Thierry Noir, French artist first to paint on the Berlin Wall, now showing in Hong Kong

South China Morning Post

7 days ago

French artist Thierry Noir's paintings pop with the colourful cartoonish characters that have come to define him.
The characters – featuring big heads, elongated faces, bulging lips – exude a sense of fun, which is ironic considering the inspiration for the imagery was born almost half a century ago in Berlin at a time when the divided city was at the heart of the Cold War.
Noir is credited as being the first artist to paint on
the Berlin Wall , which stretched 155km (96 miles) to divide communist East Germany and the democratic West.
'Painting the colourful long faces and big heads was a sort of physical reaction against the pressure of daily life near the Berlin Wall,' says Noir, who between 1984 and 1989 covered about 5km of the wall with his art.
Noir in front of one of his paintings on the Berlin Wall in 1986. Photo: Thierry Noir Studio
At the time, he had no idea of the mark he would leave, not just on the wall but on the global contemporary art scene. Today, he is considered a pioneer of the street art movement.
'We called street art graffiti back then,' he says.