Banksy unveils graffiti at London Zoo, the end of an intriguing series

(London) Banksy has lifted part of the mystery: in the apparent conclusion of nine days of an intriguing animal series, the street artist unveiled on Tuesday at London Zoo a graffiti depicting a gorilla freeing other captive animals.

Elephants, pelicans, piranhas… The famous graffiti artist with an unknown identity has kept the British capital in suspense and generated multiple speculations about his intentions by dotting the streets of London with all sorts of animals every day since August 5, while his works are generally spaced out by several months.

As usual, he claimed the ninth work on his Instagram account: a gorilla lifting a tarpaulin painted on a metal curtain at the entrance to London Zoo. Birds and a sea lion emerge, seemingly escaping from the animal park with more than 10,000 residents, while pairs of eyes sparkle in the darkness.

“My husband thinks he’s freeing the animals,” said Sharmela Darne, a 50-year-old doctor visiting the zoo from north-east England, who said she could see her “slightly uncertain” eyes beneath the tarpaulin.

“Maybe it’s about freedom and the uncertainty of freedom,” she said when interviewed by AFP.

This work seems to explain the origin of the animals in the previous ones. According to the BBC, it actually concludes the animal frenzy that began with the appearance of a goat perched on the conduit of a facade in the district of Richmond, in the west of the capital.

This was followed by monkeys hanging from a railway bridge, pelicans feasting on fish above the window of a fish & chips shop, and a cat stretching on an advertising billboard.

These apparitions have provoked multiple theories about the message of the Bristol artist, committed to causes such as the defense of refugees or the fate of Palestinians. Witnesses interviewed by AFP in front of the works put forward the hypothesis of references to the climate crisis, the ongoing conflict in Gaza or the recent far-right riots in the United Kingdom.

The Sunday newspaper The Observer claimed that the goal was more prosaic: to boost public morale in a period of gloomy news.

Flight and tag

As Banksy’s paintings fetch millions of euros at auction, masked men were filmed on Thursday seizing a satellite dish on which Banksy had painted a wolf howling to death, recalling the theft last December, in front of astonished witnesses, of a road sign on which he had graffitied combat drones.

The sign with the cat was dismantled on Saturday to jeers by workers who explained that they had been sent because of heavy traffic on the site, raising fears of accidents.

On Monday, a rhinoceros recently claimed by Banksy, which appears to be climbing an abandoned car in a vacant lot, was tagged by a hooded man.

Banksy himself highlighted the ephemeral nature of his work in a spectacular way by causing the self-destruction of a work in 2018 that had just sold at auction for more than one million euros ($1.5 million).

Taking the lead, the City of London administration has protected a glass cabin used by traffic officers, transformed on Sunday into an aquarium by the artist with piranhas. It remains visible to the public behind protective barriers.

London Zoo also promises to protect the work that appeared on its territory, in a manner that remains to be determined, one of its managers, Karl Penman, explained to AFP.

Especially since it could be the last one: “Who knows? If this is the end, then what a beautiful end!” he believes. “And if it’s not the end, that’s even better.”