West Berlin in the ’80s was a city in limbo, cut off from the rest of the world, but alive in its own strange way. It was modern and decayed, a Western capital stranded in communist territory. The Wall loomed over everything, dividing the city into two nervous halves. Some neighbourhoods, especially near the Wall, felt patched together with concrete and disinterest, while others thrived under the weight of heavy government subsidies. It was a city of contradictions—isolated but vibrant, politically tense but culturally explosive, waiting for history to make its next move.” I arrived in winter carrying a bag of paint-stiff rags, a half-broken palette knife, and just enough German to order a drink or start a fight. It was cold, unwelcoming, and precisely what I needed.
I found a room in Kreuzberg, back when it was still a working-class Turkish neighbourhood mixed with anarchists, draft resisters, and punks. The apartment was freezing. The pipes made sounds like something was dying inside them, and the kitchen sink drained whenever it felt like it. I painted in an abandoned factory, a cavernous space where the walls sweated moisture, the air stank of mildew, and every sound echoed like a bad memory. The cold made my hands stiff, the paint thick as cement, but I kept working. Berlin had a way of getting under your skin. The city was falling apart, and so was I, but neither of us seemed to care.
The food was an endurance test. I hated German cuisine—boiled meat, pickled everything, and enough sausage to make me swear off pork for life. I lived off döner kebabs, cheap lentil soup, and beer, which was cheaper than water. I learned just enough German to order food, buy paint, and get into arguments. Anything beyond that, I faked.
The nightlife made up for the bleak days. West Berlin’s clubs were endless, packed with artists, punks, drifters, and people who didn’t belong anywhere else. They were basements, warehouses, abandoned buildings, places with no signs where the music was a mix of pounding industrial, post-punk, and experimental noise. Loud enough to shake the bones in your skull. The drinks were cheap, the air thick with smoke, and the whole thing felt lawless. Anything could happen. Sometimes, it did. You’d walk in at midnight and stumble out at noon, past old men drinking coffee in the morning cold. In this city, excess didn’t feel like indulgence. It felt necessary.
I met other painters, but most of them bored me. Too many conceptual artists thought a clever title meant more than the work. Too many opportunists treated rebellion like a brand. We argued over drinks, threw punches in alleyways, and made up over morning coffee. The only thing we agreed on was that Berlin was the last place where anything still felt real.
Then the Wall came down. I should have felt something—joy, relief, hope. Instead, I watched as the city cracked open and bled into itself. Berlin had always been a pressure cooker. Suddenly, someone lifted the lid. The hunger, desperation, and rawness all started to fade. People cheered, kissed, and danced in the streets, but I knew it was over. The Berlin I had known, the one that had kept me half-wild and fully alive, was gone.
I stuck around for a while, but the edges had been sanded down. The clubs were still there, the streets still busy, but something had shifted. The city started cleaning itself up, painting over its scars, preparing itself for an audience. I packed up my canvases, what little money I had left, and retreated to Montreal.
I haven’t been back. I don’t want to be. That Berlin, the real Berlin, doesn’t exist anymore. But sometimes, late at night, I can still feel it. The cold biting through my coat, the static hum of the clubs, the sense that something was about to happen, something raw and untamed. For a while, West Berlin was the only place that made sense. Then, like everything else, it disappeared.
Callister – 2024
Photo credit: “Squatters in Kreuzberg in 1981”. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Tom Ordelman