Art Banksy is turning London into a zoo
Artstreet art

Banksy is turning London into a zoo

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Giulia Guido

Banksy’s last mural dated back to March 17, specifically an artwork interacting with a bare tree. The faceless street artist then appeared in an entirely new role during the Idles’ concert at the Glastonbury Festival, where he sent a boat filled with mannequins floating over the crowd, denouncing the perilous journeys many migrants undertake in hopes of a better life. Now, this week, Banksy has once again made headlines, not with one, but with four new murals in different areas of London.

The first, depicting a precariously balanced goat, appeared on Monday, August 5th, at Kew Green in the Richmond district. Then, each day this week, the artist revealed a new work: on Tuesday, two elephants appeared on two bricked-up windows of a building on Edith Terrace, a street in the Chelsea district; on Wednesday, Londoners woke up to find three monkeys hanging from a bridge on Brick Lane in Tower Hamlets; and today, Thursday, August 8th, a wolf appeared on a satellite dish on Rye Lane in Peckham.

The Instagram posts where Banksy claims ownership of his works are not accompanied by any captions, but everyone has noticed how the subjects are always animals at risk, whose habitats are increasingly being destroyed by human activity.

The British press is closely following the story, which has led the media to obtain a frame from a security camera next to the ibex in the first mural, which apparently captured the moment the mural was created. The frames show two men, one of whom has his face covered by a mask, on a forklift around five o’clock on Monday morning. Unfortunately, the footage is not enough to reveal Banksy’s identity, but in the meantime, everyone in London (and beyond) is wondering if this series of works will continue. Where in the city will the next one appear? What animal will be depicted?

Banksy
Artstreet art
Written by Giulia Guido

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