Thierry Noir is the man who contributed to the longest concrete painting in the world, the Berlin Wall. His paintings, with their bright colors and their melancholy poetry, survived longer than all the others did after the fall of the wall in 1989.
Thierry Noir was born in 1958 in Lyon, France. He came to Berlin in January of 1982 with two small suitcases, attracted by the music of David Bowie and Iggy Pop, who lived in West Berlin at this time. From April 1984, Thierry Noir and Christophe Bouchet started to paint the Berlin Wall.
As the years went by, the paintings took on phenomenal proportions, which were rapidly recognized by the international arts community. The object was not to embellish the wall but to demystify it.
The paintings of Thierry Noir became a symbol of new-found freedom after the reunification of Germany and the end of the Cold War.
The rock band U2 featured the artwork of Thierry Noir painted on Trabants (an East German brand of automobile), photos of which decorate their 1991 album Achtung Baby, which itself includes songs (such as 'Zoo Station") that have themes inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the changes taking place in Europe at the end of the Cold War.
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