The Wall

Currently housed at Chicago's DANK-Haus German Cultural Center, the Wall measures 30 feet across and 7 feet high. At each panel is a hinge that allows the wall to "accordian." So, when looking East at the Wall, right, at a certain vantage point, one sees only East Berlin. Looking West, left, shows solely West Berlin. Head on, the two sides of the wall intermingle as one Berlin.

Read the artist's speech presented at the opening of the exhibit at Chicagoland's Harper College.

View from the west

View from the west.

View from the East

View from the East. The East Berlin side features a continuous row of communist architecture with barbed wire at top, recalling the Death Strip separating East Berlin life from the wall (from which snipers had a vantage of citizens trying to escape to the West).Shards of glass in each communist style building allows viewers to see themselves and to identify with the broken Private vs. Public life of the East Berliner.In the barbed wire is a sort of electric schematic featuring the deadly combination of Communism, violence and force. The imminently setting sun of Communism centers the East Berlin side of the wall, hovering over every fragment of the East Berliner's life. Repetition in the shards of mirror remind of the industrial tone of the environment that clashed profoundly with the landscape of the West. One city with two radically different systems is a true rarity in contemporary history. Overpowering mass of gray exists throughout the East Berlin side, which contrasts heavily with the free expression attacking the Western side of the of speech in the West. Meanwhile, splatters of paint of a limited palette suggest chaos in an overly controlled system.

Detail, Panel 13

Detail, Panel 13. A common graffiti on the West side featuring the Trabi car smashing through the wall. It is captioned with an Animal Farm quote.

Detail, Panel 11

Detail, Panel 11. translation: "God! Help me survive this fatal attraction!" It features Brezhnev, premier of the Soviet Union, passionately kissing Honecker, leader of the German Democratic Republic.

Detail, Panel 9

Detail, Panel 9. Faces like these were found graffitied in several locales, many times in the lifespan of the wall. Relics of these sections still stand at the East Side Gallery in Berlin.

Detail, Panel 7

Detail, Panel 7. translation: "Not from East or West, I am from Berlin!" This is a uniquely Urban Pop Art contribution to the installation.

Detail, Panel 5

Detail, Panel 5 A second panel featuring graffitied faces frames the center.

Detail, Panel 3

Detail, Panel 3. Quoting Pink Floyd. Although not directly pertaining to the Berlin Wall, many Berliners identified with the group's messages. The year before the wall fell in 1989 Pink Floyd performed at the backdrop of the Berlin Wall in the West.

Detail, Panel 1

Detail, Panel 1. BERLIN is written with the Y formed by the metal rods supporting barbed wire along the wall on either side. It represents the blunt separation that every citizen is aware of in his and her city. The obvious presence of Control in a city in which both governments are telling the citizens that they are living freely.