The Longest Open-Air Gallery in the World from 1990 to the Present

Artists began painting the east side of the structure just days after the border opened. But GDR border guards promptly covered over the pictures that had been painted on segments of the Wall at Potsdamer Platz. A short time later, the artist David Monty from Schöneberg, accompanied by Heike Stephan, an artist from Prenzlauer Berg, presented his idea of making “the Wall into the largest gallery in the world.” In discussions with the Ministry of National Defense, it was agreed that only the section of Wall on Mühlenstrasse would be painted. Officially commissioned by the GDR Council of Ministers, the project “East Side Gallery” was founded and artists from all over the world were invited to participate. After Heike Stephan, joined later by David Monty, decided to leave the project, Monty’s assistant at the time, Christine MacLean, took over the project coordination. From March 1990, she supervised the participants, acquired sponsorships and developed publicity strategies. She worked with the event and advertising agency wuva.  

The East Side Gallery opened on September 28, 1990. The artists created murals with individual messages and statements, demonstrating that, in the end, the desire for freedom and creativity is stronger than sanctions and force. The more than 100 paintings showed the happiness felt over the fall of the Wall and the end of the Cold War. They expressed their hopes for a life in peace, freedom and democracy. However, many works of art also conveyed concerns about an uncertain future.     
With their artwork, the artists were able to hinder the demolition, further decay and destruction of the Wall. The city of Berlin added the East Side Gallery to its register of protected monuments in November 1991. The East Side Gallery is the most visible outcome of the opening of the Wall, but now, with almost the entire Berlin Wall gone, it is also one of the few remaining relics of the border fortifications at its original location, serving as a reminder that the city was divided for 28 years.

The last large-scale renovation of the East Side Gallery took place in 2009. The renovation was necessary due to weather-related decay, massive amounts of graffiti and both minor and major acts of vandalism. It was carried out by the “Gesellschaft der behutsamen Stadterneuerung mbH” (S.T.E.R.N.) with a budget of more than 2 million euros. The renovation included stonework repairs, which required sandblasting large portions of the murals. When the work was completed, the artists were invited to repaint their murals on the Berlin Wall. Most of the artists restored their original paintings, but a small group was critical of the renovation work and refused to redo their paintings. Their wall segments have remained unpainted ever since. The murals on the East Side Gallery today are the replicas from 2009 with one original work from 1990, titled “Hands” by Margaret Hunter and Peter Russell.

The East Side Gallery artwork looked a lot different in 1990 than it does today. Due to graffiti and weather-damage, by the 1990s it had already become necessary for artists to partially or completely repaint the damaged areas of their pictures. Extensive restoration work was carried out in 2008/2009 to ensure the long-term preservation of the artwork. In order to repair the underlying masonry, it was necessary to destroy the paintings. Afterwards, many of the artists repainted their pictures: some created replicas true to the original, others made changes to their original work. A small group refused to repaint their pictures.

Here we show you only a small selection of the changes to the images.

During renovation work in 2008/2009, the artists changed the painting’s color scheme. 

The artist did not participate in the 2008/2009 renovation work. She founded the “East Side Gallery Founders’ Initiative” with other artists and criticized the renovations and what – in her view – was a lack of appreciation (including financial support) and a failure to involve the artists. The site where her painting had been is now painted a whitish-gray color, as a reminder of how the Wall looked when the city was divided.