Achtung Baby by U2 was widely regarded as a sonic and visual reinvention of the band with Bono describing the 1991 album as “the sound of four men chopping down The Joshua Tree”.
The album was recorded over a six month period at the legendary Hansa Studios, Kreuzberg and produced by long time U2 collaborators, Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno with Steve Lillywhite and engineered by Flood.
The band chose the studio because they were fans of David Bowie and Iggy Pop who had recorded there in the 1970s, it allowed the band to tap into the Berlin cultural zeitgeist right as the Berlin Wall was falling.
U2 and the Berlin-based French artist Thierry Noir (the first artist to paint on the Berlin Wall) originally connected through mutual friend and collaborator Wim Wenders while U2 were recording the album in 1990. On Wim’s recommendation Thierry went to meet the band at the studio. Thierry had bought a combination telephone, fax and answering machine just a week before. The very first fax Thierry received was from U2’s Principle Management in Dublin officially inviting him to collaborate.
U2 went on to commission Noir to create a series of painted 601 Trabants to be used as light installations for their upcoming ZOO TV World Tour. Imagery of Noirs’s Trabants was also incorporated onto the album cover for Achtung Baby as well as the artwork for four singles from the album.
The band have once again collaborated with Thierry Noir for the 30th Anniversary of the album producing a triptych of three artworks titled Achtung Baby.
Achtung Baby Triptych:
601 Trabant
A full size segment of original Berlin Wall
Achtung Baby album vinyl test pressing
Post the week-long installation at Hansa Studios, the ‘Achtung Baby’ Trabant bonnet will be sold via Phillips Auctioneers, London with proceeds going to Berlin Institute for Sound and Music.
Thierry Noir
1958
Lyon, France