The graffiti artist’s latest series reignited the same boring ‘criminal or genius?’ arguments – but there is deeper meaning to be found in his work, if you know how to look
Banksy is back, and his nine graffitied works around London in nine days have prompted the usual questions. Is it art? Vandalism? And what does it mean, anyway? All featured wild animals – among them a horned mountain goat perched atop a narrow column, a trio of acrobatic monkeys swinging across a bridge, pelicans eating fish on a wall above a fish bar, a randy rhinoceros mounting an abandoned grey car with a horn-like traffic cone on its hood and, at London zoo on the last day, a gorilla lifting a curtain to release a sea lion, birds, and butterflies to freedom.
There was no advance publicity. At 1pm on the day each went up, a photo appeared on Banksy’s Instagram page with its 13.2m followers, and despite a lack of captions or location details, crowds were soon flocking to see them.
