Weeks before former President Donald J. Trump will face Vice President Kamala Harris in a live TV debate, his portrait has appeared on the walls of a Bulgarian village.
Each summer for the past decade, artists have gathered in the sleepy village of Staro Zhelezare, to decorate walls and fences with graffiti with the faces of current and past world leaders from the political and cultural scene.
Standing by a portrait of Marilyn Monroe, Ventsislav Piriankov, artist and founder of Staro Zhelezare art festival ,explains how his paintings relate to the modern world.
“More or less we fit into the framework of an eternal and at the same time reporting art, which always reflects on the events of political, public, social, sports, cultural life both from around the world and in Bulgaria,” he says.
The annual art project is organized by the Polish-Bulgarian artistic family – Ventsislav Piriankov as well as his sister Katarzyna.
They teach at an art school in the Polish city of Poznan and have been regularly inviting their students to Bulgaria to create an outdoor art gallery with Banksy-style graffiti.
Ventsislav’s grandfather and grandmother lived in the house, which today has been turned into an art center with murals.
One of this year’s art work is dedicated to the recent assassination attempt against Donald Trump when he was shot at during a campaign event.
But instead of a real bullet, the mural shows a red tomato smashed on Trump’s ear.
Passersby are free to interpret the work as they please.
“We are, as always, street artists, more or less satirical, jesters, little clowns. We simply give provocation, the bait, we hint at some things, but we do not send direct messages, we stay away from the concrete, the exact, the propaganda,” says Piriankov.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy can be seen along with historic figures like Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein.
Other American presidents who have survived assassination attempts, such as Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, are also depicted with tomatoes thrown on them, instead of bullets.
The idea of the artists is to relay a political message but rather than showing the violence, they prefer to add a pinch of humor – something that is well accepted by the locals.
The 400 residents in the village have offered to have the walls or fences of their houses painted.
Among the murals is French actor Alain Delon, who recently passed away aged 88.
“Three years ago we painted him (Alain Delon) in the company of Belmondo and Ivan Vazov. Belmondo, he died then three years ago. So, they they are all three together talking about life and what is really important and they are saying in French, their original language “C’est la vie!” – “This is the life!” says Katarzhina.
The residents have also approved one of the village streets to be renamed to “MoMA”, after the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
The walls on MoMA Street host murals including the self-portrait of Frida Kahlo or Andy Warhol’s Marylin Monroe, as well as works by Amadeo Modigliani or Tamara de Lempicka.
The village has attracted interest from around the world.
“It’s a magic place for me ‘because there’s only art and the art is mixed with the village, with the people and there is a connection with the reality and art. They speak about our politics, the story of, today story,” says Egle Valz Brenta, a tourist from Italy.
