In the same week that a number of original works by street artist Banksy are about go go under the hammer at prestigious London auction house Bonham’s (see yesterday) the council of Tower Hamlets has declared that work on buildings in its area are to be treated as vandalism and removed. The council were asked if they had instead considered selling off the artwork/graffiti (delete as you choose) to use to raise money for local services but said they hadn’t, despite the fact some works by Banksy have gone for as much as £300, 000, although they didn’t rule out doing so in the future (assuming they haven’t removed them all by that point, presumably). It does raise an interesting question though of just what visual art is acceptable: what is graffiti and what is considered art? Much of Banksy’s work is graffiti by its very nature, but does that automatically mean it is vandalism? The art world obviously considers it to be art and so do some pretty wealthy collectors, the council doesn’t. I’d be more interested in the opinion of the people who live or work in or next to the buildings the work is on. (source: BBC)
November 5th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Art and vandalism? That old chest nut?! Isn’t it obvious that vandalism is something that is done without permission. Is it art? Surely that’s a question for the individual to decide the answer to?
As far as it being graffiti of course it is, an art of varied forms….stencilling being its weakest, in my opinion.The famed artist, who gets enough publicity for me to need to mention his name, has coined a market. Simple.
Free hand everytime for me though!!!