Year 1990 (1990) | Created 1990 | |
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Dimensions 365 cm × 480 cm (143.7 in × 189 in) People also search for Make Everything Great Again, Thank you, Andrey Sakharov, Parlo d'amor, Lichtgrenze, Molecule Man | ||
My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love (Russian: «Господи! Помоги мне выжить среди этой смертной любви» Gospodi! Pomogi mne vyzhit' sredi etoy smertnoy lyubvi, German: Mein Gott, hilf mir, diese tödliche Liebe zu überleben), sometimes referred to as the Fraternal Kiss (German: Bruderkuss), is a graffiti painting on the Berlin wall by Dmitri Vrubel, one of the best known of the Berlin wall graffiti paintings. Created in 1990, the painting depicts Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker in a fraternal embrace, reproducing a photograph that captured the moment in 1979 during the 30th anniversary celebration of the foundation of the German Democratic Republic.
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The photograph
The well-known photograph capturing the famed embrace was taken by Régis Bossu in East Berlin on October 7, 1979. It was widely republished. Brezhnev was visiting East Germany at the time to celebrate the anniversary of its founding as a Communist nation. On October 5, East Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a ten-year agreement of mutual support under which East Germany would provide ships, machinery and chemical equipment to the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union would provide fuel and nuclear equipment to East Germany.
Currently, the rights for the photo are managed by Corbis Corporation.
The painting
Vrubel created the painting in 1990. Along with other murals in the section, the painting continued in display after the wall was taken down, but vandalism and atmospheric conditions gradually led to its deterioration. In March 2009, the painting, along with others, was erased from the wall to allow the original artists to repaint them with more durable paints. Vrubel was commissioned to repaint the piece, donating the €3000 fee he was paid to a social art project in Marzahn.
Photographer Bossu and Vrubel met in 2009 and were photographed together on 16 June with reproductions of their works.
Critical reception of the painting
My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love has become one of the best known works of graffiti art on the Berlin Wall. According to Anthony Read and David Fisher, the painting is "particularly striking, with a sharp, satirical edge." However, it was also widely criticized on creation as a straightforward reproduction of the photograph that inspired it.
Prominent derivative works include Make Everything Great Again, a 2016 Lithuanian mural of Russian president Vladimir Putin and United States president Donald Trump in a similar pose, a 2016 mural in Bristol featuring Donald Trump and pro-Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson, in the run-up to the 2016 referendum, and a billboard of Trump and rival for the Republican nomination for the 2016 US presidential election Ted Cruz which appeared in Cleveland ahead of the 2016 Republican National Convention, which was the work of non-governmental organisation Planting Peace.