Male 1: So, well what I really wanted to tell you about also is the two big pieces. It is, you know that? You know the pieces?
Male 2: Yes, I’ve seen them.
Male 1: Yeah, they are very popular. Like I think it’s the two most photographed street art pieces in Berlin which is sad now because they’re gone. It is this headless man on his way to work. His hands are cuffed up with his golden watches. And then the other one is more about our situation now I guess. It is two guys, one from top and one from the bottom and they are wearing masks and sunglasses and hold up gang signs. It’s an E and W. It’s about East and West Berlin because we’re in Kreuzberg here which is the former east and the building over there. I’m sorry, other way around. We are in the West and the other building over there is in the East. So it is that piece here painted in 2007, one from the top and one from the bottom. Both pieces I’m talking about here are painted by the same artist, an Italian guy that goes by the name Blu, B-L-U. You should check out his website because he not only paints very big pieces but also he does stop motion videos, for those who paint character on the wall and takes a picture, repaints the same character, takes a picture, paints the same character, takes a picture and so on and so forth. After a while he places every single photograph in a row as a film so the characters start moving and start living, are breaking through physical walls and things like that. The website is called blublu.org. So B-L-U B-L-U dot org. And this piece here, I would say that about the conflict between East and West Germany. The artist himself never really tells this is the topic or something but it’s quite obvious here what it’s about, holding up these gang signs right on the end of the west of this city because there has been the body. Like the river has a natural body here behind this like two blocks down here, is a channel, so also there has been the end. So this is right end of West Berlin. Nobody wants to live here. This has been empty since the Second World War because nobody ever wants to live there. So also then the other piece is that one. This man probably on his way to work and his hands are cuffed here by his gold watches. It maybe is about the modern society where everything is about work, about time, posh clothes, golden watches. But could also be about something completely different but I don’t think so. And what we also got here is both pieces together again and a picture of the land how it was, what was plotted here. So also between these trees or maybe these trees here you find tents like wooden houses like a filter and that they started to burn so it got the victims. Now, shortly after that happened, the investor said, “Oh, I’m gonna buy eh build here a nice apartment complex. So we were like “okay it sucks because we can’t see the pieces anymore” and shortly after that happened, the pieces got painted over December 2012. So, what happened then in this Thursday night where it got painted over is that people came by because in this area Thursday kind of is already weekend day so we could go out. There’s plenty of bus down there and down there. And they start to yell at the people and even throw bottles at the people painting here because what they thought is it’s the investor that pays some people to paint it over. The thing is one uhhh the thing that the investors set to sell the flats was were the only ones that could see the pieces because the pieces are being covered up by your apartment complex. So for him, it was a good thing that the pieces were there because he could maybe sell them more expensive than without them. The artist then was the guy who invited his friends that stayed here in Berlin to repaint it. Like Blu was not here but he asked some friends to paint over his pieces to cover them up. Nobody really realized that but after a few days there was an interview for example of BBC and also some German newspapers. So it’s not only German-wide thing but also like for example BBC was reporting about these pieces are getting repainted. What they painted the first over was the E up here. It was replaced with a middle finger and that was also then the last one they painted over, the middle finger. Because Blu said his pieces were a gift to the city and to everybody who comes by and not for just the people that will live in the apartment complex right in front of the piece. So, then it was gone but still –
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