While painting in Munich during the Z common ground exhibition I got invited by Loomit to paint a mural at Munich’s Werksviertel. For this very special spot I overworked a motive I first painted more than 10 years ago. ‘Opium Den’ was one of my earliest motives and has its roots in the quote of Karl Marx, that ‘Religion is the opiate of the people’, hence a church would be an opium den. Later, I overworked the motive using St. Paul’s Cathedral in Dunedin, New Zealand.
And the idea popped up again while I was painting in Munich, it was the time when a fire destroyed parts of the Notre Dame in Paris. On the one hand, it was a very dramatic situation, people projecting all kinds of patriotic feeling onto this church, a symbol of the Western World had caught fire and the news were full of stories about it. But what really impressed me was how much money was donated in a very short time to rebuild it, more than 800 Million Euros in less than a month. Just imagine what kind of projects you could have supported with this kind of money instead of supporting a symbol of Western supremacy. It took me close to 130 hours of cutting and 4 days of painting it and is to date one of my biggest and most complicated stencils.
The motive has also been published in the Brooklyn Street Art Blog.
