Berlin Wall – MADNESS

Since my trip to Berlin earlier this year, I have been my fascinated by the Berlin Wall (it might not have gone unnoticed considering the number of blogs I have done about it).  I am happy that I visited this year because since it is the 30^th anniversary of the fall of the wall, there is a no dearth of information on the Wall, and lots of people are posting new and old images of the Wall on Instagram and other social media.

I am endlessly fascinated by the graffiti on the wall.  It captures the essence of the 1980s and while a majority of the wall and graffiti are gone for good, the images from the 1980s have captured and preserved the essence of that raw, youthful energy forever. This was art on the streets being used as protest. It was the voice of a generation that used the wall as a canvas to reduce some of its horror and make it less threatening. In the words of Thierry Noir, who is the first artist to illegally paint large sections of the Berlin Wall, painting the wall, “subverted this iconic symbol of war into a symbol of hope, granting it real human significance.”

One of the remaining sections of the wall has the word MADNESS written in large black letters.  It remains to this day in Berlin in the Topographie des Terrors Center, and is visited by the millions of people that go to Berlin annually.  It would appear to have been done by someone protesting against the madness that was the Berlin Wall. 

However, it turns out the graffiti was done by a member of the British Rock Band called Madness when they visited the wall in the early 80s.  In his twitter feed, Dan Woody Woodgate (one of the band members) writes that in 1980 another band member, Graham Suggs McPherson, climbed on top of a van and wrote MADNESS on the Berlin Wall, which is the same one that exists today.  I was thrilled to see the origin of this fascinating and meaningful word that remains to this day. While most people that see the remaining graffiti naturally conclude that it was a teenager’s commentary on what was going on with the wall and the East German regime, it was actually a band member of a popular 1980s band writing his group’s name on the wall. 

In another fascinating find, as I was scouring Instagram for images of the wall, I actually found this word written on the wall from a 1980s image.  What an interesting coincidence – first I found the origin of the word, and then I found an image of what appears to be the same writing from the 1980s.  What do you think? Is it the same writing or another one?

I want it to be the same, but I see the differences in placement and letter sizes.  So maybe not the exact same writing but still an interesting find.