Graffiti in Germany

Hello Everybody,

First off, I must say that I have only been to Germany twice so far; however, I am hoping to move there permanently in the near future.

In my most recent visit to Germany (last week), I really noticed the large amounts of graffiti sprayed all over the underpasses, subways, buildings and walls throughout the cities and countryside. Albeit, some of it could be considered art, much of it looked really bad to me... Often the graffiti would be covering a street sign or a subway schedule, making it difficult to read the schedule or the name of the street.

Part of Berlin have graffiti on practically every wall, pillar, and sign. This is not the 'artsy' type of graffiti either, but the ugly meaningless type.

It seems like the Germans/Europeans are very tolerant of graffiti, and it doesnt seem to bother them much. To me it was very much an eyesore. Can anyone here give me some feedback as to what (if anything) is being done about the graffiti problem, and what the general attitudes towards it are?

Thank You,

Gururise

Believe it or not, but the German government now hunts sprayers with helicopters. They started their test phase of this 3 weeks ago. I have only a German link, if you want one.

Of course most of the graffiti in Berlin is annoying (except the art on the former Berlin wall). But what can the sprayers do when they are young, dumb and without ideas?

So you've not been to Munich then?

I like graffiti, but hate tagging. This thread has nice stuff on it :
Graffiti - Stencils by "Sucht" and others

While some of the graffiti (like that in the east side gallery) has cultural and artisitic significance, the graffiti that I am referring to in my initial post is the type that can be classified as 'vandalism'. The majority of graffiti I see around Germany, and especially in Berlin, are the simple 'tags' (indecipherable scrawlings of the taggers initials) and the carlessly sprayed or scribbled pictures and slogans that mar the appearance of both public areas and private property.

Are you saying that Munich has alot of graffiti as well?

Keep the brats in school all day, and they won't be bored in the evening to paint the hell out of every piece of wall! or start making them pay for their education, and they need part time jobs keeping them off the streets to paint the walls. Or, Open youth centers to keep them busy!

The graff here is more often political ,that I enjoy. Also coming from the states the graffiti is so much worse there and just radom tagging. The spirit of artwork is hindered by this. I myself have often wanted to paint all the fire hydrants in reference to lego figures. But have yet to do so ...hmnnn next art project...

There's quite a bit of legitimate graffiti in Munich. Meaning places where you really are allowed to spray paint the walls. These are usually quite good and certainly don't detract from the surroundings (usually somewhere semi-industrial, not a residential area) Some tagging, but it's not really that bad. S-Bahns have been falling victim more often since Kunstpark Ost opened, if you ask me. They park a lot of trains overnight near there and it just leaves the opportunity open for too many people. I've seen a lot more shitty tagging in Berlin, but also in Paris and many other places.

Nothing compared to London, New York or Berlin.