Apparently this is an old Banksy paste up from back in the day, can’t really confirm but looks pretty genuine.. not really many of these about…

The Berlin Wall remains to this day one of the largest walls ever built. Its purpose was to separate East and West Berlin who had different political views. It started life as a basic wire fence and over the years spawned into a large concrete defense which split friends and families.

Why, you may be asking, are we talking about the Berlin Wall on a graffiti blog? Well, the Berlin wall became a magnet for artists and allowed people to express their social, political and artistic views. It was an icon for a generation who suffered behind this concrete curtain. I feel it’s important to recognise the beauty on the West Berlin side of the wall. Why not the East side of the wall? The East side of the wall was plain and dull - an example of the oppression these people felt, only the West side was colourful and expressive.

For more info on the Berlin Wall and it’s art, check out berlinwallart.com

TAKI 183. What is this?

Well, TAKI 183 is probably one of the first media discovered graffiti artists. TAKI 183 was a Greek who lived in New York during the late 60’s and early 70’s. He was employed as a foot messenger in New York and he took advantage of the fact he used the subway a lot. With his tag cropping up all over the city, public interest and curiosity grew around this name.

During this time a lot of ‘tags’ were appearing around New York and The New York Times published an article about one of these artists - TAKI 183. This sparked interest in graffiti and was a milestone in the graffiti scene.