How to haemorrhage social media followers by Karl Lagerfeld. That’s one alternative title for his latest satirical cartoon.
The drawing, which appeared in Frankfurter Allgemeine’s weekend magazine, shows Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), pouring money into a barrel, with the caption: “The barrel of the Danaids: a Greek invention” presumably while wearing cartoon Chanel.
The barrel of the Danaids is colloquial German for “bottomless pit” and alludes to the Greek myth of the daughters of Danaus, who were condemned to eternally pour water into a barrel with a hole in the bottom for murdering their husbands, thus representing the sheer futility of a task that can never be completed. One would assume the cartoon is a response to news that Greece has won conditional agreement to receive up to £61bn. Either Lagerfeld is wading in on the debate by highlighting the perspective of the IMF, which is wary of any financial contribution to a third Greek bailout, or he’s toying with the idea of designing autumn/winter Merkel’s wardrobe. Either way, props, because it’s quite a good likeness.
