It’s hard to miss the graffiti covered walls on the streets of Berlin. Cartoon-like shapes depicting world leaders, colourful bubble letters proclaiming anti-capitalist sentiments or detailed drawings of refugees have become part of the urban landscape. In fact, Berlin has become world renowned for its artfully decorated buildings that serve as de facto outdoor, public art galleries.
Perhaps most famous of all is the Eastside Gallery — the longest intact section of that once famous symbol of political oppression, the Berlin Wall, now stands as the most famous outdoor canvas.
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But Berlin isn’t just home to the makeshift galleries of the city’s building walls. There are many indoor gallery spaces and museums dedicated to contemporary art that has evolved over the years.
Districts like Prenzlauerberg, Mitte and Kruezberg boast gallery spaces interspersed among trendy shops and restaurants and the concept of art as not just art but as a sociopolitical message is evident.
Berlin wasn’t always an artist’s mecca
It wasn’t always this way. “In the 80s, both parts, East Berlin as well as the former West Berlin, there were… only some galleries in the city, there was one museum which was founded in the end of the 70s… so, it was a kind of wasteland,” said Gabriele Horn, Director of KWContemporary Art Institute and of the Berlin Biennale.
The Berlin Biennale, an exhibition for contemporary art that happens every two years, wasn’t founded until 1998. But since its beginnings, it has morphed into a world-renowned exhibition.
“We are thinking about what can be added now for the next edition? Is it something that is more political? Is it something connected to the art scene itself,” said Horn.
For each exhibition, planning starts well in advance and themes that are meant to convey a message or spark discussion are chosen by the curators. The themes for 2016: living in the digital age and the refugee crisis sweeping Europe.
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Refugees and the digital age at the Biennale
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Among the artists with work on display at this year’s Biennale was Halil Altindere, a Turkish artist who partnered with well-known Syrian rapper Mohammad Abu Hajar. His work, titled Homeland 2016, is a music video that took a pointed look at the refugee crisis in Germany.
“I thought, okay, let’s just explode everything and I started writing what I was trying to tell people, that if you connect the story of Syrians and other people that had to flee, if you connect it from the early beginning until they are in Germany you maybe get over those supremacist attitudes of just treating us as refugees,” said Abu Hajar.
Playing every few minutes in a gallery space, in view Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate, Abu Hajar’s in your face lyrics and aggressive music instantly captures attention.
Abu Hajar himself is a refugee, having fled Syria in 2012 because of his outspoken political views against the Assad regime. He doesn’t like to be called a refugee and his work for the Biennale tries to highlight this.
“I didn’t choose to be a refugee. I was not born as a refugee, so I’m something else and I wish that people would just see that I’m a human being before being a refugee,” said Abu Hajar.
He knows that having his work on display at the Biennale is an important step from one world into another and helps convey his message beyond the underground scene.
The KW Institute and the Berlin Biennale felt the issue of refugees was one that couldn’t be ignored given events over the past year.
“The whole question of refugees is a question in the city of Berlin and in Europe, I mean it is an international question,” said Horn.
The KW Institute had already been working with refugees using the large international artist community that now calls Berlin home.
“We have of course a lot of international artists here in Berlin and it’s great that they are also involved in this because they are in a way not refugees but newcomers to this city years ago… They can help as colleagues,” said Horn.
For almost three years now the institute has been hosting artistic programs for refugees in the city.
“We started a cooperation with a refugee home here in the neighbourhood in the frame of our whole education and mediation program,” said Horn.
The curators didn’t originally plan to augment their 2016 exhibition for the Biennale titled, The Present in Drag, to include refugees.
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“All of a sudden we had the situation in the last year and of course they started to think about how to integrate something that is also related to this very important topic,” said Horn.
Despite the addition, the theme of refugees in the digital age figured as the most prominent aspect of the Biennale, offering up works exploring our obsession with technology and the future world. Art on display at four venues across the city included virtual reality and sculptures featuring animal hybrids fused together from Canadian artist Jon Rafman.
With a thriving culture of art in Berlin the city is a natural fit for artistic exhibitions like the underground music scene, the Biennale and the graffiti found on almost every street. It’s a city with a passion for art and innovation and gives artists the freedom to exercise their creativity and their passion for their art.
Melanie de Klerk is an assignment editor at Global National. She was living in Berlin as one of the 2016 Arthur F. Burns Journalism Fellows.
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