at risk of brands buying their way into the position? Is there a way for mural and graffiti artists to maintain their agency when paid opportunities offer them an essential lifeline?

Closer Look

Millie suggests events and further reading around the topic of public/urban art, placemaking and Berlin’s graffiti history.

• Curated by Michelle Houston, Berlin exhibition Love Letters to the City is a celebration of the street artists behind the German capital’s vivid urban landscape. On display at Urban Nation Museum for Contemporary Art until 30 May 2027, the show spotlights more than 50 international and Berlin-based creatives who embrace the transformative power of art in public spaces. Expect to see works by Mr. Paradox Paradise, Lady Pink, Blek le Rat, Zhang Dali and many more. Urban Nation is an initiative of the non-profit Foundation Berliner Leben, which was founded by Gewobag AG.

• Art & Place Magazine is a new series of small-format, visual publications that each explore a specific aspect of the relationship between artists and places. Published by Urbanario, the recently launched second issue is titled “Die Gesellschaft der Stadtwanderer” (Society of Urban Wanderers) and offers an overview of insights from Urban Art Biennale 2024.

• Open until 31 August, artist and musician Jim Avignon’s Room Service exhibition at Berlin culture space Urban Spree is his first significant show in the city in the last three years. Following two major institutional exhibitions in South Korea and a large retrospective exhibition of his personal works at Kunsthalle Pfaffenhofen, close to Munich, Room Service continues his “caustic and tender illustration of our mad society”.

• Taking place 28-31 August, street art-focused Unlock Book Fair will bring together “the cream of the international graffiti publishing scene” in the German city of Chemnitz — just a three-hour drive from Berlin. Visitors can look forward to four days of graffiti culture split between the book fair itself and a public programme of events.