Street art Berlin

Anyone can do it, just as long as you don't paint over some work which is better than your own, so the law of the street ensures Berlin's graffiti and street art scene just keeps getting better and better. I may have found my calling!
I learned all this as I accompanied tourists on a free guided tour arranged by the appropriated-named Alternative Berlin group, which promises to bring visitors to the real underground shit going on, away from the usual tourist haunts. It gives guests a taste of what Berlin is really all about.

He explained that street art as we know it was born in Philadelphia, thanks to the exploits of one Daryl McGray who gained notoriety in the 1960s for writing Cornbread all over the place, including on the side of an elephant after he broke into the zoo to write "Cornbread Lives" on the poor creature to counter rumours of his untimely demise. Now that's one way to get your message across!

Irish mothers visiting Berlin take note - there's some fine paper on the walls here just waiting to be stripped down for covering school books.
Soon we noticed sixes painted all over the place, on scarred walls, broken pavements, old advertising posters, the back of faulty lampposts - everywhere, in fact, something was wrong. "This is the hardest-working street artist in Berlin," Mark announced, pointing out that an estimated 650,000 of these sixes can be found in Berlin, painted on everything the city should have replaced, knocked-down or rebuilt.
He pointed to a bent lamppost adorned with a six on the back, and told us of a dog he found once with a six painted on his arse because he didn't have a collar. Soon, wherever we looked, we found sixes big and small painted like an accusing finger on all the city needs to correct. I guess if he didn't want to work so hard, he should have picked a different city.

The messages became longer and longer, and it wasn't long before the city got involved, with radio stations running campaigns asking Linda to give her former lover another chance. "Take him back!" urged people ringing phone-in shows. "He loves you! Give him another chance!"
Soon people were leaving their own messages for Linda too. To put an end to the craziness, the artist eventually admitted Linda never existed at all - it was just a form of expression.
"But it's a perfect example of how a street art campaign can catch the imagination of the public," Mark pointed out.
Uh-huh. We were devastated. The happy ending in our heads of Linda being reunited with her lost love shattered with the illusion.

There's nothing better than strolling Berlin's ramshackle and untidy streets with a bottle of Sterni in your hand, looking out for sixes and random street art scattered all across this decadent city. Wine and cheese and crap in a frame? Gimme a bottle of Sterni and some graffiti any day.

"How much is a can of spray paint?" I asked him at the end. "About €2.50," he replied. The same as three bottles of Sterni from the local Späti. Now there's a fine cultural evening right there!
More pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/faheyc/StreetArt#
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