The record
Ten segments installed by the Wende Museum in 2009 — close to forty feet, the longest stretch of the Wall standing anywhere outside Berlin.
The ten segments on Wilshire Boulevard are original, and were installed for the twentieth anniversary of the fall in 2009.
Half of them were repainted by invited artists and half deliberately were not. The leftmost was left in its original state with an information panel; the second was painted by the Los Angeles artist Marie Astrid González, the third by the Californian artist Farrah Karapetian, and the fourth carries one of Thierry Noir's heads. Two more were given portraits of Kennedy and Reagan by the muralist Kent Twitchell. The four on the right were left as they were, except for a bear on the fourth by the Berlin street artist Bimer.
In 2011 the installation was extended in a way few other sites have attempted: the east-facing side of nine segments — the face that looked onto the death strip and was never painted while the Wall stood, because nobody could get to it — was given to the Los Angeles street artist Retna, the British artist D*Face and the German duo Herakut. The result is a wall painted on both sides, which the real one never was.
How did it get here?
Installed by the Wende Museum, which holds the segments.
Sources
Listed by the Federal Foundation as #268 and by the Berlin Wall Archive as #232.
The Wall Project — Wende Museum via Google Arts & Culture ↗
The museum's own account of the 2009 installation and the commissioned murals.
Institutional sourceSource accessed 2026-09-17
The Wall Project – Behind the Berlin Wall — Street Art in LA ↗
The 2011 Behind The Wall additions and the artists involved.
General referenceSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The ten segments installed on Wilshire Boulevard by the Wende Museum in 2009, the artists of the five repainted elements — Marie Astrid González, Farrah Karapetian, Thierry Noir and Kent Twitchell's Kennedy and Reagan portraits — the untouched segments and Bimer's bear, and the 2011 painting of the formerly east-facing sides of nine segments by Retna, D*Face and Herakut.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17
Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 268
Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 232
Source-reported segments: 10. This is not a separately verified count.
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