Klimt Kisses Syria

A superimposed picture of Gustav Klimt’s painting The Kiss against the walls of a war-torn building has gone viral. London’s Scaatchi Gallery posted it in early February and within five hours, the image, entitled Freedom Graffiti by Syrian artist Tammam Azzam, received more than 21,000 Facebook "likes". It is part of his recent series Syrian Museum, exhibited at the Ayyam Gallery Al Quoz in December last year in Dubai.

Born in Damascus, the artist fled Syria seven months after the uprisings began. Since September 2011, he has been creating art with digital media in Dubai, concentrating on the on-going political cycles of violence in his country. His work combines meaningful pictures from the Syrian rebellion with maps, images of chess pieces and other allegorical symbols of political conflict. His artwork also plays with paintings by Picasso, Matisse or Leonardo da Vinci, set against images of bullet-ridden walls and ruins.