Banksy/Napalm/Anglais

Banksy is an anonymous and famous England-based Street Artist.

Street Art is a modern artistic movement born in the seventies. Stree Art enabled a democratisation of art.

I'm going to talk about the artwork Napalm created in 1994 (nineteen ninety-four). Napalm is inspired by a photo taken by Nick Ut in Vietnam in 1972 ( nineteen seventy-two). Napalm is a photographic mounting and a stencil.

The art work represents a little girl and two mythical American figures (alternative : the 2 most recognizable American faces in the world) : Mickey Mouse from the studio Walt Disney and Ronald, the clown from Mac Donald's.

To understand this piece of art we need to understand the historical context.

When Nick Ut took this photo during the Vietnam War. During the cold war, the USA supported South Vietnam whereas North Vietnam was supported by the URSS and China. The USA brought a material and military help.

For the first time, the USA lost. The American population was very shocked when it discovered the war atrocities. After twenty-two years, Banksy created Napalm to denounce these atrocities.

Now, I'm going to describe this piece of art.

The little girl represented is called Kim Phuc. She is nine years old and has burns from a napalm blast on her back. She is screaming, running, trying to get away. She is naked because she has taken off all her clothes. This screaming girl in pain is in the center of Banksy’s piece of art.

She is holding the hand to the children’s favorite characters Mickey Mouse and Ronald.

Mickey Mouse and Ronald are the USA symbols because they represent economic success.

This terrorised girl in pain contrasts with the two smiling characters.

Napalm is sometimes named ''can't beat that feeling'', another symbol of the American consumer society because it was a Coca Cola advertising spot in the eighties.

There are lots of oppositions in this ''graff''.

At first, fiction is in opposition with reality: the original picture of Kim Puch is in opposition with the mascots Mickey Mouse and Ronald, created from scratch and only to entertain.

Then, there is an opposition between clothes and nudity: the nudity makes you vulnerable, fragile and weak. Clothes make you powerful and stong.

There is an opposition between colours: the little girl is in black and white while Mickey Mouse and Ronald have yellow clothes. Black and white symbolise Poverty and Misery while Yellow symbolises wealth, because yellow is like gold.

Moreover, the girl seems stuck between the two huge characters that have overproportionate faces.

Opposition also takes place between the friendly aspect of the 2 mascots and their sinister aspect: they smile and seem to say ''hello'' to children while holding the girl’s wrists as if she was their prisoner. Also, it reminds you of child labour in Asia where children work for very low wages and are exploited by American major companies.

This piece of art shows that the USA

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