Banksy - if graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal

Banksy - if graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal

Banksy - if graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal T Shirt

Banksy in Westminster, 2011

If confirmed this is the first piece Banksy has put up in this area of Westminster since One Nation Under CCTV was painted in nearby Newman Street back in 2008. That brings a new significance to the text whether intentional or not. Westminster council originally voted to remove that piece with Deputy Leader Robert Davis saying at the time “I take the view that this is graffiti and if you condone this then what is the difference between this and all the other graffiti you see scrawled across the city?”.

So the question was would anything have changed this time around? With the increase in his fame would Banksy’s work still be declared illegal and a demand issued for it to be removed (proving the statement “if graffiti changed anything – it would be illegal”) or would it be allowed to stay proving that street art is now a form of protest about as threatening to the status quo as a Downing Street petition? Well we’ve got our answer now in a statement from Westminster Council given to West End Extra: “Officers have inspected the graffiti and, as it is on property owned by the council, it will be removed. “While some people in the community may like graffiti, there are others that rightly consider it a blight on the neighbourhoods. “As a council, we can’t on the one hand crackdown on someone daubing a wall with a spray can, while letting famous names get away with it.” Graffiti, not surprisingly, remains illegal in Westminster…but for now the piece is still there sweating under perspex.

Camden New Journal Website says like this:

IT’S stirring up a storm in council offices, it has bewildered the staff next door, and it’s a surefire draw for the small crowds of tourists looking for a photo opportunity.

Street artist Banksy’s latest creation is now the subject of an international petition, started by Bloomsbury Labour councillor Adam Harrison, in opposition to Westminster Council’s “no graffiti” policy which has put the stencilled piece at risk.

Banksy fans this week launched an online petition pleading with council chiefs to save the design left on the corner of Clipstone Street and Cleveland Street: a rat and the slogan “if graffiti changed anything, it would be illegal”.

Cllr Harrison said: “I can understand why the council have a no graffiti rule but the art of generations has been preserved in museums and galleries, so why not preserve the art of our generation?

“This is a different art form, but it is the very definition of art when people from all over the world are coming to view it, and his work is selling for extortionate amounts.”

The wall is just over the Westminster borough boundary in Fitzrovia and is owned by the council. It also forms the entrance to the Network Advertising Agency. 

The agency’s manager Gary Chaprionere, 35, said: “A week earlier we’d all been in our local pub The Tower Tavern chatting about how boring the wall looked. We’d already decided that we, the staff, were going to paint it up and we even had a few ideas that we’d drawn on to posters, to paint up the next month. 

“One of my colleagues said, ‘Oh I wish Banksy would do something on that wall for us’, and we all had a laugh about it. 

“Two weeks later, we come into work on a Monday morning, and there’s a Banksy on the wall.”

A Westminster Council spokesman said: “Officers have inspected the graffiti and, as it is on property owned by the council, it will be removed. 

“While some people in the community may like graffiti, there are others that rightly consider it a blight on the neighbourhoods. 

“As a council, we can’t on the one hand crackdown on someone daubing a wall with a spray can, while letting famous names get away with it.”