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Agence France-Presse

The mysterious street artist Banksy has produced a series of rat pictures on the London Underground to advertise the wearing of masks during the coronavirus crisis.
Banksy seems to appear on a one-minute video on Instagram with a mask, white protective suit, blue gloves and an orange safety vest.
Passengers do not recognise him because they think he is an employee of the transport company.
The video, which was viewed more than 2.7 million times by Wednesday morning, shows the artist using stencils to paint rats on the interior walls and windows of the train cars.











   
    

View this post on Instagram


















 
. . If you don’t mask - you don’t get.
A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on Jul 14, 2020 at 6:30am PDT



One animal sails down with a mask as a parachute, another – without a mask – sneezes on a window with a splatter of paint emanating from its face.
Banksy also used spray cans and a pressure sprayer for his pictures.
At the end of the video, Banksy alludes to the hit Tubthumping by the band Chumbawamba, with a message sprayed on a Tube station wall that reads: “I get lockdown” – a play on a line from the song that goes: “I get knocked down, but I get up again.”
Banksy left a comment on Instagram next to the video captioned: “If you don't mask – you don't get.”
The British government announced on Tuesday that masks must be worn in supermarkets and other shops in England from July 24. Each of the four countries in the United Kingdom decides on its own measures to fight the pandemic. A mask requirement for public transport was introduced in England in June.
Hours after the video was uploaded, Transport for London confirmed that the artwork had been removed days before as it violated its anti-graffiti policy. It said it appreciated his sentiment in encouraging people to wear face masks, and would like to offer him an opportunity to do a new version of his message in a “suitable location”, CNN reported.
‘Banksy: Genius or Vandal?’ 6 iconic images
Meanwhile, Italy returned a stolen Banksy artwork to France on Tuesday.
The street artist’s homage to the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks, showing a young girl in mourning, was painted with stencil and white paint on an emergency door of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris where Islamic State gunmen killed 90 people nearly five years ago.
It was found in the attic of an abandoned farmhouse in the central Italian region of Abruzzo last month.

The chief prosecutor of L’Aquila, the capital of Abruzzo, and the head of Italy’s police in charge of cultural heritage handed over the work to France’s ambassador Christian Masset at a Bastille Day ceremony. The artwork was then displayed inside the French embassy in Rome’s Farnese Palace.
Masset said at the handover ceremony that it was through the emergency door “by which numerous people escaped and are alive today”.
“It has a dual significance because it reminds us of the 90 victims … and it was a witness to the massacre” at the Bataclan, he added.
The date of the artwork’s return to France has not yet been disclosed.
Italian news agency AGI reported that it could be exhibited at the Unesco headquarters in Paris, a claim not immediately confirmed by the UN cultural agency.

In January last year, hooded thieves managed to nab the Bataclan work by cutting through the metal door of the club, a scene captured on video by surveillance cameras.
Last month, six people were arrested in France over the theft. Two were charged with robbery in an organised gang and the other four with receiving stolen goods.
However Italy’s AGI has reported that a total of eight people have been arrested, including two French-born Italian suspects, and that a suspected accomplice remains on the run.
Works by Banksy, known for their distinctive style, irreverent humour and thought-provoking themes, have been found on walls, buildings and bridges from the West Bank to post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.
At auction, works by the artist – who keeps his identity secret – have sold for more than US$1 million.
New Banksy Valentine’s Day artwork covered after being vandalised
Banksy blitzed Paris during a whirlwind trip in 2018.
The Bataclan door is not the only of his works to have been stolen in the French capital, some of which have since been recovered.
Others include a mural of a businessman in a suit offering a dog a bone, having just sawn the animal’s leg off, and an image of a masked rat wielding a box cutter, which disappeared from outside the Pompidou Centre. Fans have covered some of his Paris street art with Plexiglas to protect them.











   
    

View this post on Instagram






















 
A post shared by Banksy (@banksy) on Jun 6, 2020 at 3:30am PDT



The artist is known to shine a spotlight on social issues such as migration and racism.
In recent weeks, he has posted on his Instagram account a drawing showing a lit candle setting fire to the American flag above a picture of a black man, in homage to George Floyd, the US man whose death in police custody ignited protests across the country.
Banksy has also posted a drawing of people pulling down a statue, a reference to attacks on monuments or statues of historical figures linked to slavery or colonisation.



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Britain

Banksy artwork on London Underground promotes face mask usage

An artwork by Banksy is seen on a London Underground carriage. Photo: Reuters

epa08545700 Police officers stand next to Banksy's Bataclan door at the French embassy in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, Italy, 14 July 2020. The mural by the anonymous British street artist, depicting a 'sad girl,' was stenciled on the emergency exit door of the Bataclan music hall in homage to the victims of the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, France. The work that was stolen from the Bataclan in 2019 was recovered by Italian police in Abruzzo on 10 June 2020 and will be returned to France. EPA-EFE/CLAUDIO PERI

14 July 2020, Italy, Rome: A general view of a Banksy artwork during its hand over at the French embassy on Bastille Day a year and a half after it was stolen from the scene of France's worst-ever terrorist attack. The British street artist painted the image of a mournful woman on an emergency door of the Bataclan, a Paris concert hall, to commemorate the 90 people killed there on 13 November 2015. Photo: Cecilia Fabiano/LaPresse via ZUMA Press/dpa

Banksy unmasked? Scientists use maths to hunt for identity of elusive street artist

Bonhams employees adjust a spray paint work by urban artist Banksy at Bonhams auction house in London. Photo: AP

FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 25, 2016 file photo, workmen watch the media photograph a new artwork by British artist Banksy opposite the French Embassy, in London. Scientists have applied a type of modeling used to track down criminals or map disease outbreaks to identify the graffiti artist, whose real name has never been confirmed. Geographic profiling is used by police forces to calculate from multiple crime sites where the offender most likely lives. Here, the researchers used the location of 192 Banksy artworks in London and Bristol, western England. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)

A Palestinian woman stands with a child in an alley next to reproduction of a mural by British street artist Banksy, originally painted on the wall of the West Bank in Bethlehem, at al-Aroub Palestinian refugee camp, north the West Bank town of Hebron on February 11, 2016. / AFP / HAZEM BADER

Banksy work stolen from Paris terror attack venue

In this file photo taken on June 25, 2018, a man takes a photograph of an artwork by street artist Banksy in Paris on a side street to the Bataclan concert hall where a terrorist attack killed 90 people on November 13, 2015. Photo: AFP

(FILES) In this file photo taken on June 25, 2018 A man walks past an artwork by street artist Banksy in Paris on a side street to the Bataclan concert hall where a terrorist attack killed 90 people on Novembre 13, 2015. - The artwork by street artist Banksy on a side street to the Bataclan concert hall was stolen in Paris on January 26, 2019. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION

Graffiti artist Banksy leaves his mark in war-ravaged Gaza

A Palestinian child next to a Banksy mural of a kitten painted on rubble from last year's war between Israel and Hamas. Photo: AFP

New Banksy artwork brings crowds to Welsh steel town of Port Talbot. What’s the message?

Mural shows a small boy wrapped up against the cold with his tongue stuck out and arms aloft to catch flakes of ash from an industrial bin. Photo: AP

People view new work by the artist Banksy that appeared during the week on the walls of a garage in Port Talbot, Britain December 22, 2018. REUTERS/Rebecca Naden

£1m Banksy painting destroyed as UK artist plays prank at Sotheby's auction

Banksy's Girl with Balloon was automatically and unexpectedly shredded just after its sale. Photo: Instagram

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Coronavirus


The street artist painted rats and graffiti on the Tube with a coronavirus theme and posted a video on Instagram. The artwork has since been removed
Meanwhile, Italy has returned a stolen Banksy work to France, after the homage to victims of the 2015 Paris attacks was taken from the Bataclan concert hall



The street artist painted rats and graffiti on the Tube and posted a video on Instagram. The artwork has since been removed.


Coronavirus pandemic

Coronavirus pandemic: All stories