The elusive street artist Banksy has surprised the streets of London again, this time with a new series of graffiti in different parts of the city, appearing every day last week, with animals as protagonists. Monkeys, elephants, pelicans and a wolf are part of a succession of works that make up one of the most prolific periods in recent times by the graffiti artist from Bristol, who officially remains anonymous. On Sunday, in the City, the financial heart of the British capital, a small police security booth, installed in the nineties to prevent IRA attacks, was converted, by Banksy, into an aquarium with piranhas. Yesterday, Monday, he began the second week of his particular zoo with his eighth piece, a rhinoceros in the Charlton neighbourhood, in the south-east of the British capital. And this Tuesday he added the figure of a gorilla lifting a tarp from which a seal emerges, in a place as symbolic for this series as one of the shutters of the London zoo.
However, the police box is the one that differs the most from the previous ones that have been appearing over the past week, as it was produced with transparent spray paint to represent fish and replicate an effect similar to that of water in a glass tank. The other pieces, on the other hand, are characterized by the usual black silhouettes that have made their style one of the most recognizable and imitated in recent decades.
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As is often the case, confirmation of the authorship of each of the drawings has come from the artist’s Instagram account and, as always, without further comment or information; although, of the eight drawings already, one has already been stolen, another removed and two others have been vandalized. The work of Banksy, who is believed to be in his fifties (despite his identity being publicly unknown, it is assumed that he was born in the early seventies), has gradually reflected a more political tendency, with works that address phenomena such as migration or war conflicts, such as the graffiti he made in the West Bank, or more recently in Ukraine, after the Russian occupation began.
A skateboarder jumps in front of the facade where Banksy painted two elephants in Fulham, London, August 6. Mina Kim (REUTERS)
As a result, the animal theme of the series that has taken to the streets of London had initially been identified as a denunciation of climate change, but the artist’s entourage has clarified that its fundamental objective is simply to lift the spirits of citizens, in a news landscape dominated by negative headlines and a social context marked by the cost of living and inequality.
Rather than any kind of climate or environmental protest, the aim this time, according to people close to him quoted by the Sunday paper The Observer, would simply be to offer a moment of entertainment for passers-by, as well as to highlight the human capacity to display creativity through play, rather than to generate destruction. For this reason, the organisation that provides logistical support to the artist, Pest Control Office (Pest Control Office, in English, whose logo is a rat, an animal frequently used by Banksy), has stressed that theories seeking a deeper meaning behind the works that have appeared in London these days do not reflect the author’s intention.
Following the discovery of the gorilla and seal on Tuesday in the zoo’s blinds, the director of communications for the Zoological Society of London, Rebecca Blanchard, has applauded Banksy’s initiative, saying that these works have “brought as much joy” to London as the zoo does. “We know that animals, wildlife, bring joy to people. They improve people’s mental and physical health, general well-being improves by being surrounded by nature, and Banksy has done that in London,” Blanchard highlighted in the local press.
The first work in the series was discovered on Monday last week in the Kew district, southwest of London. It is a goat depicted on a white wall on the side of a building near the River Thames. The animal barely manages to maintain its balance on the tiny platform that supports it, represented by a column that protrudes from the wall. The effect is highlighted by stones that seem to fall into the void and, in line with the usual interpretations that try to decipher the author’s message, it was initially related to a supposed denunciation of the state of nature. The piece has been covered with a glass panel, which acts as protection.
London Zoo staff measure the gorilla mural on a wall at the zoo on Wednesday. Leon Neal (Getty Images) Daniel Lloyd-Morgan paints Banksy’s new work with watercolours on August 6 in Fulham, London. Mina Kim (REUTERS) The former police box decorated by street artist Banksy in London on August 11. ANDY RAIN (EFE) A woman photographs the mural depicting a goat on August 5 in Richmond, England. Carl Court (Getty Images) Banksy unveils his new work of a rhino climbing the surface of a car. It is the eighth work in the menagerie, on Westmoor Road in Charlton, London; on Monday. Lucy North (PA Images/Getty Images)A man removes Banksy’s new piece of a wolf on a satellite dish on Thursday, August 8, in Peckham, London. Jordan Pettitt (PA Images/Getty Images)Banksy’s three monkeys piece decorates the bridge over Brick Lane, London, Wednesday, August 7. Aitor Alcalde (Getty Images)
Worse luck has befallen the depiction of two elephants bringing their trunks together, from two different windows, which appeared the following day in a house in Chelsea, west of the city. One of the silhouettes of the pachyderms was painted with stripes. Meanwhile, the satellite dish on which Banksy had painted a howling wolf in Peckham, south-east of the British capital, was stolen by a man wearing a balaclava just an hour after the work was spotted on Thursday.
The profile of a cat on an abandoned and dilapidated billboard in Cricklewood, a neighbourhood in north-west London, also lasted only a few hours. After being identified on Saturday, workers hired by the billboard’s owner removed it for safety reasons, given the risk of it falling, to the anger of the group of people who gathered to boo the removal of the Banksy. The owner has, however, promised to donate the billboard to an art gallery.
Just hours after it was discovered, the rhino that kicked off the second week of the series on Monday was defaced by a man wearing a balaclava who left a white mark with spray paint on the animal’s figure.
The other works that remain in their original state for the time being are those depicting three monkeys swinging across a bridge in Brick Lane, east London, and two pelicans drawn fishing just above a fish and chip shop in the Walthamstow area, northeast of the capital.
A man looks at the silhouette of a cat drawn by Banksy in London on August 10. Maja Smiejkowska (REUTERS)
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