About 50 years ago, the first graffiti appeared on the streets of New York in the form of “tags” – the often colorful writing with which street artists spray their pseudonyms on walls, trains or other things.
Back then, nobody would have dreamed that the mostly illegal and hostile art form would make it to Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm – and quite legally. Now the time has come.
Next Thursday, the open-air exhibition “All We Wrote – The Passion of Graffiti” begins on the median of the boulevard, including Tauentzienstraße. Until June 26 there are 17 installations between Uhlandstraße and Wittenbergplatz.
New York, Amsterdam, Paris, Sao Paulo and Berlin are symbolized in part by models of subway cars as “original scenes of graffiti culture” – except for Sao Paulo, where there is no subway.
In addition, stylized versions of the television tower and the gasometer in Schöneberg stand for Berlin, a red mill for the “Moulin Rouge” in Paris or water tanks for New York.
Artists from some countries are still working with spray cans to add tags or images. A temporary “Urban Contemporary Store” will open in Kranzler-Eck on Wednesday at 6 p.m. with a graffiti show. Guided tours to the installations outside are also offered there.
The graffiti show was developed by artist Baye Fal and Roland Prejawa, who has already organized several street art projects. “All We Wrote” will later be shown in the other cities that the exhibition is about.
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The project marks the start of the “BLVD Ku’damm” brand. Romy Schubert says that this is intended to promote the “unbroken attraction of Kurfürstendamm” worldwide. She is project manager of the AG City and managing director of the site community “BID Ku’damm-Tauentzien”. BID stands for Business Improvement District. Property owners pay for upgrades in the area between Uhlandstrasse and Wittenbergplatz. This also includes the many flowers on the median.
