I expected to see strange things during our life in Germany, but I can’t say that prolific graffiti was one of them. At first it was startling to see street art and/or graffiti on nearly every surface. The paint isn’t just on the buildings and walls, it’s on the streetlights, the electrical boxes, even the commuter trains. According to the The German Way, the issue of graffiti in Berlin alone causes 35-50 million euros of property damage annually. Some cities actually provide space for people to create graffiti (not that it seems to help).
Much of what I’ve seen so far is stencil graffiti with political undertones. I just photograph anything that interests me, and you can see it here. I’ll continue to update this page as we travel more around Germany.
Bamberg
Bad Kissingen
When I first saw this I struggled to figure out what it could be. My best guess was mushrooms playing hockey, but the kind people over at dare2go pointed out to me (via twitter) that it’s more likely showing Bavarian Curling (or Eisstockschießen). That makes a whole lot more sense considering that I took the photo in Bavaria. Who knew that street art could be so educational?
Berlin
What kind of post would this be if it didn’t involve the East Side Gallery ( a graffiti project covering part of the Berlin Wall)?
The neighborhoods near the East Side Gallery were inundated with more street art / graffiti than I had ever seen concentrated in one place.
Erfut
It turned out that yarn art was also pretty popular in Erfurt.
Frankfurt
Gemünden am Main
What’s funny to me about these images is that we stumbled across this graffiti on Valentine’s day.
Goslar
Nuremberg
Ochsenfurt
This brick doesn’t exactly fit the topic of this post, but I thought it was interesting and artistic.
Schweinfurt
Stuttgart
“Europe you shall not destroy”
Wuerzburg
Have you seen any street art or graffiti in Germany?
The graffiti disturbed me when I first visited Germany. I asked the relocation person that we were working with about it and she seemed incredibly unfazed……like "oh, that? Not a big deal". I'm not sure what the excessive graffiti is all about. I guess why it is so off-putting to me is that graffiti in the States usually means an area is dangerous, i.e. gang tagging.
Definitely – there's not much graffiti at home and unless it's street art of some kind it tends to be a bit sinister. I think most Germans hardly even notice it anymore.