"And that is the hope [...] that dictatorships will choke on their walls and yet people will take the freedom they deserve - everyone in this world."
Kiddy Citny, born in 1957, moved to West Berlin when he was 18. A painter and musician, he started painting on the west side of the Berlin Wall in 1984 to highlight its absurdity. His Wall painting “qui baise qui” (“who’s screwing who”) was a critique of West Germany’s swallowing of East Germany.
Kiddy Citny in the interview
For his Wall painting “qui baise qui”, Citny made a departure from his usual theme. It shows figures on a raft, symbolising East Germany, subjugating itself to West Germany for the sake of capitalism. Unlike his paintings of crowned heads, its style is reminiscent of ancient Egyptian art. It expresses the artist’s concern that East Germany’s newly found freedom could soon be lost again. In his view, unification was completed too hastily. In 2009, he changed some details of the painting.
Citny, raised in Bremen, moved to West Berlin when he was 18. He was one of the first to paint on the west side of the Berlin Wall, in 1984, to ridicule the structure. A self-taught artist, he became internationally known for his pictures of “kings” and “queens” as well as his Wall art. In 2020 he painted a “mural for democracy” in Hong Kong. Two other sections of the Wall painted by Citny can be seen in Berlin: at Leipziger Platz and outside the Märkisches Museum.