GERMANY/FILE : Berlin memorial reopens to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Record ID: 572620

  • Title: GERMANY/FILE : Berlin memorial reopens to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall
  • Date: 9th November 2009
  • Summary: TWO CHILDREN WATCHING
  • Embargoed: 24th November 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz,Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
  • Reuters ID: LVA83JE4J4RMEDG53TF0S8AJG8UE
  • Story Text: Berlin reopens renovated open air art memorial known as East Side Gallery days before the fall of the Wall anniversary.
    Berlin's newly renovated open air art memorial known as East Side Gallery reopened on Friday (November 06), days before Germans celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
    Several of the artists who originally painted the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall in 1990 were present for the ceremony, among them Joaquim Antonio Goncalves, a Portuguese who grew up in Paris and now lives in a small village near Lisbon.
    It was pure coincidence that Goncalves got the chance to be among the 118 artists from 21 countries who made their contribution to the work.
    On the eve of his first trip to Berlin ever, in 1990, a friend and fellow painter told him about the possibility to decorate a section of the Berlin Wall.
    "When I arrived in Berlin for the first time everything was grey on this side," Goncalves said as he pointed towards what used to be East Berlin.
    "It was all grey and together with my friend we decided to put some joy and some colour into it."
    They chose a section of the wall where two adjacent pieces were still empty.
    In the spring of 1990, when most of the city was itching to tear down its most hated symbol, artists flocked to Berlin to paint murals on a 1,300 meter (1,500 yard) section of the wall, turning it into the East Side Gallery.
    "The first time we did it very quickly, almost abstract and very colourful. Now this (second) version is the same idea, colours and energy. This wall really needs it, with everything it went through," Goncalves said.
    "I started to paint and said if you don't pay me it doesn't matter. But I will paint what I want. And so I made this new painting which is a metamorphosis, an evolution of the first version (from 1990). There are some changes and other parts which you can find in the first one."
    Exactly 46 years after the Wall was built around capitalist West Berlin -- ostensibly to protect communist easterners from its influence, but in fact to prevent them fleeing from there -- the gaudy Gallery is now one of Berlin's top tourist attractions.
    The steel reinforcing of the inside of the wall was rusting, and wind, rain and pollution -- alongside years of vandalism -- left many of the works all but unrecognisable.
    Some 3 million euros were raised to pay for the reconstruction and artists like Goncalves expressed "pride" on Friday to have their art represented on the Berlin Wall.
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