Banksy is back with a coronavirus-inspired message.
The British artist, known for his detailed graffiti and hidden identity, headed to the London Underground to do some street art with masks and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a video posted to his Instagram on Tuesday, the artist appears to be disguising himself as an employee charged with thoroughly cleaning the trains of the London Underground system, known as Tube.
But instead of cleaning the inside of a train, Banksy tagged pictures of rats on all the walls, including one of a rat sneezing through a window. Other rats wear masks as a parachute and carry hand sanitizer.
“If you don’t mask yourself, you don’t understand,” the artist captioned the video of him working.
In addition to tagging his nickname inside a train car, Banksy also tagged the phrase “I am locked up” at a subway stop along with “But I get up again” on the doors of a train.
The artist’s elusive publication of his latest project comes the same day that Italy returned to France his stolen work of art that was painted as a tribute to the victims of the 2015 Paris attacks in the Bataclan music hall.
The chief prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Michele Renzo, told the French ambassador that it was significant that the handover occurred on Bastille Day, given the need to continue fighting for all freedoms.
“This door brings back memory to the tragic and distressing event, and tells us that for freedom, for our individual freedoms, we will always have to fight,” said Renzo at a ceremony at the French Embassy, where the artwork was being exhibited for the holidays.
French officials announced the theft of the piece last year, a black image that appears to depict a mourning person who was painted on one of Bataclan’s emergency exit doors.
Ninety people were killed in the Bataclan on November 13, 2015, when Islamic extremists invaded the music hall, one of several targets that night in which a total of 130 people died.
Italian authorities announced last month that they had discovered the painted door to an attic in a country house in Abruzzo.
French Ambassador Christian Masset said the door was a “witness” to the attack, but also an escape route.
“Through this door that was an emergency exit, many people managed to escape,” he said. “Thanks to this door, more lives were saved.”
Standing next to the piece after its presentation, Renzo said Italy was proud to return the painting to its rightful owners.
“Recovering this symbol, returning it to the public’s emotion, was a commitment for us and today is a great honor,” said Renzo, attorney general in L’Aquila.
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Contributing: Associated Press
