Satire, Erasure and Deadly Love: The story behind the Berlin Wall’s Fraternal Kiss
<p>Even if a certain cliché would have us believing otherwise, <strong>nothing ever vanishes without a trace</strong>. One brilliantly cornucopious affirmation of this is the Berlin Wall: although dismantled during the <em>Wende</em>, enabling Germany to officially reunify on 3rd October 1990, <strong>fragments of the once-impenetrable Cold War border evidently remain extant</strong>.</p>
<p>For Janet Ward, this complicated persistence equates to ‘<strong>spectral longevity</strong>’, with the Wall’s remnants and consequences, lines and projections, traces and staging all engendering an <strong>‘inverse, imaginary status’</strong> similar to that of a ‘<strong>photographic negative</strong>’ (2011:59). Equally, Sunil Manghani has foregrounded the particular visuality of the Wall’s absence, since those visiting Berlin today <strong>paradoxically witness its disappearance</strong>, situated in a <strong>‘curious hinterland between memory and actuality’</strong> (2008:36).</p>
<p>For fear that the Wall’s physical demise would prompt <strong>the erasure of such a vital part of Berlin’s history</strong>, the <a href="https://www.visitberlin.de/en/east-side-gallery" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank"><strong>East Side Gallery</strong></a><strong> </strong>was established in 1990. Comprising over 100 murals painted on a 1.3km long remnant of the Wall, this open-air exhibition features works created by artists from all over the world.</p>
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