The "Wall Along Wilshire": The Berlin Wall in Los Angeles
The longest stretch of the Berlin Wall in the world outside of Germany is on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. This segment of wall was part of the The Wall Project of the Wende Museum. The Wall Project was a public art initiative which opened November 8, 2009 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It featured the creation of two walls: the “Wall Along Wilshire” and the “Wall Across Wilshire”. The Wall Across Wilshire was a replica wall temporarily placed across Wilshire Blvd. on the night of November 8, 2009, and symbolically torn down.
Composed of ten sections of the original Berlin Wall, the “Wall Along Wilshire” pays homage to a section of the Wall known as the East Side Gallery, made famous by the artists who traveled to Berlin to paint the Wall.
The Wende Museum invited Thierry Noir, a French artist based in Berlin, to contribute an original painting to one section of the “Wall Along Wilshire” (the orange face in the photos). Noir was one of the first artists to paint the Berlin Wall in 1984.
In addition to Noir, three L.A. artists were invited to participate in the project: Kent Twitchell, Farrah Karapetian, and Marie Astrid González.
Four segments of the wall contain original graffiti from Cold War-era Berlin, including an image of a green bear by well known Berlin graffiti artist Bimer.
The “Wall Along Wilshire” is located in front of 5900 Wilshire Blvd, across the street from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). It is easily viewable and accessible from Wilshire Blvd. After my visit to LACMA earlier this month, I walked across the street and took the photos that you see here.
The back side of the wall, titled “Behind The Wall,” facing away from Wilshire, is also painted. It has murals by Los Angeles-based artist Retna, U.K.-based artist D*Face, and Berlin-based artist duo Herakut (Falk Lehmann and Jasmin Siqquidi).
In 2011, I travelled to Berlin and visited the Eastside Gallery. I’ve posted some of my photos from that trip below, including the section painted by Thierry Noir (bottom right).
The “Wall Along Wilshire” is a part of the Wende Museum's permanent collection. Visit wendemuseum.org for more information about the Wende Museum.