Auf einen an die sechs Meter hohen Strebepfeiler einer Brandwand im Londoner Stadtteil Kew hat der wohl aus Bristol stammende Street-Art-Künstler Banksy die schwarze Silhouette eines Steinbocks gesprüht. Das mit Zinkblech abgedeckte Podest an der Pfeilerspitze vor der völlig leeren Wand ist extrem schmal, der Steinbock reckt den Kopf mit den beiden mächtigen Hörnern nach vorn und blickt in den Abgrund vor ihm.
Die in den schmalen Raum gestemmten parallelen Vorderläufe scheinen noch firm zu stehen, doch haben sich bereits neun ebenfalls aufgesprühte Felsbrocken gelöst und stürzen in die Tiefe, in die das Tier blickt – die Situation wirkt prekär – das fatalistische „Halb zog es ihn halb sank er hin“ kommt einen in den Sinn –, und es bleibt unentscheidbar, ob der Steinbock sich zum Sprung auf einen weit, wohl zu weit entfernten Stützpfeiler gegenüber vorbereitet oder ob er im nächsten Moment dem schon in Bewegung geratenen Geröll in den Abyssus folgen wird.
Zu wenig Raum zum Leben in England?
Der noch zögernde abgründige Steinbock könnte bloß ein weiteres Symboltier innerhalb Banksys ohnehin ausgiebig apokalyptischen Bildwelt sein, die er bereits vor Jahren in seinem dystopischen Freizeitpark „Dismaland“ im Südwesten Englands mit schrecklich zugerichteten Tieren und Gerade-noch-Humanoiden ausgebreitet hat. Wäre da nicht eine vom Künstler auf die mutmaßliche Absturzstelle gedrehte und funktionierende Überwachungskamera an der Wand, die üblicherweise auf die Straße gerichtet ist.
In Banksy’s mindset, it embodies, albeit technically mediated, how the public witnesses a catastrophe “with their eyes open” – the unchecked fall of the animal into the abyss, comfortably observed from the living room couch, where otherwise the most embarrassing wild urinators and copulators in Britain are pilloried in many CCTV formats at prime time. The contrast between the outrageously expensive housing in the Kew district of London’s upscale Richmond and the tiny space of the goat suggests a warning in the sense of a “broken Britain” that is currently massively damaging itself or Memento mori. the looming climate catastrophe, embodied by the endangered mountain animal within an environmental theme to which the artist has already devoted himself in several works.
Banksy’s animal life now also includes two elephants in Chelsea in southwest London. They are sprayed on two bricked-up white window recesses next to each other. The animals meet at eye level and stretch their trunks towards each other. One of the two has tusks, the other does not. The elephants are also sprayed as black silhouettes, with a space left between the ends of their trunks, which – it is hard to believe this is a coincidence – demonstratively highlights a slightly darker-colored stone in the middle of the otherwise honey-yellow brick facade, as if the suction power of the elephants were keeping an oversized peanut in balance between the two. With such a subtle balance of the almost touching of two limbs – the trunk is ultimately the elephant’s arm – the association with Michelangelo’s “Animation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel is obvious, something that would be expected of Banksy, who is proven to be well versed in art history.
Banksy’s dystopian Animal Farm is growing
In any case, with the new additions, Banksy is expanding his spray-painted zoo by two species. Until now, the symbolic representatives of his Aesop-esque fables were rats and monkeys behaving very humanly, or rather stupidly. Now, the ibex, the king of climbing and melting glaciers, who has long been under threat, and the elephant, a veritable animalistic representative of the Republican Trump Party in the USA, are appearing on the scene, giving his counterpart JD Vance the symbolic handshake that has been seen countless times in the media in recent weeks – in a sense, an ancient Roman Dextrarum iunctio of the trunk à la Aesop.
The English expression “There is an elephant in the room” plays less of a role in the case of a duo of elephants, and thus the obvious presence of a massive internal obstacle – again in plain sight. Whether, among the many possible interpretations, the detail that the elephant with the tusk is more capable of defending itself than the one without natural weapons and thus the power imbalance between the two opponents Israel and Palestine is addressed, as many commentators on social media speculate, is of any importance, remains to be seen.
Rangers in Africa, for example, often deliberately saw off the animals’ tusks to protect them from poachers so that they are not killed for their valuable ivory. Against the bright white background of their bricked-up windows, the two jet-black pachyderms look like a picture puzzle that is not intended to allow for a clear interpretation and can quickly turn into its exact opposite. Perhaps Banksy will add another Zoon politikon to his political animal park in the next few days, which will allow a clearer interpretation of the fantastic animal creatures.
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