Painter Timur Çelik came to Berlin in the nineties for political reasons; he is among a generation of artists who witnessed important cycles of urban, cultural, and artistic transformation. He is primarily known for his portrait work, where he focuses on his close relationships and certain crucial political figures with intimate, conversational brushstrokes. With his hyperrealistic style, he observes and comments on political struggles and personal fortitude under conditions of state repression, as well as the hardship of living in exile. His contribution to Die Balkone shows the threads of political commentary and intimate portraiture in his work. Commenting on the widespread discussion of monuments and public space shaped by ongoing colonial mindset in 2020, he questions two monuments carrying traces of Cold War and the GDR, Ernst Thälmann on Greifswalder Strasse by Lew Jefimowitsch Kerbel in 1986, and Soviet War memorial in Treptower Park designed by Yakov Belopolsky in 1949.