This photographer’s collection of Berlin Wall graffiti photos show the politics of paint

Split as it was, Berlin in the late 1980s was literally a tale of two cities. Those trapped in the communist east were living in a stultified surveillance state, onerously distanced from the west by a wall that had come to epitomize the destructive effects of the Cold War and the moral failure of the Eastern Bloc. West Berlin, conversely, was the locus of resistance — an island city committed to upholding the tenets of democratic Europe and a refuge for those brave or lucky enough to have escaped from the shadows beyond the wall. If the wall was an ugly gash running through the heart of a traumatized postwar Berlin, desecrating it became many ordinary residents’ best means of dissent. Many West Berliners even delighted in emptying their waste bins over the barrier. But cans of paint were often enough to vent frustrations in the most visible way available. East Berliners, however, were separated from the wall by a wide swath of land known as the Todesstreife or “death strip,” which ensured the Soviet side remained blank — a cold, unreachable grayness. <a href="https://timeline.com/berlin-wall-photos-graffiti-bc62b7cccf62">Click Here</a>