TThis month, street artist Banksy’s stenciled artworks have been defaced (like his rhino trampling a Nissan) or removed (like his wolf breaking through a satellite dish and his big cat stuck in a hoard) – sometimes just hours after their first public appearance.
While the Wolf was either stolen to order or opportunistically taken (and, much like the bronze Barbara Hepworth, which was stolen and likely sold for scrap, is now worth many times its market value as it was formally unsaleable), the theft is not very dissimilar to the public removal of Banksy’s works by the official owners of the websites on which his works appear. Since they are often cut from their walls to be sold at auction, it could be argued that they were stolen from the public, to whom and where they rightfully belong.
But the erasure of Banksy’s work, especially because of the art form he uses, is complicated. If you live in an area where graffiti exists, you’ve probably noticed that there are often “cross-out wars” where an artist overlays his work over that of another, so that only enough of the original to make it clear who they have displaced. Banksy’s works have certainly been exposed to this before – as his dispute with the sadly now deceased King Robbo shows.
It’s worth noting that I don’t believe the recent removals are mere graffiti disputes: they bear the marks of a more opportunistic defacement, as they were carried out in broad daylight rather than in a traditional graffiti format. But as an anthropologist who has studied graffiti ethnographically for more than 20 years, I still find the story compelling.
Graffiti is meant to decay and die naturally, not be preserved like a work in a gallery. The preservation of these public works by private organizations, as seen in Banksy’s works encased behind protective plexiglass, therefore contradicts one of the most fundamental characteristics of graffiti: it is an artifact that should never attempt to break the natural cycle of life and death.
Banksy’s works are not subject to the museum’s regulations, which focus on conservation and freezing in time. Their destruction could in many ways be considered an act from to preserve the ideals of graffiti practice itself.
More importantly for graffiti artists, public works are public and should never be bought and sold. However, the deliberate destruction of other works by Banksy by graffiti artists was not, as many people have claimed to me, done as a mere criticism of Banksy’s commercial success.
Banksy’s public works do not bring him any direct financial gain, as they are sold on the secondary market without any artistic royalties being charged. For many graffiti artists, the problem is the use of the street as a place for economic gain. Destruction of the works prevents them from being monetized.
What would Banksy think of all this? In the world of graffiti, destruction is an accepted and expected part of the game: once a work is completed, the countdown to its final erasure begins. Impermanence is fundamental, and as long as the image has been documented (in people’s memories or in photographs), the work is considered complete. Coming from the graffiti subculture himself, I’m pretty sure Banksy is, by and large, optimistic.
But one thing must be clear: while the destruction of Banksy’s works is almost always widely condemned by art lovers and institutions, local councils and heritage conservation organizations today remove graffiti at an unstoppable pace without anyone making a sound.
Erasing graffiti is the standard method: other works by Banksy have been lost in the past, sometimes to the dismay of those who removed them. What counts as art (and therefore should be saved) and what counts as vandalism (and therefore should be destroyed) is a question often linked to financial rather than aesthetic value.
Yet, with cities around the world increasingly flooded with advertising, why is it that only images with financial value – be they artwork or advertisements – are considered an acceptable part of the look of our cities? In the UK, graffiti artists are still being jailed for applying paint to a surface (and almost always a public rather than a private space), while street artists like Banksy get away with the same acts because of their biased attitudes about what art is. So why is the right to the city, even if we don’t like it, only given to those who can afford it, or to things that people find worthwhile?
Banksy might not be bothered – or at least not surprised – by the destruction of his artworks, because that is one of the risks that come with graffiti. And as for the rest of us, shouldn’t we be more concerned when other artists’ works are removed or they are imprisoned for their art? And who, more specifically, is responsible for the real vandalism in our cities?
If I had to choose between graffiti artists and advertising companies, I would know what aesthetic options I have.
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Rafael Schacter is an anthropologist and curator specializing in public and global art. His fourth book, Monumental Graffiti, will be published in October
