Banksy’s first street art piece in 2024 went up on Hornsey Road in Finsbury Park, northern London. Pictures of the work surfaced in different forums on Sunday 17 March. It’s a brilliant piece, life-size and site-specific, depicting a woman spraying foliage with a pressure washer on a wall behind a pruned tree.
Photos: @banksy
The new mural has some similarities with an illegal street art piece by Russian artist 0331c ( www.0331c.ru ), painted with a fire extinguisher in 2013 in Moscow:
Banksy is back with a simple yet powerful anti-war message. A bittersweet reminder that Christmas is not a celebration of peace, joy, and overeating for everyone, especially not for the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
Photo: @banksy
As reported by The Guardian on 22 December:
“Banksy artwork stolen less than an hour after unveiling in south London.
Piece showing three aircraft on stop sign in Peckham was confirmed as genuine by the artist on Instagram.
Two men have been filmed taking an artwork created by Banksy from a south London street less than an hour after it was confirmed as a genuine installation. The artist confirmed the piece – a traffic stop sign covered with three aircraft said to resemble military drones – was his in a social media post shortly after midday on Friday.
In a video shared on social media, onlookers watch as two men are seen taking down the sign at the intersection of Southampton Way and Commercial Way in Peckham at about 12.30pm. Witnesses can be heard saying “oh my god” on the soundtrack of the video as one of men takes the stop sign and runs off, with one woman saying: “It makes me so annoyed.”
The deputy leader of Southwark council, Jasmine Ali, said the artwork “should not have been removed”, adding: “We’d like it back so everyone in the community can enjoy Banksy’s brilliant work.” She said the theft had been reported to the police “to help get it back”.
The aircraft on the stop sign resembled those from Banksy’s 2017 artwork Civilian Drone Strike, which depicted a trio of drones bombing a childlike drawing of a house. It was auctioned at Art The Arms Fair and raised £205,000 for Reprieve and Campaign Against Arms Trade.”
It’s an important twist in an ongoing legal battle between Team Banksy and Full Colour Black (FCB) – a licensing company specializing in popular images for international retailers.
As reported by The Sunday Times on 8 December, 2023:
“This week the artist filed an application for anonymity with reference to the Berne Convention, and three other arguments: that his work will become less valuable, that he will no longer be free to criticise others — especially those in power — and that his family will come under increased scrutiny.
A judge has ruled that Banksy can remain anonymous in defamation proceedings after the controversial street artist relied on a 19th-century treaty to remain masked. In the latest development of a £1.4 million claim brought by a greeting cards publisher over a social media post from Banksy, Mr Justice Nicklin gave a boost to the artist’s defence on Friday.
To maintain Banksy’s anonymity, the artist’s legal team had relied on a dusty treaty drafted more than 100 years ago in Switzerland to protect the copyright of artists. While Banksy’s lawyers relied on three other arguments to maintain his anonymity, it is his reference to the Berne Convention that his lawyers found most legally appealing.
Enrico Bonadio, a reader in intellectual property law, said that while the Berne Convention focused on copyright law, it could be interpreted as giving legal backing to anonymity for artists in a range of civil proceedings. However, he said the matter was a “grey area” in law that would need to be decided by the courts.
Andrew Gallagher and his company Full Colour Black (FCB) have filed a lawsuit accusing “the artist known as Banksy” of defamation, with the co-defendant named as Pest Control Ltd, the company that sells his artwork. In written submissions, Gallagher’s lawyers have stated that he “reserves the right to seek an order that [Banksy] identifies himself for the purposes of these proceedings”. Gallagher has the option open to him to make an application to remove the artist’s anonymity. His company, Brandalised, licensed a photograph of Banksy’s work to the fashion retailer Guess last autumn for use in its Regent Street shop window.
In a now-deleted post made on November 18, Banksy’s Instagram account, which has 12 million followers, used an image of a Guess shop window with the words: “Alerting all shoplifters. Please go to GUESS on Regent Street. They’ve helped themselves to my art without asking. How can it be wrong to do the same to their clothes?”
The disputed post on Banksy’s Instagram.with the alleged defamation. Photo: @banksy
In its High Court claim, FCB, the trading company of Brandalised, alleged that it “contained defamatory words which referred to, and were understood to refer to, the claimant”. Now FCB is seeking damages and an injunction preventing further alleged defamation.
“[Banksy’s] post, by way of innuendo, meant and was understood to mean that the claimant had stolen Banksy’s artwork by licensing images to Guess without permission or other legal authority,” argues the company in its claim.”
In a brilliant performance, an unknown poet in the style of John Cooper Clarke recites a poem on the theme “Gentrification is coming because there is a Banksy in Margate now”, accompanied by a guy in a wig on a distorted guitar. Apparently, the clip was filmed during an open mic session at a pub in Margate. The clip can be seen at https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp5WlIWP4e6/
The artwork appeared on the side of a derelict farmhouse in the seaside town of Herne Bay, only 20 km from Margate, where he did Valentine’s Day mascara a month ago. The demolition of the house, including the mural, can be interpreted in many ways.
The Valentine’s Day mascara mural appeared in Margate, 100 km east of London, on Tuesday morning, 14 February. The Guardian reported on the dismantling of the artwork the same day:
“A Banksy artwork that was dismantled by a council in Kent “on the grounds of safety” just hours after its unveiling has had its chest freezer returned. The mural, titled Valentine’s Day Mascara, appeared to highlight the issue of domestic violence. It incorporated a freezer, a broken garden chair, a blue crate and an empty beer bottle, which were all removed from the site on Tuesday.”
Why a domestic violence motive on Valentine’s Day? It could have something to do with the big street art exhibition Beyond the Streets at Saatchi Gallery in London, which opened on 17 February with more than 50 of Banksy’s street art colleagues participating, among them Shepard Fairey and 3D. As we all know, advertising tycoon Charles Saatchi is the founder and owner of Saatchi Gallery, and Banksy’s views on the advertising industry are well known through his artwork and writings. In 2013, writer Nigella Lawson broke up with Charles Saatchi amidst well-publicised accusations of domestic violence.
Fashion retailer GUESS was forced to shut their Regent Street outlet on 18 November, a few hours after Banksy posted the following message on Instagram:“They’ve helped themselves to my artwork without asking, how can it be wrong for you to do the same to their clothes?”
In November 2022, Guess announced their collaboration with Brandalised, a company that specialises in selling licences for popular images to international retailers. This wretched use of Banksy’s art is possible thanks to an unfavourable ruling at the EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) in May 2021.
The donation was made public on December 4 at an exhibition curated by Grayson Perry at Bristol Museum. Banksy contributed the original stencil to the piece he did on the wall of the Reading GAOL prison in March 2021. The idea is that the Reading Council now sells the stencil and uses the proceeds to turn the derelict prison into a permanent art centre. It’s expected to fetch up to GBP 10 million in a private sale. In Banksy’s own words:
“I had very little interest in Reading until I was on a rail replacement bus service that went past the jail. It’s rare to find an uninterrupted 500m-long paintable surface slap bang in the middle of a town; I literally clambered over the passenger next to me to get a closer look. I promised myself I’d paint the wall even before I knew what it was. I’m passionate about it now, though. Oscar Wilde is the patron saint of smashing two contrasting ideas together to create magic. Converting the place that destroyed him into a refuge for art feels so perfect we have to do it.”
The Oscar Wilde stencil on display at Bristol Museum.
After a five-month recess, Banksy is back at it with ten brilliant pieces in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, two adjacent towns on the eastern coast not far from Norwich. The pieces went up around 6 August but were confirmed a week later, on 13 August.
The piece depicts Oscar Wilde escaping the Reading GAOL prison with his typewriter knot to the bedsheets. Oscar Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading GAOL prison after being convicted of gross indecency in 1895. Wilde was sentenced to two years of forced labour.
The piece has not yet been confirmed by Banksy’s usual channels, but it seems to be an authentic one. Maybe Banksy’s next big project is a book?
Oscar Wilde on the run. Photograph: Reading Chronicle
Banksy unofficial 