based painter lennart col whose colorful mysterious images are inspired by renaissance masterpieces. and in this week's edition of one hundred german must reads we look at a mystery set in the heady days following the full of the berlin wall. we begin in hamburg where the opening night of the verde opera in a book oh began with its director two thousand kilometers away and the house arrest in moscow could well sort of granny coffin is a harsh critic of the government so unable to travel he's relied on friends to carry out his vision for the production and his updated take on verdi's classic puts the plight of refugees in europe into the mix. a modern rendition a very nice classic nobuko set in the un security council teaming with six intreat and spots. the slave

chorus laments their lost home but in this update the original hebrew slaves have been replaced by actual refugees from syria and afghanistan. director kyocera brenna cough is not able to take the final curtain he's under house arrest in moscow and can only send a video message. great opening thank you so much for all these extraordinary moment in my. live. carol sir brenda cuff is considered a punk among russian directors he's received international accolades but the outspoken kremlin critic was arrested in august of two thousand and seventeen charged with embezzling public phones he now has to work remotely from his moscow apartment. and for me it felt like we had

a real director here i've often worked with directors who seemed much more absent even though they were physically present. in rehearsal recordings for the director each scene from every phase of rehearsals was filmed and sent via a u.s.b. stick to moscow it was up to system director of guinea could log in to communicate serve brenna cuffs return video instructions to the team and. look at this everyone has their own opinion of the message. they see different meanings questions and answers. there are certainly no clear message. but it certainly shines a light at outcasts from our modern society putting actual refugee center stage and letting them voice an operatic call for freedom. i'm joined now by a fellow artist i should say but a painter they're not. just before we talk about your paintings which we can see in

the glorious technicolor one of them behind you if you are in a similar situation to sarah brown a cough that. and somebody said you can do those paintings anymore what would you do well i don't know i hope i don't get into this situation. let's just hope for it and i just i just wonder what you think seeing this must be the biggest you've ever seen a part of your painting yeah yeah quite good resolution yeah this is a very you sort of don't see oh no no no it's like a closer look i like that. ok we'll talk. but. let's find out more about your. lives and works in berlin where he initially studied architecture then he decided to dedicate himself to his true and studied art he finished the college of fine arts as a master's student and stayed on in the german capital. he has his studio in

the north of. here says where he creates his colorful pictures generally painting with acrylics. for his paintings he takes inspiration from the old masters. the fact that my subjects are often so similar probably has to do with this whole universe of iraq and rococo and my fascination with it i like to let myself be seduced by and. portraits of heroes and leaders he pays tribute to the pathos and decadence of past arris through his intensive use of color. how has developed a technique. as the paints right down to the canvas to create fick layers that

merge into one another. it takes him an average of one month to complete a painting unless he's fighting a deadline he'll take the time to work out. and he's grateful he's able to live from his art. fires for the artists works come from all over the world some are prominent art lovers his works have also appeared in national and international exhibitions such as the berlin me collectors who. has no intention of letting circumstance. it's like being put him under any pressure. so no pressure but what you've actually achieved what thousands of volunteers stream about of making a living from your ops. so have you achieved your wildest dreams i mean what's what's what's the best of that. well i don't know what could be better for me i'm

i'm very happy about this and i'm very thankful. that it worked out so far. i mean it wasn't always like that i also had had time soon the studies we had to do stupid jobs and just to make a living and. yeah luckily those times have changed now you are influenced by the barack and the rent is souls as we heard and you talked about why but that it's not always the case not all of your paintings. inspired by them i mean that's quite clear did i want to always want to go off do you have a eureka moment do you sometimes see something in your mind's eye the completed work or is it always a process. no it's most of the times the way that i make studies i make sketches and i try to create. my vision first on paper and then it goes steps and steps through and slowly it develops we

have here you see this one that looks to me like you had it well then is that a football is that a football motif no no i don't think it's from football. well more like random people yeah yeah yeah but princes how did that one come a bath where it was more like that i was trying to search for. like some kind and images from from nowadays and not from the whole call coco it was like a translation into i want times maybe. ok now one thing i've noticed in a lot of your paintings a blank faces i notice this happens quite a lot in your work out now why is that in most of the time as we can see here maybe it's not so much about the personality of the character it's more like the sail around it all of the sayings they are wearing the poles and. they

have that office so. i think like a painting a face there would lead them to different direction. but i mean it's always a very noticeable to me when i look at it oh there's no faces and trying to find a greater significance but that's you don't want to take away. from the no no no no it's more like the smell of it you know it. is you know not the personalities so. ok now you take approximately a month on a kid said in the report that i always want to do is it easy to put the paintbrush do you know. that's done and you go to bed and you don't get up in the morning and go. that's what it is thank you yeah it's tricky because sometimes you know you

have pain things that way you can feel something is missing and you don't know what it is so you maybe put it away for weeks or months then i just turn it around again and look at it as if it would be a painting from a from another artist maybe and then i have a fresh view and sometimes it's just need one stroke and suddenly it's everything you need it yeah. thank you very much for being with us i should say to you that before this weekend i didn't know if your work i'm absolutely blown away by i think you're wonderful. and you can give me the fifty or is not. all success to you thank you very much for being with a c. that actually having me here. turning to literature now in our series one hundred must reads today's novel is set here in berlin around the time the berlin wall came down thirty years ago in fact the city itself is kind of the main protagonist my

colleague david levitz will explain more about parise the shadow boxing woman. have you ever been a victim or felt like one what if you could fight back but if you could take out anyone you wanted to. do you. guys novel the shadow boxing woman is about a young woman living in berlin when the wall comes down after she survives a rape her whole world changes she finds a martial arts teacher who transforms her into a fighting machine. the woman's name is hell now because she's a total bad ass because head is the german word for bright her neighbors neighbor's dog meaning dark when they don't who goes missing and helo decides to do something about it i'm going to break into the dog goes flat after years of hard training

with the way opening the walk should be no problem calling the police is out of the question it's not as if i were recalled why doesn't just teach students punches and kicks but also the thirty six chinese survival strategy when has taught me how to wait calling it a feeling for the right moment tells mission to find her neighbor takes her down a twisted path to the stranger who attacked her now if it sounds like a crime story don't expect a classic whodunit. shadowboxing woman brings together past and present as well as two berlins east and west that are just getting to know each other again but mostly it's about confronting fear and shadows even arrows.

and this unique list of one hundred german books you should read. is available on our website at d w dot com slash culture and indeed lots about the project and about the books and more about lynn up there all on the website as well that's all we've got time full on this edition of office and culture. thanks to all the crew for keeping this all together for all may join us at the site in times of war or if your job.

is german agriculture destroying baltic. german companies or mining on a massive scale it's a cheap resource to do to farmers. but environmentalists warn that extracting peat harms the climate. of these bombs releases huge amounts of greenhouse gases depleting the bugs. close up thirty minutes d w. the floods have taken everything they own now despair is we've got left climate refugees on the day. they seek shelter to try to come.

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this is d w news live from berlin a major power change in the making in north africa algeria is in babel president pulls out of the upcoming elections protesters are celebrating after weeks calling for lizzie's beautifully good to step down he's postpone the elections and promise the country a new constitution after ruling out a bid for a fifth term in power. also coming up tonight investigators recover the black boxes

from that crashed ethiopian ethiopian airlines flight it's hoped that the information moved into.