My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love

The photograph

The well-known photograph capturing the famed embrace was taken by Régis Bossu in East Berlin on October 7, 1979. It was widely republished. Brezhnev was visiting East Germany at the time to celebrate the anniversary of its founding as a Communist nation. On October 5, East Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a ten-year agreement of mutual support under which East Germany would provide ships, machinery and chemical equipment to the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union would provide fuel and nuclear equipment to East Germany.

Currently, the rights for the photo are managed by Corbis Corporation.

The painting

Vrubel created the painting in 1990 on the eastern side of the Berlin Wall. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Berlin Wall graffiti art existed only on the western side. Vrubel attempted to obtain permission to paint on the eastern side, but the East German Ministry of National Defence disclaimed responsibility for the Wall. Instead, he found a "Scottish girl" selling "permits" to paint on the Wall, and he signed a contract that gave up all of his rights to the painting.

Along with other murals in the section, the painting continued in display after the wall was taken down, but vandalism and atmospheric conditions gradually led to its deterioration. In March 2009, the painting, along with others, was erased from the wall to allow the original artists to repaint them with more durable paints. Vrubel was commissioned to repaint the piece, donating the €3000 fee he was paid to a social art project in Marzahn.

In terms of style, there are slight differences between the 1990 and remade 2009 murals, and Vrubel has admitted he committed technical mistakes on the original piece due to inexperience with the method. However, the main message didn't change, despite the artist's doubts that Berliners would perceive it differently or "worse." The main difference between the first and second "Kiss" is the use of lines and color, which improved in the 2009 version giving it a more realistic appearance.

Photographer Bossu and Vrubel met in 2009 and were photographed together on 16 June with reproductions of their works.

Critical reception of the painting

My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love has become one of the best known works of graffiti art on the Berlin Wall. According to Anthony Read and David Fisher, the painting is "particularly striking, with a sharp, satirical edge." However, it was also widely criticized on creation as a straightforward reproduction of the photograph that inspired it.

In a 2014 interview, the artist explains how both the location and the characters give meaning to the painting: "In this painting, there's one German and one Russian, and the Berlin Wall is about the same thing but in reverse: here, there's total love, while the Berlin Wall separates two worlds — it was a perfect fit." He wanted to create a "wow" factor, which he definitely did. However, he did not expect the success it had.

Prominent derivative works include Make Everything Great Again, a 2016 Lithuanian mural of Russian president Vladimir Putin and United States president Donald Trump in a similar pose, and a 2016 mural in Bristol featuring Donald Trump and pro-Brexit campaigner and British Member of Parliament Boris Johnson in the run-up to the 2016 referendum.