Category: Art News

Banksy’s icon “One Nation Under CCTV” piece in Westminster is going to be removed.

That’s what The Times says in this article has been decided by the local council.

The Times has learnt that Westminster Council has demanded that a mural by the pseudonymous graffiti artist, a 7m (23 ft) criticism of Britain’s CCTV culture, must be painted over. While other authorities have turned a blind eye to Banksy, the council said yesterday that it would remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator. Westminster said that Banksy had no more right to paint graffiti than a child – which, ironically, is the subject of the piece in question (pictured above).

Robert Davis, the chairman of Westminster’s planning committee, said that the personality behind the artwork was irrelevant. “If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art,” he said. “To go and deface other people’s property is graffiti. Just because he’s famous doesn’t give him that right.”

Simply put: this sucks. The piece is fantastic, and fantastically located. In fact, I just told some friends visiting from the states about it tonight, and they are planning visiting the piece. I understand, though do not like, that the councils have to buff some street art, but it is just stupid for them to buff a Banksy. It is a legitimate tourist attraction. And not that I approve of selling street pieces, but the owners of the wall could have made good money just tearing the piece down and selling it instead of letting it get painted over.

Mike Marcus seemed to have the right idea about how to combat the buff with his “Don’t remove me, I’m a Banksy” stencils, but alas, they may no longer be enough to save street art from local councils.

This article in The Sun caught my eye today.

A BLANK wall built for teenage graffiti artists has been vandalised by an angry resident writing – ”I paid my tax and all I got was this lousy wall”.

The £3,000 6ft high by 30ft long wall was installed so youths could practice their graffiti artwork without using local property.

But ahead of its opening on October 31 the fed-up resident sneaked behind a security fence and daubed a protest about the use of taxpayer’s money.

Personally, I find the whole story hilarious.

First, because the council now thinks they need to repaint the wall. Now, I don’t know the exact details of this wall, and maybe the plan is to repaint it every few months, but it seems like it would be easy enough to just wait until the wall opens and let the kids paint over it.

Second, because they automatically assume that some disgruntled taxpayer did this. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an ironic teenager. If I lived in Wadebridge and was clever enough, I might have sprayed that even though I like the idea of the wall.

Thirdly, the idea of the wall itself. Yes, I just said i like the idea of the wall, and I do because it gives artists a place to paint where they don’t have to worry about being arrested (or maybe not). I just don’t think this is going to limit the amount of graf in the area. Part of street art and graffiti is the illicit nature of the work.

Hopefully we can see some photos when the wall is opened officially.