Los Angeles - Eight large pieces of the famed Berlin Wall were put into place Friday along one of Los Angeles' most famous boulevards - the beginning of a huge art project to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the wall's fall. Another two pieces are to be added to the long row along Wilshire Boulevard before November 9, the day in 1989 that the hated Cold War barrier which divided Berlin came down.
The private sponsors of The Wall Project say the final assemblage of ten pieces will be the longest row of Berlin Wall segments outside Germany's capital city.
But more importantly, the 3.5-metre-high segments - already covered with graffiti on the side of the wall that once faced West Berlin - will provide a new canvas for a group of high-profile artists.
Among them is Thierry Noir, a French artist who lived in Berlin and left his colourful mark starting in 1984 on the "free" side of the wall. His large-headed figures bore large red lips and were reminiscent of the ancient stone heads on Easter Island.
His US colleagues Kent Twitchell and Shepard Fairey will also be adding their own touches to the famous pieces of concrete.
The city of Los Angeles and The Wende Museum announced the project on August 13, the 48th anniversary of the construction of the wall. It is set to be the largest commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall outside Germany.
"The city of Los Angeles fully supported our idea of an open art installation in what is perhaps the most important boulevard in the metropolis. That says a lot in a city where the car is the main means of transportation," historian Justinian Jampol told the German Press Agency dpa.
Jampol, who was born in California, is the driving force behind the "Wende" - or Change - Museum, which claims to hold the largest collection of Cold War artefacts outside Germany, including photo albums belonging to border police officers, salt shakers with former German Democratic Republic designs, the complete volumes of the daily Neues Deutschland, Stasi surveillance cameras and a collection of over 2,000 posters.
Jampol's ambitious wall project is also backed by the German Consulate and the German Foreign Ministry.
"On November 9, 1989 the wall came down in Berlin. On November 8, 2009 it goes back up again in Los Angeles," the project proclaims on its website.
In the afternoon of November 8 - at a time when the historic celebrations in Germany will already be over, due to the time difference - a separate art project will be erected across busy Wilshire Boulevard, one of the city's key east-west highways.
That barricade project is due to consist of 30 concrete blocks painted by graffiti artists and others in the art community - street artists and art students. The new blocks will have a painted side facing west on Wilshire and a grey side facing east, representing the disposition of the original wall pieces.
The street artist Fairey first became famous with a Pop Art poster for Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Twitchell is one of the most famous wall painters in the United States.
"Many are going to use this as a most provocative political statement. The Berlin Wall was in the end a concrete canvas for the expression of political opinions. Some will use the border wall between Mexico and the United States in that way, or the walls around rich neighbourhoods," Jampol said.
He said the 5900 block on Wilshire Boulevard is the right place to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is equidistant between Downtown Los Angeles and the beach on the Pacific, in a culture-rich area of museums and other facilities. Just as the Berlin Wall ran right through the middle of the German city, the Californian wall is also set to affect the heart of Los Angeles.
The 30 blocks of the new wall are to stop traffic for three hours. Afterwards, guests and spectators will be invited to tear the new wall down. Los Angeles and Berlin - which have been twin cities for decades - are set to be linked by a satellite connection while the installation is in place.
Jampol points to Germany's close ties with the West Coast metropolis, "more than with any other place in the United States."
Artists, writers and film-makers like Lion Feuchtwanger, Thomas Mann and Bertolt Brecht lived in Los Angeles in exile. Museums and private collectors in the Californian city have the largest collections of German art.
Jampol also sees close ties when it comes to the Berlin Wall.
"Los Angeles is a place with many high walls, be they language and cultural barriers or real border walls. People here know a lot about hurdles and partition walls," he said.
(http://wallproject.org)
