A satirical sculptor from Düsseldorf has expressed bewilderment after Russian prosecutors charged him in a Moscow court with criminally defaming the country’s army.
Jacques Tilly, 62, is Germany’s most prominent designer of carnival floats and has spent 40 years creating outsized and grotesque papier-mâché models of figures including President Trump, Angela Merkel and Baroness May of Maidenhead.
Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, his floats have repeatedly mocked President Putin’s brutality.
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This year’s float for the Düsseldorf carnival depicted Trump and Putin shaking hands, with President Zelensky crushed in their grip and haemorrhaging blood, along with the caption: “Hitler-Stalin pact 2.0”.
Previous editions have shown Putin choking on a map of Ukraine and posing naked alongside Trump and President Xi of China, with a gigantically enlarged scrotum emblazoned with the words “Make Russia great again”.
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Where can I see his work? Any chance his rides show up in the Ruhr area, like Dusseldorf or something?
Edit: Oh, I should read better. He’s from Dusseldorf, the article says :). I’ll check see if I can check it out next year.
His floats can be seen every Rose Monday at the carnival parade in Düsseldorf. The parade is also broadcast the same day on the tv channel WDR
For now this article has pictures of 14 of his 2025 floats (including the one from The Times.
Edit: link (got lost)