Balkan Architecture and City Life: The Symbol of Freedom has gone
This is the story about the mural created in 2009 by French street artist Remed. I remember my first days in Novi Sad in 2010 and how this huge illustration, that was sending strong message about freedom, made big impression and trapped my attention for at least 2 hours. The same thing had been repeating for all these 7 years I live in this city.
Sitting in front of this art peace called "The Only Truth" was like therapy. Every time I felt imprisoned by the system or just life circumstances, I went there and watch small red figure cutting the strings of a master.
About 7 months ago, when I was writing the story about Novi Sad and its architecture, I made the last picture of this mural.
People loved the mural. Few years ago the goverment tried to remove it but citizens stopped the action. I've been hearing the rumours about the removal for years but nobody thought it will happen for real.
Mural was removed during the night on 14th of March this year without any announcement. The next day the citizens went on the street to protest but it was gone and nobody could bring it back.
Few hours after the removal I saw this picture on the internet. It was a clear message to those who removed it.
Today, on 16th June, this wall is white and empty. The place I sat for hours to find strenght and piece in difficult moments is gone. When I am walking this street nothing stops me anymore and the goverment shoved once more how they respect artist and art in general.
Remed's murals are standing for years in many European cities as you can see on his website http://remed.es/art/ but he is not good enough for us, obviously.
I hope that in the future people will keep all good things in their cities and fight for them because no one, especially goverments, has right to destroy things of value that had been kept for years.
I hope that you like "The Only Truth" and that inspires you to think about the relation between the freedom and the chains.
Thank you very much for reading and all the upvotes and comments. Your support is very important for me.
I am from Novi Sad and this still makes me feel sad and pissed off at the same time. It was such a lovely and unique piece of art!
That is tragic. Its a real shame when local government does not respect & value streetart. It can add a lot of character to an area, a sense of fun, and I for one would always prefer to look at something artistic than a blank wall!
I remember this was an image that set some part of my concept of what the city was about up before I actually visited. It's changing not in a good way. It will hurt its image if too much of this kind of stuff happens.