When I was in Berlin last year preparing items for Issue No. 27 of # 59 Magazine, which was dedicated to Berlin, I stayed in the iconic Rocco Forte Hotel de Rome, one of the most prestigious buildings in the city. My eye was caught by an exhibition of photographs by German artist, Kiki Kausch. They were hanging in the hotel’s Chiaro Bar and various public spaces. I noticed a very strong large-format image of a catwalk model, changing outfit, probably during re- hearsals. As I walked further around the exhibition, I was drawn to a large-format portrait of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And this picture has not left my mind since. For me, this image is outstanding because it is direct and undisguised. You recognise the Chancellor in a typical Merkel pose, as you might have seen her through the years on TV. When I called Kiki in Berlin to ask if I could use this picture for # 59, she kindly agreed and had no problem with the fact that the colour image would be presented in black and white. Who would have thought that this image would be so topical now because of the war in Ukraine? Somewhere in my mind, I think that if Merkel had still been in office we would have had a much better chance to at least communicate with Putin because to some extent they have the same background. Kiki told me on the phone that she had slowly grown into a fan of Merkel: “She gained my respect more and more,” not in the beginning but along the way. Kiki Kausch lives in Berlin, a city which, like the photograph, is direct and undisguised. And Kiki works in the same way. She has photographed nu- merous Hollywood stars in Berlin including Mi- chael Douglas, Cameron Diaz, Leonardo DiCaprio and Quentin Tarantino. She is especially engaged with the subject of female power and in 2012 was the first to photograph an all-female crew of a Lufthansa A380 flight from Frankfurt to Singapore. When I asked her how she got started, she told me: “My path into art was not predetermined: it is marked by beautiful coincidences and a desire to follow my instincts. In my first job as a TV news editor, I quickly learned that everything in society is connected and that images are the most important instruments— they reach our brains faster than words”.