{"id":16274,"date":"2025-04-24T11:47:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T09:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svjmedia.nl\/internationaljournalism\/?p=16274"},"modified":"2025-06-09T14:05:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-09T12:05:05","slug":"berlin-law-protecting-street-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svjmedia.nl\/internationaljournalism\/16274\/berlin-law-protecting-street-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Stories in the Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Across the bustling city streets of Berlin people pass by unicorns. With two beady eyes watching the people, these painted creatures are found in many different sizes depicting different moods and phrases. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Happy \u201cGenau\u201d Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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(\u201cYou okay?\u201d \u201cNein\u201d Conversational Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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(\u201cText Me\u201d Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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(Derpy Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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(Sad Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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(Smiling Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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(\u201cYou okay?\u201d Lonely Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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(Wall Corner Graffiti Unicorn. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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With hundreds of art pieces across the city, though some are legal, many are not, as the culture of this city is art and in this city the limits and boundaries often blur under slack regulations.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Berlin based street artist, El Bocho, says \u201cif you can live with the consequences there are no limits. And that’s the good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the city offers sanctioned spaces for art, many artists stray outside the boundaries and take to the streets for self expression, trusting that they are protected by one law. <\/p>\n<\/div>

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As a professional artist, El Bocho has a certain protected privilege under German law \u00a72 Law on Copyright and Related Rights which establishes that an artist’s works have individual copyrights as intellectual property. This law does not outright protect artists from trouble for illegally painting or posting street art, but once the art is created they do have rights protecting the art they create. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s very important, which says that you can say what you want, but also you can do art. Art is always free. But the problem is that graffiti artists are not artists for the law,” El Bocho says. \u201cBut what I do is art because I pay a lot of taxes, and I sell in galleries. So, if there would be really big problems, then I could always say, okay, I’m an artist, so I have freedom. It’s not allowed to destroy things, but I can do a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people, like Giorgio Del Vecchio, a contemporary art tour guide at Fotografiska Museum, view street art as an umbrella term. He says that \u201cthe boundaries and the perimeter is always very blurry in a certain sense. Because street art is really something that you express artistically on the street.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(Urban Nation Museum, a wall of stickers. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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(People taking photos in front of graffiti on the Berlin Wall. April 2025. Photo by Jadie Leung)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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This could include stickers tacked onto street posts or performance art in the streets, alongside more traditional mediums of art like large murals on the sides of buildings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Street art is influenced by the society it appears in. Del Vecchio says that street art\u2019s limits \u201cdepends on the sensibility of the society in which the street art happens, but also on the sensibility of the artist actually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n