East Side Gallery 
Restoration Begins

One Fourth of East Side Gallery is Being Restored! 

The Artist Initiative East Side Gallery e.V. for several years has been making an effort to preserve the East Side Gallery. The colorful images created in 1989/90 are today hardly recognizable. The paintings and the wall are in an extremely deteriorated condition through weather, air pollution, vandalistic collectors, and simply time. Yet there still is hope for the now gray East Side Gallery. 

German Paint Makers' Association

The German Paint Makers' Association in Frankfurt am Main http://www.lackindustrie.de is celebrating their 100th anniversary June 2nd 2000, and to this occasion they've decided to organize and finance a portion of the restoration of the East Side Gallery. Their commitment is 300,000 German Marks. 300 meters or one fourth of the entire gallery will be restored from the ground up. Afterwards the original images will be repainted. 

The reconstruction efforts have started and should be completed by summer. On May 10th and 11th, 2000 a test had been successfully completed after which the Office for Protection of Historical Monuments gave its permission for the restoration of this part of the wall. The 300-meter stretch starts at Ostbahnhof and runs towards Oberbaum Bridge, which marks the area behind the East Side Gallery where the Spree Park at the Berliner Ostbahnhof will be built.

Partners in this project, in collaboration with the Artist Initiative East Side Gallery e.V. are the German Paint Makers' Association  http://www.lackindustrie.de and the Maler - und Lackiererinnung Berlin' http://www.malerinnung-berlin.de . The German Paint Maker's Association will organize and pay for the whole project including the sandblasting, while the Painter and Lacquer Guild Berlin will take over the concrete refurbishing. 

Since beginning construction there has been a heightened interest from the public and in the press in these companies, their efforts, and the initiative. 

Sponsors for Restoration
German Paint Makers' Association
Mr. Bross, E-mail Bross@vci.de  
Internet http://www.lackindustrie.de 
'Maler - und Lackiererinnung Berlin'
Mr. Wittke
Internet http://www.malerinnung-berlin.de 

Press Articles
Berliner Zeitung / August 26, 2000	Berliner Morgenpost / July 7, 2000
EL Mundo / May 30, 2000	FAZ Online / July 13, 2000
Berlin Online / June 3, 2000	Die Welt / June 3, 2000
CNN Italia / May 31, 2000	CNN Special Feature / May 29, 2000
Berlin Online / May 26, 2000	Der Tagesspiegel / May 23, 2000
Berliner Morgenpost / May 11, 2000	Die Welt / May 16, 2000
Berlin Online / May 11, 2000	Berlin Online / May 11, 2000
Berlin Online / May 9, 2000	Der Tagesspiegel / May 9, 2000

Altogether 42 paintings will be repainted and 40 artists will take part in this restoration. During the next few weeks artists will arrive in Berlin to reconstruct their paintings at their original location. The work will begin at each end of the construction site and if all goes as planned, meet in the middle by the end of June. Soon we will see another part of the East Side Gallery in its original condition!
 
The artists are as follows:

Most of the artists have been contacted and are coming to Berlin. However, some artists could not be located. If any third person knows of their address please notify them of our interest and ask them to contact us as soon as possible. 

The Association would like to hear from the following artists:

Please use the following address, E-mail, or phone or fax number to contact us:
E-mail: eastsidegallery@eastsidegallery.com 
Phone number: Country Code 49 +(0)30 - 251 7159
Fax +30 252 99831
Mailing address: Künstlerinitiative East Side Gallery e.V.    
c/o Kani Alavi
Friedrichstraße 206, 10969 Berlin, Germany 

PAINTINGS BY ARTISTS THAT CANNOT BE FOUND OR DO NOT WISH TO PARTICIPATE WILL BE PAINTED BY A COMMISSIONED EAST SIDE GALLERY e.V. ARTIST. THE IMAGES WILL BE RESTORED AS ORIGINALLY CONCEIVED.