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© Stéphane Compoint
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The East Side Gallery. Located on the Mühlenstrasse in the Friedrichshain district is the largest segment of wall preserved. 1300 meters long and historic monument in 1992, it has also become the largest open air gallery in the world. Before 1989, the wall was white and gray, a barrier prevented from approaching or touching. The entire river, which acted as a "no man's land", was part of East Berlin and was surveyed by the patrol of border guards. Many Berliners were drowned trying to cross to the west. At that time, the Mühlenstraße was part of the route "formal" leader of east Berlin, between the city center and Schönefeld Airport. That's why it was bounded by a wall segment exterior (called "Western Wall" by the GDR authorities) to hide the No Man's Land. The other part of the wall stood along the shore, they conceal the device including the usual signal fence, the walkway, lighting towers and barbed wire near the water. After the fall of the wall, 118 artists from 21 countries began to paint a huge mural on the east face of the wall, untouched from the time of a divided Germany. Some of these works have since become icons, such as the kiss exchanged between the leader Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker of the GDR and the series of "dialogues" of the French Thierry Black. But in twenty years, pollution, graffiti and the ravages of time had nearly destroyed forever these paintings, which have since taken a considerable heritage value. That is why the city of Berlin took the initiative to invite, during the summer of 2009, forty artists of the time, from around the world, who have been invited this summer to reproduce every feature their work such that they had created twenty years ago. The message of this piece of street art is that of the euphoria that reigned after the Wall fell.
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