(not so) New Berlin Street Art
Urban Nation and beyond
We run Berlin Street Art bike tours every Friday at 3 pm in English.
Deutsche Streetart Touren gibt es jeweils Freitag und Sonntag.
We realized there’s still a ton of unpublished street art photos rotting away on our hard-drive, because something’s missing to complete a certain collection. Problem is, it will probably never be complete anyway. Berlins urban artists are just too productive to reasonably try to be up to date, so we will just share them as soon as we have enough for a post.
A lot of the work – large-scale murals mainly – are organized by Urban Nation, about whom we have written here and here, but urban art is by its nature fleeting and some pieces have been replaced by new works or we simply forgot to share them before. Disclaimer: almost all of those murals are out of the way of our Street Art bike tours, so you don’t have to worry, that our guides will just show you stuff you already know from the blog.
Let’s start with
Cranio’s blue Indians
The brazilian artist Cranio (skull in English) was looking for a character or set of them, that was representative of Brasil’s indigenous population and his own sense of humour. The blue Indians were obviously a great choice. They find themselves in a lot of funny and/or curious situations that always connect to a topic close to Cranio’s heart, like consumerism or enviromentalism. His most famous work in Berlin is a large mural close to Yaam, but today we want to focus on a series of smaller works across the street from Urban Nation.
Maybe a “nod” to American spring break culture?
This guy looks very happy, but what’s not to like anyway if you have a bird on your head?
Blue Indian wearing a gas mask and a Brazilian flag as a skirt.
Blue Indian by Cranio in an enviromental protection suit in Schoeneberg’s Buelowstrasse
Dancing priest with a skull scepter by Cranio across from the Urban Nation museum in Berlin.
Of course you can find Cranio on Facebook and Instagram
One Wall
Urban Nations large-scale murals run under the label of One Wall and especially the area around their location along Bülowstraße sees regular updates of the motives, so it’s always worth a visit.
Colourful and weird Mural by Murales Collective (Nasca 1, Sokar Uno und Kera1) at Kurfürstenstraße – not sure if this really is part of One Wall or a different street art initiative.
The work of DEIH always reminds me of those of comic genius Moebius in his sci-fi stage. This is especially true for this mural in Prenzlauer Berg, where an end-of-times pilot holds a heart in deep space – fantastic.
Reification by Nevercrew in Zillestraße in Charlottenburg showing two whales on seperate walls, both more looking like koi
This is the actual house in which urban nation resides, which means it gets a once-over pretty regularly. The current work shows two girls with flowers in their hair, holding their hands in front of their faces combined with a quote from the Dr Seuss book The Lorax: “Unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not”
The Third Dimension by Dutch artist Mr June plays with your perception of depth.
Mural in Bülowstraße
Small street art works along Bülowstraße
Powerful piece showing a kid hugging the Berlin Wall by enigmatic Spanish artist Hyuro – or maybe she’s carrying it away, who knows?
Bustart is extremely versatile and oscillates between very bright comic-style grafitti work involving typography sometimes reminding of Roy Lichtenstein and stencil work like this. Both approaches are held together with the frequent inclusion of pop-culture characters like Tigger in this piece
Another work by Bustart at the same location, showing the virgin Mary in black and white holding Pluto in her arms.
It’s always a bit strange when artists complain about gentrification on a legal wall they’ve been given by an institution that’s largely financed by a real-estate developer like in this case. Great piece by Vegan Flava anyway.
Blek Le rat i
All Six (on top) from the states is famous for his raccoons that appear in all kinds of absurd situations
Sorry, but we missed the opportunity to find out the artists name, but its beautiful, so if you help us identifying the person behind this colourful cockfight, please do.
Manyoly is a French artist famous for her colorful portraits of women. Her work is easily recognizable by the broad strokes and the popping Colors.
Insane 51 the power behind this beautiful portrait are famous for their 3d work. Not sure if 3D glasses would unlock another dimension for this piece as well, but it works in two dimensions just fine.
Even though I forgot to find out the artist, I love how she/he combined really huge past-ups to create an actual mural and how the medium paper is mirrired in the subject of the piece
Unsigned
Unsigned
Bonus: Roscoe at Arena
Great grafitto by Roscoe. Not sure if it’s the same Roscoe that allegedly painted the first wholetrain i GErmany with his crew, which would probably make him one of the logest-standing artists in the scene.