Graffiti and the Critical Power of Urban Space: Gordon Matta-Clark’s Made in America and Keith Haring’s Berlin Wall Mural

Analyzing graffiti—the image, the act, and the space in which it unfolds—reveals the institutional structures that shape urban spaces, and this is particularly evident in the context of Wall-era West Berlin. Through an investigation of two Berlin Wall graffiti-based artworks, Gordon Matta-Clark’s Made in America from 1976 and Keith Haring’s 1986 Berlin Wall mural, this article considers how these artists used graffiti practice to reveal the economic, social, and political processes with which West Berlin was connected and which it signified. In analyzing Matta-Clark’s and Haring’s artworks, these works’ specific political and historical contexts, and the specific institutions that sponsored their creation, the author considers the relationship of specific examples of graffiti to the larger processes from which they emerged. The author furthermore argues that considering individual examples of graffiti, on their own terms, is crucial to understanding the relationships between their creation and the power structures that govern urban spaces in which they are created.