Once again he writes “The Kiss of Honecker and Brezhnev” on the Berlin Wall

The “Kiss of Honecker and Brezhnev” on the Berlin Wall is not called a political act at all. The artist was simply looking for a way out of personal problems through creativity.

On the same day, restoration of “The Kiss” began, which today is located in the East Side Gallery. This open-air gallery is essentially the largest surviving section of the Berlin Wall. To see how starts work, many journalists have gathered at the Wall. This was not surprising: “The Kiss” is the most famous work painted on the wall. There were so many journalists that at first I even doubted whether he would even start working. Nevertheless, he answered questions that were repeated all the time, not without pleasure.

The artist posed in a black T-shirt “Vrubel is a Fool” by Avdey Ter-Oganyan and was glad that the news about the restoration of his painting shook the whole world.

Nearby you could buy simple souvenirs for the upcoming event.

The journalists and the artist ended up behind bars. This is how the restored fragments of the wall are protected from tourists.

I asked if he was outraged that the city was earning millions from his work: the reproductions sold in huge quantities, but did not bring any profit to the author himself. He thought and answered:

The wall began to be painted back in 1990. About 180 artists took part in the spontaneous action. Today, the East Side Gallery has become one of the most visited sites in Berlin. Hundreds of thousands of people came every year to look at the works of Thierry Noir, Jim Avignon, Irina Dubrovskaya, Thomas Klingenstein and other famous, little-known and completely unknown artists. But gradually the Wall was destroyed, and tourists covered the original works with their inscriptions.

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, the city senate and the directorate of the longest gallery in the world decided to restore the dilapidated object. The artists were offered to restore their works. At the same time, they forgot to tell them an important detail: the original works will first be erased, the concrete will be strengthened, painted with white paint, and only then they will have to do it. Vrubel was dissatisfied with this approach.

East Side Gallery is headed by Kani Alavi, an artist of Persian origin, one of the participants in the 1990 action.

I asked him if there was an opportunity to approach the restoration differently. After all, it was possible, for example, to preserve the drawings in their current form. However, Alavi only restated the position of Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit: the inscriptions covering many of the works are pure vandalism, and the crumbling wall needs urgent protection.

Photographer Thomas Leby, who works in Eastern European countries, also found himself in the crowd of curious people. He believes that it is incorrect to call this type of restoration “Moscow.”

88 artists gave their consent to participate in the restoration; 26 works have already been restored. This section of wall looks like it was built yesterday.

The photographer Régis Bossu, who photographed the famous “kiss,” also came to see the work. I drew my picture from his photograph. Bossu posed with, and then he was surrounded by girls eager to kiss.