Berlin's urban art

When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the built up spaces of East Berlin offered the city's street artists empty canvasses on which to experiment with and create new art.

From graffiti to sticker art, cut-outs, stencils, installations, and paste-ups, today the streets of Berlin are an open gallery for those who appreciate urban art. And now the internet and digital media have taken that a step further to document and curate interesting and unique examples of the form, with the recently launched "Urban Art Guide".

It is a digital application that that can be used online and on iPhones, and has three basic tools. One is called "Locate Me", and it includes a Berlin map which outlines the pieces of urban art in the vicinity, information about them, the artist and how to get there.

Another function is the gallery view, which includes more than a hundred pieces of urban art, while the third offers selected tours, mapped out in Berlin's hippest neighborhoods and highlights the best of the city's street art.

Maria Zeeman, from the guide's editorial staff, says they are discovering new works daily, which they add to the Urban Art Guide. She says users of the guide are also helping.

"They find something and say, that's interesting, smart, cute or romantic.

"We are more a platform for people exchanging ideas on what is the newest, what is the best idea, what is arty, what is not," Zeeman said.

The "Urban Art Church"

In the heart of Berlin, those on the hunt for real urban art can find the "Urban Art Church".

Everything, from the ceiling, door and even the mailboxes are covered in what looks like one large eclectic collage: comic-like figures, a line of underwear hanging on a clothes line, a large serpent, robots, as well as graphic erotic scenes.

This is the cumulative work of many urban artists. Zeeman says it is constantly changing, as a number of artists and crews express themselves.

"Artists don't only work as individuals. They are working as crews which you could compare to teams in sports," she says.

"There can be some kind of battling over space; that one evening one crew puts one piece of art up, and the next day another crew comes and puts a bigger one on it.

"In that way you can see a wall changing and growing."

Meeting the urban artist behind the art

Nomad is one of the Berlin urban artists whose work is well-represented in the guide.

He has been creating urban art for many years and says he does not plan his work. Instead, he says he allows himself to be inspired by the city's streets.

"When I walk the streets, I paint a lot of trash that is lying around on the street, which you can perfectly legally transform into art, because it is not forbidden to paint on trash. It is forbidden to leave it on the street, but not to paint on it," he says.

Nomad says items anything from sofas and mattresses to old washing machines are good "canvases" for his paintings.

"I roller paint on it, I spray on it, and most of the time I use a classic marker…because you can carry it all the time with you. It comes in handy when you are just walking around."

Nomad says he appreciates the Urban Art Guide's interactive presentation, but he feels when the work is taken off the street and put on the internet, things gets lost in "IT translation".

"I don't think that urban art happens in galleries, or on the internet. It doesn't happen anywhere but on the street," Nomad said.

Author: Leah McDonnell/Catherine Graue
Editor: Kateri Jochum