Thierry Noir, Keith Haring, Christophe-Emmanuel Bouchet. They all gathered in Berlin, transforming the grey Berlin Wall with other artists into a multicolored, vibrant collective work of art, and contributed with color and humor to the horrific symbol of separation and division its coldness and seriousness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even after the Berlin\nWall fell, images of the Wall Artworks remained in people’s minds. Memories of\nthe pain of separation, longing for freedom, and an artistic revolution. Heinz\nJ. Kuzdas, a West Berlin photographer, played a significant role in this, he\ndocumented the constant changes in the masonry with his camera for the\nposterity, and assembled them in his book “Berliner Mauer Kunst, Mit East\nSide Gallery”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The development of the Art on the Berlin Wall <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
For masonry art, the modernization of the Wall that began in\n1963 was of essential importance. The barbed wire fence evolved into a brick\nwall and finally into the world-famous whitewashed concrete wall of terror.\nParadoxically, it was these naked, cold, and homogeneous reinforced concrete\nslabs that provided people with the opportunity to create art to the extent\nwith whom we associate the wall today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Initially, the Berlin Wall was adorned only with raw,\nsporadic graffiti slogans. Through the student movement of 1968, posters,\nleaflets and slogans gradually brightened the Wall, but it was not until the\nSponti movement which, along with scribbles by children and tourists, launched\nthe artistic painting of the Berlin Wall in the late 1970s, which then in the\n1980s focused on pictorial representations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore the French artists Thierry Noir and Christophe\nBouchet acted as pioneers of large-scale and above all humorous wall painting.\nTheir chain of 42 colorful Statues of Liberty achieved worldwide fame. Also,\nthe artist Keith Haring came to Berlin to paint the Wall. He transformed the\nStatues of Liberty into a new work of art. This constant development was\ncommon. In some cases, wall paintings were changed overnight into new\nrepresentations, which made strolling along the Berlin Wall resemble the observation\nof a dynamic work of art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
That’s what motivated Heinz J. Kuzdas on the daily\nexcursions with his daughter Carolin, to always carry his camera with him,\nallowing him to capture the constantly changing wall art. Therefore, between\n1982 and 1989, he took almost 3000 pictures, which have been admired in more\nthan 100 exhibitions worldwide. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the Wall fell on November 9, 1989, its art disappeared\nas well. Regardless if it was a professional excavator or a small hammer, more\nand more parts of the former border disappeared in the following months. Some\nwould surely rather forget the time of the Berlin Wall, but as Walter Momper,\nBerlin’s mayor between 1988 and 1990, said: “With the pulling-down of the\nWall, many of the sometimes beautifully painted parts are bound to disappear as\nwell. [\u2026] It is important for the Wall to be remembered for being a concrete\nproof of political failure as well as for the way people got adjusted to and\nintegrated it into everyday life by painting it.” (p.4, “Berliner\nMauer Kunst, Mit East Side Gallery” translated by Heinz J. Kuzdas and\nOliver Mechcatie)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This memory survives in the book “Berliner Mauer Kunst,\nMit East Side Gallery” by Heinz J. Kuzdas. In addition to the photographs,\nthe book is containing the history of the Wall, the development of Wall\npainting and poetry, and the history of the Wall strip after the fall of the\nWall. All texts are written in German, English, Spanish, and French. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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