Right to the City

“You were constantly deliberating, striving: How can I assert my rights? It was a constant struggle.”

— Atiye Altül

In the 1960s, West Berlin became a hub for diverse protest movements. These movements opposed nuclear power, NATO rearmament and urban destruction while advocating for peace. Many artists were politically engaged, using their work to express solidarity with these causes. In Kreuzberg, these protests culminated in a struggle for housing. Starting in 1979, squatters occupied apartments and buildings to prevent their demolition. However, the struggle was not equally accessible to everyone.

Besides discrimination within leftist groups, legal regulations made migrants particularly vulnerable. The freedom of assembly, enshrined in the Basic Law, was reserved exclusively for German citizens. Meanwhile, the political activities of non-citizens were restricted by the “Ausländergesetz” (Aliens Act). Visible forms of protest could therefore entail serious risks, potentially leading to deportation, especially for those with precarious residence status.

Despite this legal discrimination, migrants emerged as independent political actors. They fought for lower rents, squatted in apartments and buildings and protested for labour, residence and assembly rights. They also took to the streets to fight against racist and right-wing violence in West Berlin as well as to oppose military coups in their
countries of origin.

Mehmet Aksoy

Black sculpture of an outstretched arm in the foreground, paintings of protests on the wall behind.

Kreuzberg: Kunst und Migration seit 1960, installation view, Gropius Bau, 2026

Stop! This cannot stay the way it is!

(1973)

The sculptures of Mehmet Aksoy draw on an expressive tradition: in his work, he seeks vivid images, rich in symbolism for human existence and motivated by a desire “to give form to emotions”. This is particularly evident in this bronze sculpture and its dramatic composition. With its widely splayed fingers, the hand confronts visitors and commands them to stop. It urges them to reflect on contemporary conditions and the changes that are still needed. The sculpture was created in 1973, when tensions were coming to a head between German companies and workers recruited from abroad. They were fighting for fairer working conditions, ones comparable to those of German citizens. Aksoy’s work can thus be read both as an allegory for resistance to exploitative working conditions and as a call for solidarity between workers.

More on Mehmet Aksoy

In the exhibition chapter “Pursued by the Past”

Akbar Behkalam

Staatsgewalt (State Power)

(1981)

In the early 1980s, Akbar Behkalam engaged with the protest movements that emerged in Kreuzberg. In the late 1970s, plans to sell vacant buildings owned by municipal housing associations to real estate companies sparked a wave of squatting. Leftist activists, both migrant and non-migrant, joined forces to resist gentrification and housing speculation. The movement gained momentum in 1981, when the CDU Senator of the Interior, Heinrich Lummer, ordered the forced eviction of occupied buildings and sought to enable the deportation of young migrants through the so-called Lummer Decree. Behkalam’s paintings bear witness to this solidarity. They depict the people of Kreuzberg as a collective confronting both the police and Lummer’s policies. By extending the painting onto the frame, Behkalam draws attention to police violence as an ever-present threat to political protest.

Painting of a ruin with a police line in front and a crowd of people in the foreground.