The author of the famous kiss graffiti between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and the president of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) Erich Honecker has died in Berlin, German media reported on Monday.
Dmitri Vrúbel (Moscow, 1960) was a Russian plastic artist whose most famous work was the graffiti he painted on the Berlin Wall shortly after it fell, in the spring of 1991, and which has since become one of the main tourist attractions of the German capital.
Located on the stretch of wall known as the "East Side Gallery" in the Old East, the painting shows Brezhnev and Honecker kissing on the mouth, with a caption reading in German and Russian "My God, help me survive this Mortal love".
The mural, removed in 2009 as part of the wall's restoration and later replicated by the artist at the request of local authorities, was inspired by a photograph showing the two communist leaders celebrating 30 years of the GDR's existence. , in 1979.
In 2001, Vrubel and his wife, fellow artist Victoria Timofeyeva, created a calendar with portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin, which they called "Putin's 12 Moods," which unexpectedly became a best-seller in Russia. .
Descendant of the modernist pioneer Mikhail Vrubel, the artist had lived in Berlin since 1990 and in recent years was active in the ranks of the Pirate Party; He died last Sunday at the age of 62 from heart complications after contracting covid.
The mural became famous in Barcelona briefly during the last Primavera Sound festival, a few months ago because where Hoenecker and Brezhnev were, they put up a poster made by the festival itself in the same position but with Colau and Díaz Ayuso kissing. Of course, they kept the original caption above the image in Russian: "My God, help me survive this deadly love."
