The picture of a pair of masked men in south London this month making off with a ladder and a satellite dish, newly decorated by Banksy, made one thing clear: people want Banksy’s art and believe it is extremely valuable. The culprits in Peckham Rye were photographed and filmed in action, so took a big risk, and two arrests were made later that day.
But if an original sprayed stencil appears overnight on the side of your home or business, it would pose problems. After all, Banksy’s team issue no manual of instructions on how to protect and maintain the artworks. In fact, the artist is understood to feel that whatever happens to his subversive images is all part of the initial creative intervention.
The works, though often playfully intended, draw crowds as well as criminals and can incur costs. Two disgruntled landlords spoke out in 2021 when Banksy sprayed a large herring gull on to the side of a Suffolk house they let to tenants. Garry and Gokean Coutts claimed that protecting the bird and repairing vandalism would cost them nearly £40,000 a year. Removal, alternatively, would involve spending more than £200,000, they said.
“I’m not sure Banksy realises the unintended consequences on homeowners. If we could turn back the clock, we would,” Garry Coutts was quoted as saying. The couple have since removed the wall and now plan to sell the artwork. So far, the Observer believes there have been no legal claims for costs levelled at the artist.
The most recent graffiti series, the Observer revealed last weekend, was some summer fun, designed to cheer up Londoners. It started with a goat appearing on top of a column on the side of a business at Kew Bridge and finished on Tuesday with the arrival of a gorilla at London Zoo.
Within just a few days, or even hours, of the arrival of the nine works at their planned locations, each had met with a different reaction. The cat that went up last weekend was taken down by contractors, while the howling wolf on the satellite dish was stolen almost immediately. The same thing had happened to Peckham’s last Banksy, a stop sign adorned with the outline of three drones: it was removed by thieves with bolt cutters last December. Two men were arrested in February.
The rhino sprayed on to a wall in Charlton on Sunday night originally seemed to be pressing down on the roof of an abandoned Nissan Micra. At 4am an unauthorised low loader arrived to take away the car, altering the artwork for ever.
The huge amounts of money attached to Banksy’s name are the lure. A drawing celebrating the NHS, created during the pandemic, sold for almost £17m three years ago, while his pastiche of Vincent van Gogh sold for more than £9m in New York.
The price tag at auction is misleading, however. Many Banksy stencils lose both their point, and their monetary value, once they are moved. It is understood that Pest Control, the official company set up by Banksy in 2009, does not issue certificates of authentication for these pieces; the artist hopes to keep his works on public view.
Ray Waterhouse, an art dealer with Fine Art Brokers, recently told Fortune magazine he believed that an unauthenticated Banksy would sell at auction for “less than 50% of normal value”. However, in 2021 a spray painting of a hula-hooping young woman was removed from a Nottingham brick wall and sold on to Brandler Galleries in Brentwood for a six-figure sum.
The works also lose value if a part goes missing, but the process can be entertaining. The Nissan in Charlton has now been replaced by a branded skip belonging to a firm next door, while the rhino itself has been tagged with more illicit graffiti – a dollar sign. A spokesperson for t he Royal Borough of Greenwich, the local authority, said: “It’s a real shame that a mindless vandal has defaced the mural, which has already drawn visitors and brought so much joy to many.”
The most dramatic indication of the artist’s attitude to the preservation of his work infamously came in 2018, at the Sotheby’s sale of his work Girl with a Balloon. The picture sold for more than £1m but was then automatically shredded within its own frame as the watching crowd gasped. Banksy’s comment on consumer culture rather rebounded, though, when it was sold again, retitled Love is in the Bin, for more than £19m.
The Bristol-based graffiti star is far from the first to enjoy the ephemeral nature of his art. The Turner prize-winning Richard Wright also revels in the temporary status of his murals and dislikes attempts to preserve them. But fans of Banksy find the idea of damage being incurred upsetting. When a bright green abstract painting of leaves went up in March behind bare cherry tree branches in Finsbury Park, north London, only to be defaced, 80-year-old Londoner Gil Ben Ari was upset. “There’s only one way to describe it: wanton vandalism,” he said.
Attempts to protect the art with varnish or to organise professional removal also bring problems. Varnish can cause damage, while plastic covers can create condensation. When Banksy created a series of murals across Ukraine in support of the nation’s response to Russia’s invasion, impact-resistant glass and security cameras were installed by the government to protect them.
Local authorities took some similar precautions in the aftermath of Banksy’s lockdown series A Great British Spraycation along the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts in 2021. Works were covered by clear sheets and monitored by security guards. One stencil on a sea wall was covered in sealant to keep out saltwater. Last Sunday’s underwater imagery created on a City of London police box next to the Old Bailey on Ludgate Hill is now due to be removed to ensure its survival. It is being protected by barriers and patrolling police until it can be collected.
