Showing 2 results for the tag: Poundland.

March 1, 2013

The Poundland Banksy is not the Parthenon Sculptures – but there are similarities

Posted at 9:03 am in Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

Locals comment, that having the Poundland Banksy increased tourist visiting their area – which in turn would have increased money coming to the area.

“It had been ripped out with no explanation, along with quite a substantial chunk of the wall,” could just as easily have been a statement from a Greek referring to the desecrated acropolis post Elgin.

It is interesting, that even for an item only removed a few days ago, there is difficulty tracking down what actually happened & who sold it to whom & whether they were allowed to or not. Hardly surprising then, that many cultural heritage disputes dating back hundreds of years are marred by contradictory facts.

There are of course, also many differences between the cases. This is something that is true of nearly all cultural property cases – a subtlety that wasn’t picked up by David Cameron in his comparisons between the Koh-i-noor & the Parthenon Marbles last week.

From:
New York Times

Borough Searches for Missing Boy, Last Seen on Wall
The work, called “Slave Labour,” has become a point of pride in Haringey, the site of some of the nastiest rampages in the 2011 London riots.
By SARAH LYALL
Published: February 28, 2013

“It had been ripped out with no explanation, along with quite a substantial chunk of the wall,” said Alan Strickland, a member of the local council, describing the bizarre scene that greeted passers-by the other weekend. “All that was left was this hole.”

The work — called “Slave Labour” and depicting a downtrodden, barefoot boy making Union Jacks on a sewing machine — had become a point of pride in Haringey, the site of some of the nastiest rampages in the 2011 London riots. Stenciled onto the wall of the everything-costs-a-pound Poundland store on Whymark Avenue, it drew visitors from across London and abroad; so many people asked for directions that the local subway station erected a special “This way to our Banksy” sign.
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February 22, 2013

Who owns the Banksy street art on a wall? The wall owner or the public?

Posted at 7:22 pm in Similar cases

As the case of the Banksy artwork removed from the wall in Wood Green continues, more & more people are trying to draw slightly absurd parallels to the Parthenon Marbles & calling for the British Ministry of Culture to intervene to block the auction from taking place. However in this case, I can’t really understand quite what the basis for the arguments is.

It now seems clear that the owner of the building (of which the wall on which the graffiti was on was a part) authorised & presumably organised the removal of the artwork. No doubt they stand to make a reasonable profit from it. Now, Banksy picks the walls he paints on – with no consultation with the owners, so this lucky owner is soon going to be wealthier than they were before – and it is entirely through luck.

Haringey Council are claiming that the art is something that enriched the area & was in part something that belonged to the people. It is unclear how they can make this judgement, though, when much of their time is spent cleaning graffiti (that is typically of much poorer quality) off walls. There is no body which decides what is graffiti & what is street art – and that one must be scrubbed off & one preserved, so there argument does not really carry much weight.

It would be great if the work could have stayed – but that is just my own personal opinion – nothing more. Just because you don’t like what is happening, it doesn’t mean that the law should suddenly intervene (without any clear legal framework under which to do so).

Comparisons to the Parthenon Marbles are far more ridiculous – street art by its nature is a transient thing – even with protection, paint will flake off in a few years, leading it to fade away. The sale is being made legally (despite the fact that many people are upset by it).

From:
Artinfo

February 20, 2013, 6:25 pm
London’s Stolen Banksy Heads to the Auction Block Despite 11th Hour English Rescue Attempt

Part of the inherent definition of street art is that it is, by nature, public. It appears on the sides of buildings and on sidewalks, in doorways and on concrete blocks. It most often appears in urban neighborhoods, and tends to lend itself to some sort of social commentary. The illicit nature of the craft is in itself subversive and, as a corollary, non-commercial. Or it was anyway.

In recent years, street art has become gritty-chic, touted by the likes of Kate Moss, and therefore increasingly popular as a collecting category. Original works by Banksy, probably the most important street artist of the last twenty years, now fetch six figures at auction. It was only a matter of time before people started ripping down walls to, quite literally, extract the value from them.
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