Weeks before former President Donald J. Trump faces off against Vice President Kamala Harris in a live televised debate, his portrait appeared on the walls of a Bulgarian village.
Every summer for the past decade, artists have gathered in the quiet village of Staro Zhelezare to decorate walls and fences with graffiti depicting the faces of current and past political and cultural leaders of the world.
Next to a portrait of Marilyn Monroe, Ventsislav Piriankov, artist and founder of the Staro Zhelezare art festival, explains how his paintings relate to the modern world.
“We are more or less part of an eternal and at the same time journalistic art, which always reflects the events of political, public, social, sports and cultural life both in the world and in Bulgaria”he said.
The annual art project is organized by the Polish-Bulgarian artistic family – Ventsislav Piriankov and his sister Katarzyna.
They teach at an art school in the Polish city of Poznan and regularly invite their students to Bulgaria to create an open-air art gallery with Banksy-style graffiti.
Ventsislav’s grandfather and grandmother lived in the house, which has now been transformed into an art centre with murals.
One of this year’s works is dedicated to the recent assassination attempt against Donald Trump, who was shot at a campaign event.
But instead of a real bullet, the mural shows a red tomato crushed on Trump’s ear. Passersby are free to interpret the work however they wish.
