The Free Alternative Tour of Berlin

To the East of the city, by the banks of River Spree, runs a daily 'Alternative Tour' of the city. A reasonably sized group of us gathered at noon for a three-hour walk through the sites of Berlin's counter-culture. This tour is another so-called free tour, which is to say, it is one that is done for tips. Unlike the Amsterdam 'free' tour I recently took, this one was not pushy and did not try to pump us to give money, it was much more low-key. Our guide, a young Australian woman, introduced herself to us and it turned out she was relatively new to Berlin having lived in the city just one year. Her main qualifications for the job were her command of the language, an outgoing personality and her enthusiasm for street art.  

After having a chat with another one of the company's guides, who runs their ever popular pub crawl in the evenings, we stopped to admire our first piece of street art. We learnt a bit about the artist, an Italian woman, how the work was made and what it might mean. We then took photos and filed off to the next artwork.

We were given an interpretation of this work that both started and stopped at the blatantly obvious: it is a political piece of street art about the euro crisis. I'm not so used to this blunt form of art criticism and if I try to imagine it in a museum tour it can be almost funny. Here, however, it more or less worked as it was in keeping with the directness of the art itself. Indeed, I had the feeling that the majority of the street art we came across was raw expression, though there were some refined works too, and this got me wondering, what is the attraction in looking at miserable art? When I thought about it further I came to see that these sorts of pictures are to art what teenage grunge bands are to music. They rarely have the skill or subtlety of expression of gallery artists and they are working to a much more immediate, easy to grasp, aesthetic. They are still expressive, some maybe even more so than the professional art, and some people (mostly younger) will feel more connected to this sort of art than to what they'd find in museums. There are exceptions too; crossover street artists who branch into advertising, gallery shows and coffee table books, which we'll come to later. 

She talked a lot about the different techniques employed by street artists, such as, attaching wheat paste posters to the wall. I found it surprising she did not acknowledge the man standing to the side of her sticking an advertisement, piece by A3 piece, onto the wall. The technique is very similar and I was struck that the advert was not printed on a large sheet of paper but was rather home-made and assembled from many smaller pieces. She said that street art being used for advertising was frowned upon yet I also see that it's rife. The NSDM wharf in Amsterdam, where I will open another tour in a little over a week, is full of street art advertisements for trainers. It is also, not co-incidentally, where MTV have their offices and studio.

The pivotal moment of the tour for me came when we were walking in Kreuzberg. We came upon a large and very direct piece of street art: a hand giving the finger with the words 'FUCK YOU' above it, just in case you didn't get the message. On the side is another piece of text reading "TRAVELLERS WELCOME FUCK GHETTO TOURISTS". I guess that would mean us. She said it was a new piece that was 'brutal' and she couldn't find a neat way to incorporate the message back into the tour, as it was a direct challenge to our tour's legitimacy. 

We instead talked about a large squat that once occupied the land in front of the wall that was so spectacularly showing us the finger. The place had been cleared by the city authorities fairly recently amid speculation that a fire which precipitated its clearance, on public health grounds, was not accidental. My impression was that the whole area was cleaning up and while it still had the self-identity of being grungy and alternative, the reality was something else. The cafes we passed were actually not so cheap and the punks were outnumbered by the hipsters and Turks going about their business. The conditions that had created Berlin's counter culture were no longer in place and, block by block, the city seems to be returning to the mainstream German fold.

While we were talking about a street artist who was fined a hefty sum by the city authorities, decorators on the other side of the road were painting the front of a building an elegant shade of cream. It must be an unrewarding job painting a building like that in the full knowledge that within 48 hours it would be tagged but, on the other hand, that does also mean that as a painter you have a steady stream of work. Indeed, even the street artists have this problem of their pictures getting plastered in tags and we learnt that some return to touch up their art.

We came to the work of some successful street artists, a pair of twins who make large-scale paintings such as this one on the side of the building. There must be a system for the promotion of artists like these and it might be interesting to learn how the street and money collide and interact with one another. The Banksy film Exit Through The Gift Shop covers some of this terrain quite entertainingly but does so from a self-serving position. A cooler more analytic documentary would make for myth-busting viewing.

The last stop on the tour was a park with some street art. Some alcoholics were drinking beside the art we were looking for so we did not interrupt their reverie and instead concluded next to this statue. There was nothing said about the statue, however, it was to all effects invisible. I found this a pity as it too is art that is found on the street. By focussing so exclusively on contemporary street art a great deal of art that is also found alongside it was missed and I would have found the comparisons very interesting. Perhaps that is just me reimagining the tour with a broader visual field that would bring into focus some interesting questions around who makes art, for whom, and how. Those sorts of questions which open up a discussion of society, politics and aesthetics were outside the scope of this tour, however, which stuck to simply showing some examples of one type of art. Finally, it is a tourist walking tour after all.

Inside Out Dorset Festival: The Alternative Tour

Yesterday I was putting the finishing touches on The Alternative Tour for Inside Out Festival. The day began with some last minute editing to get the timings precise for the audio tour element. This is modestly ambitious in that I have tried to avoid some of the things that I have often been annoyed by when taking audio tours. 

The principal one of these annoyances is the structure of most audio tours whereby you look at the map, walk to number 1, press play and listen. When that's finished you look at the map, go to number 2, press play and so on. I instead made this tour continuous so that you it walks with the listener throughout, both giving the guiding directions and the commentary. This way makes for a shorter, more intensive sort of audio tour. It does however take quite some work to get there.

This is the slightly glazed look I had when done with the recording and editing. The village  was empty then and has since been transformed by the festival infrastructure; there is some serious event management going on. One part of me would prefer to see the place in a quieter way but I know that if you have 2000 people coming, you need to be able to deal with them, and their cars, which now swell fields designated as temporary parking spaces.

I am on a three performance a day schedule, which is pretty heavy, particularly as the tour is a little longer than anticipated, even though it only uses nine locations. It covers Nelson, 1983, The Tour de Manche, lost Danish students, an alcoholic cricket team, an electric bike tour, stones circles, the Parish book, genealogy and magic mushrooms! Not bad for 40 minutes.

I did manage to see some of the other work in the festival such this giant hare. It is very nice to see it transform as you approach it from the side. At first it is an abstract shape but as the position shifts it comes into focus and reveals itself fully. Nice. There's plenty more going on too, so if you are in Dorset do pop down this weekend.

The Alternative Street Art Tour

Today I took The Alternative Tour around East London. The name immediately makes me wonder, what is it an alternative too? 

We gathered around a statue of a goat beside Spitalfields Market at noon and finally there was a group of 20 of us, most of whom were visitors to the UK. Our guide Doug checked us off his list and then make a brief introduction to the tour. He didn't bother with the typical health and safety routine that many guides give, but instead told us the themes we'd be returning to and reminded us that this was a pay what you want tour which went to pay his rent.

We set off and got a smattering of historical information about the waves of immigration that have made the area what it is. We stopped in front of the church where he even made a joke of knowing practically nothing about Christ Church, a good way to say this wasn't important information for this tour. We came across a few tour groups in the street as we made our way around such as the group in the distance. Their tour did seem to be more involved in the history as I saw them enter Christ Church before heading down to towards the mosque where we caught up with them again.

It was when our guide started talking about street art that he really got into his stride. Here he was extolling the virtues of street art and telling us about the artist who made the work behind him, his background and how he made this piece. He also told us that he himself was also involved in street art, mostly through making videos about street artists. 

We then arrived at Truman's Brewery and got the history lesson on the rise of the hipsters. He seemed to say that the closure of the brewery freed up a lot of space that was colonised by creatives, space which was now getting ever more expensive and un-creative. While the was a street art tour the not so subtle subtext was that this was also a gentrification tour  located at the moment when the artists who started the trend have themselves been moved on and nostalgia for the good days has set in. 

This was another tour we crossed. They were also interested in street art, though they seemed fewer in number and a bit older than our group. It seems that wherever there is a popular formula that works, rival tours exploiting the same route and theme quickly spring up. This alternative tour therefore had its rivals, just as the Jack the Ripper tours (to be covered imminently) are a veritable small industry with as many as 10 of them in competition pounding the same streets.

We then got onto some of the larger works: the street art jewels of Spitalfields. We learnt how the area attracts a constant international roll call of street artists who come here to leave their mark. He explained how this work is inherently temporary and often gets quickly painted over. This crane however would take quite some work to disappear given its size and prestige. He also pointed out how some of the work references its actual location on the street while musch of it is generic and could appear anywhere. It seemed like we were getting a 101 class in street art appreciation!   

We continued to inspect some very recent work which, in street art terms, means it was less than a week old. He then pointed out the different techniques that were used to apply paint such as spray cans, brushes, stickers and tiles.

We then got a discussion on the legality of street art and the different tactics that artists use to get their work up. This piece by Space Invader was apparently done at night by wearing high vis jackets, coning off the street and looking like workmen.

The Eastward creep of the City of London and corporate business was roundly decried on several occasions. I felt he would have made his point better, however, if he hadn't have been carrying around and sipping from a Costa coffee cup for at least half of the tour. It sort of undermined the argument a little.

He took us to his favourite works which were located on slightly quieter roads. These had escaped the fate of the Brick Lane works, namely being painted over by other artists.

It seemed that everywhere I looked there was more street art. What's more, even the simple car park sign that was not street art was being photographed like it was. I was left with the feeling that this neighbourhood is a bit too over-represented, located as it is in a media zone undergoing galloping gentrification. Doug was not shy of giving his opinions on this and given this was "The Alternative Tour" I was happy to hear them. The general hook seemed to be that this was a tour where you would get a real person giving their honest opinions rather than a formulaic message. Even the bits where he went off on one leaving behind his own script went to build this impression, so it worked in a sense. In any case, he was a likeable enough sort of guy and I always have time for an opinionated Scot. 

The tour concluded with a little self promotion and money collection. It was not heavy handed but done simply and cleanly. My overall impression was that his position as being in solidarity with the artists who were now being pushed out was a compromised one from which to critique this process of gentrification. If he were one of the Bangladeshis maybe he would be on a surer footing, I don't know. I sympathise with this position having been in it long enough myself in many different cities, however, it is not a very strong one from which to critique the very process that you yourself are simultaneously, if unwillingly, aiding. As such, I think he might have been safer sticking to talking about the street art as this was clearly his passion.