A Feature Piece on Murals of Politicians Kissing
A graffiti artist draws a painting of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu kissing which brings back memories of other controversial yet praised art work which isn’t how Israelis would express towards the mural on the West Bank Wall based on how they reacted.
An Australian graffiti artist that goes by the name Lushsux spent around four hours one night, choosing night time to avoid getting in trouble, painting a controversial mural on the West Bank wall in Bethlehem of the American President Donald Trump kissing the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with quotes; Netanyahu tells Trump, “Thank for the wall Trumpy pumpkin” and Trump replies, “Bebe, your country and you always come first, my love.”
Lushsux is anonymous which is a trend for the well known graffiti artists, and he has painted other paintings of Trump such as the one where Trump says “I’m going to build you a brother…” and other concepts on the wall expressing his Pro-Palestinian side. In fact, he isn’t the only artist that has contributed to paint inspiring graffiti art on the wall. One major name, Banksy, comes to mind regarding the art on the wall. Banksy had decided to paint in Palestine to express social and political issues. The anonymous artist has done lots of creative art pieces for the Palestinians that mostly include innocence of children or the impression of hope that someday Palestinians can get to see the other side of the wall.
When it comes to the mural of Trump kissing a political figure, it isn’t the first. In fact, a mural of him and Putin painted by Mindaugas Bonanu in Lithuania created quite a buzz. Another one by Lushsux, again, was of Trump kissing Hilary Clinton which was painted at Gwynne St. in Melbourne during the time of the election’s results. The idea of two political figures that are rivals kissing on the most critical times would show that in the big picture, they’re really just two politicians thinking of the having the same goal, becoming president, and must have similar principles. In Bristol, a painting by a campaign team We Are Europe of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson kissing can also be found with a saying, “NOT #INFOR THIS?”. There is even one of him with a devilish look kissing Pope Francis who has a halo above him.
This all brings us back to one historical and very iconic mural of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing to portray socialist brotherhood which was painted by the artist Dmitri Vrubel on the Berlin Wall. Vrubel had said in an interview by The Calvert Journal, “In this painting, there’s one German and one Russian, and the Berlin Wall is about the same thing but in reverse: here (in the painting), there’s total love, while the Berlin Wall separates two worlds-it was a perfect fit.” He had also stated that he hadn’t thought his painting could have still been seen as “a symbol of the Berlin Wall”. The painting is in fact iconic and considered part of the German’s history that can never be replaced. Initially, there was fear that the painting would make it impossible for the East and West side to reunite, but citizens considered it a symbol that would never be forgotten.
When asked about the reason behind the trend of politicians kissing, a professor at Lebanese American University whose expertise is in modern and contemporary art, Dr. Zena M. Meskaoui, states that “What’s interesting in art history is the tradition in the kiss…This idea of the kiss in relation to art history which was traditionally between a man and a woman and love and then undermined by two political figures and then the gender in which you have two men kissing.” In other words, the Berlin Wall mural was a start of what would have been unacceptable by the society because of the unusualness of the idea of two men kissing, nevertheless two powerful political figures, so the fact that artists are now drawing more of such shows the power of controversy and how it could mean much more than a kiss.
Regarding the painting on the Berlin Wall, it has gone through bad conditions and ruined because of the age of the wall which was built by the East Germans during the Cold War and separated the East with the West side of Berlin. That is why, it had been repainted in 2009 by the same artist who is now 57 years old since it is truly important in German culture. When asked about the difference between the old and new “Kiss”, Vrubel answered, “I was afraid that I would paint it over, and that someone would come up and say, ‘Well, of course, the other one was cooler, we all understand, it’s hard to repeat something, and you’re not so young.’… And in a couple of days, when the faces were already finished, five German newspapers simultaneously came out with a photograph of this work and headlines like: ‘We have the Bruderkuss back’. That’s when I relaxed — it was a hit.”
Going back to the mural in the West Bank Wall which separates the Israeli occupied land with the Palestinians land, it was actually covered with paint by the Israeli government. When asked about it, Meskaoui said, “It doesn’t kind of surprise me.” That normalization of the situation is what makes people actually realize the reality of how Palestinians live. Lushsux, a foreigner, reacted to this by repainting Netanyahu giving a thumbs up over the mural with the word “Nice…”. When considering the idea of foreigners’ art, Meskaoui states, “of course, the artist’s name is important…There’s an Australian artist doing the work in Palestine, so that’s a different aspect here which is the global market or global kind of artwork.” It’s quite fascinating how Lushsux who is usually known for painting ironic and in some cases sexist paintings of celebrities like Taylor Swift and even Hillary Clinton would come and share his talent in countries living in crisis, and the fact that the work itself becomes international news shows a global connection with what’s happening all around the world.
This brings us to the point of the Pro-Palestinian artists such as Banksy and Lushsux and what it feels for them to be part of such activism. When asked about his mural, Lushsux tells Reuters, “The wall is a message in itself. I don’t need to write ‘Free Palestine’ or something like that, something really direct … that people will ignore.” The idea of a global art market in which people from around the world get to do something to express what they see in Palestine shows the importance of human collaboration in this unjust occupation. Additionally, the realization that even the art is controlled and supervised by the enemy is just a representation of what it is to be a Palestinian living under the Israeli occupation.
