Thierry Noir

A memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales, painted on a remaining piece of the Berlin Wall (1998)
Three part commission for a cemetery in Berlin: Thierry Noir (top section), Kiddy Citny and de:Christophe-Emmanuel Bouchet
Segment of Berlin Wall in New York City

Thierry Noir is a French artist who is claimed to be the first street artist to paint the Berlin Wall.[1] His brightly colored paintings, which often feature cartoon-like profiles, are now considered iconic and can still be seen on the East Side Gallery. He currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany.[2]

Early life

Thierry Noir was born in 1958 in Lyon, France.[2] He moved to Berlin in January 1982 with two small suitcases, attracted by the music of David Bowie and Iggy Pop, who lived in West Berlin at this time.[3] He lived in a squat at Mariannenplatz, near the Berlin Wall.[4]

The Wall

In April 1984, Noir and Christophe-Emmanuel Bouchet started to paint the Berlin Wall, eventually painting 1 kilometres of it.[5] He stated of painting the wall at this time: "I decided spontaneously to start to make something on the wall. I got thousands of questions - everyone wanted to know something about this - because it was new - there were no big paintings on the wall."[2] Between 1984 and the fall of the Berlin Wall many other artists painted the wall, including Keith Haring, Kiddy Cidny, and Indiano.[6] Noir can be briefly seen painting part of the Berlin Wall in Wim Wenders's 1987 film Wings of Desire.[7]

In 1992 the Berlin Wall was declared a historic monument.[7] In 2009, Noir was part of an initiative by the local government to restore 1300 meters of the wall to address issues caused over the years by vandalism, weather, and theft.[7] As a part of this initiative Noir repainted several of his original works.[7]

Commissions

In early 2013 Noir painted a large mural with the London-based street artist Stik on the Village Underground Wall in Shoreditch, organized through Street Art London.[8]

Later in 2013 Noir participated in Baroque the Streets, a collaborative exhibition organized by the Dulwich Picture Gallery and Street Art London. Noir painted a street art mural of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's baroque masterpiece Joseph Receiving Pharaoh's Ring (1755) in Dulwich Park.[9]

Exhibitions

Thierry Noir's first ever solo exhibition took place at the Howard Griffin Gallery [10] in Shoreditch, London in April 2014.

Howard Griffin recently brought Thierry to LA for the exhibition "Thierry Noir: The Los Angeles Retrospective" (October - November 2014).

In conjunction with the L.A. Retrospective Noir painted a 100 metre long commemorative mural on South Spring Street as a gift to the City of Los Angeles in recognition of the near half-century Sister Cities relationship between Berlin and Los Angeles.. The mural particularly commemorates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9th November. [11]

In the same occasion Thierry donated a painting to the German Consulate in the United States[12]

Legacy

Traces of Noir's work is still visible at the East Side Gallery of the Wall,[4] probably the biggest open air gallery in the world. There is also an example of his work on the portion of the wall in New York City in a courtyard on 53rd street between Madison and 5th Ave.

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 Irish rock band U2 featured Noir's artwork of on East German Trabant cars and used photos of these to decorate their 1991 album Achtung Baby. The album itself includes songs, such as "Zoo Station", which have themes inspired by the fall of the Wall and the changes taking place in Europe at the end of the Cold War.

In 2000 Noir was featured in the German documentary Nach Dem Fall ("After the Fall"), in which he discussed his art and the importance of the wall to Berlin only a decade after the fall.[13]

In 2009, in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, ten original sections of the Berlin Wall, including artworks by Noir, were exhibited in Los Angeles as a part of the Wende Museum's The Wall Project.[14] In addition, Noir and local artists, like Shepard Fairey and Kent Twitchell, were commissioned to create new pieces of artwork to display alongside the original pieces of the Berlin Wall.[15]

Charity

In aid of a child relief organization, well known in Germany, Noir designed a Buddy Bear. The bear is called Teddy Noir.[16]

References

  1. ↑ "'Street art is political' - Thierry Noir". The Voice of Russia. 20 February 2013. Retrieved 2013-03-13.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "Interview: Thierry Noir" Street Art London, Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  3. ↑ Sanguinetti, Pablo (9 August 2011). "The beauty of monstrosity: Berlin Wall as work of art". Monsters and Critics.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Dicker, Holly (n.d.). "Street art: graffiti in Berlin". Time Out Berlin. Retrieved 2013-03-13.
  5. ↑ Galerie Noir, Retrieved 9 March 2014.
  6. ↑ "History Witness: Thierry Noir", Wende Museum, Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Burke, Jason. "Berlin Wall given a facelift as freedom painters return" The Guardian, Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  8. ↑ Wyatt, Daisy. "Stik and Thierry Noir in London's Shoreditch" The Independent, Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  9. ↑ Harper, Leah. "Baroque Paintings Given a Street Art Makeover" The Guardian, Retrieved 21 February 2014.
  10. ↑ Howard Griffin Gallery .
  11. ↑ Thierry Noir: The LA retrospective, Widewalls
  12. ↑ http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/__pr/GKs/LOSA/2014/10/28noir.html
  13. ↑ "After the Fall" IMDB.com, Retrieved 8 March 2014.
  14. ↑ "The Wall Project" Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  15. ↑ Haithman, Diane."Berlin Wall's Fall will be memorialized across Wilshire" Los Angeles Times, Retrieved 5 March 2014.
  16. ↑ Klaus and Eva Herlitz: Buddy Bear Berlin Show, Neptun Verlag AG, CH-8280 Kreuzlingen, 2001, ISBN 3-85820-152-9

External links

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