There is not much left of the Ukrainian cities. The buildings are smashed, the windows smashed. Lately, however, works of art have been shining on some bombed-out house walls.
Street artist Banksy posted a video on Instagram showing many of these works. With this, the mysterious Briton has committed himself to a whole series of works in Ukraine.
Banksy only commits to one image
Some of the photos, most of them spray-painted on the walls of homes, were discovered days ago. Pictures of it had made the rounds on social media, sparking excitement in the war-torn country. The artist himself, whose identity has not yet been clarified, had only claimed responsibility for one of the paintings.
The video released Thursday night is a “make-of” of sorts in which Banksy cuts out and spray-paints stencils — but without showing his face. The works are then shown, mostly in black and white: for example, an old man with a long beard who sits in a bathtub in the town of Horenka and scrubs his back with a large brush. The image was spray-painted on the tiled bathroom wall of a house with a huge hole in the facade.
“In solidarity with the people of Ukraine”
Another work depicts a woman seemingly standing on a chair propped up against the facade of a burnt-out house. She wears curlers, a gas mask, a dressing gown and holds a fire extinguisher.
Other depictions show gymnasts dancing over a bullet’s impact hole with a fluttering ribbon or balancing upside down on mounds of rubble. The black outlines of children can be seen on concrete barricades, apparently using a metal anti-tank barrier as a seesaw.
The artist spray-painted a rocket launcher on a rectangular box, the gun of which resembles a penis painted on the wall of a school toilet. In the ruins of a kindergarten, a young judoka throws an adult fighter – whose physique resembles that of Russian President Vladimir Putin – to the ground. Finally, an inscription is displayed with the words: “In solidarity with the people of Ukraine”. (SDA/dzc)