(sorry about the title)
Item 1: A news story about banksy
I like graffiti. I don’t necessarily think we should have more of it, but nor do I think we should have less of it. I would like us to have better graffiti. York’s Sustrans cycleway goes along a disused railway bed and passes under many disused railway bridges. I would rather see the creative expressions of today’s disenfranchised yoof than a bleak wall of concrete with its connotations of an ecosystem violated by industry then discarded and overlooked. I don’t think graffiti is better than the unspoilt wall of a medieval cathedral, or an Edwardian terrace, but there are plenty of canvasses out there that would benefit from a spit of spray paint.
But I think it is funny and fitting that this Banksy work got painted over. The hypocrisy of the council ordering the preservation of Banksy’s illegally executed works, and seeking damages against someone painting over them in error, while there are campaigns afoot nationwide to get artists grassing one another up - and paying the informers well, must be noted!
Amusingly, we now have an even more powerful work because the irony of the work’s story speaks volumes about the borderline between rebel and sellout, about Suits trying to be hip, about money being the final adjudicator in what is right and wrong. Plus we now have a real rarity - what other city in the world boasts as contemporary a work of art with such a story?