Coke Adds Life

"I don't particularly like politicians, but it was like a gala performance with this magnificent man who had been imprisoned for 27 years," he says of Nelson Mandela's arrival at the Berlin Kunsthalle to open Colours. Barker's work was "strategically set up" for Mandela and comprised of an installation of parts of the Coke Adds Life series.

At the time, the president was separated from Winnie Mandela and had begun to court his third wife, Graca Machel, the former first lady of Mozambique who had been widowed by a South African-engineered bomb attack on her husband, Samora Machel's aeroplane.

Now in Berlin in front of Mandela was Barker's Mozambique. There were Coca Cola logos, AK47s, a 1994 inauguration plate and - poignantly enough - a "his/hers" painting inside a big heart.

Madiba signs work

Ignoring the flotilla of bodyguards surrounding the world's most famous living leader, Barker approached Mandela and engaged him in brief conversation about the Mozambique work. "He signed a painting called 'Hope'," says Barker with a smile.