Banksy Read online

  Next to this woman seemingly waiting for her execution there was a black and white Pierrot figure which could have been a Banksy for all I knew, but it wasn’t in the guide book. A street or so away someone had darkened the modern brick on the side of an office to provide the shadow that outlined a man’s face. Clever, and very unclear how they did it, for the wall was so vast – did no one stop them or at least ask what they were doing? The only trouble was that someone else had got to it; there were white splodges roller-painted on to the wall and the whole thing had become a complete eyesore.

  But where was Banksy? It turned out I had not been following the map correctly – I had the right canal, but the wrong bridge. Once at the right bridge it was easy enough. There was a hoodie under the bridge – almost life size – eating from a carry-out bag of chips, and because he was devouring them on the wrong side of the canal, the side without a towpath, no one had been able to reach him. Banksy must have had a boat when he painted it. On the bridge there were plenty of tags reminding me just how destructive graffiti can be, yet here was Banksy’s hoodie still in his original state, peacefully noshing away. No council workers, no British Waterways workers and no envious graffiti artists. A Banksy, I had found a Banksy – joy; it was a treasure hunt, one down, hundreds to go.

  (A year later I went back along the canal to see how the hoodie was faring. Sadly he had not survived the war between Robbo and Banksy. The hoodie had been black-painted out of existence and over this a great big red Rolling Stones tongue lolled out. Above the tongue was written ‘I SEE A BANKSY AND HAVE GOT TO PAINT IT BLACK’, while underneath it was signed ‘TEAM ROBBO ROLLIN WITH THE STONES’. So much for my theory that the canal protected him.)

  Encouraged by finding one Banksy, my next stop was Jamie Oliver’s restaurant Fifteen; three of Banksy’s many rats had once been lurking around here, but there was not a sign of them now. Across the side of the restaurant’s van parked nearby was a message scrawled in graffiti-style writing: personalised events created with love. Although it was far too pink and clean to be real – quite apart from what it said – nevertheless it was another example of graffiti crossing over into the mainstream.

  From there I went to Moorfields Eye Hospital. The guide book said there used to be a rat holding a microphone outside a disused entrance to the hospital but in December 2007 ‘a great big bit of wood was nailed over it. Dare I assume that it will be available to buy at auction soon?’

  Well, it was a reasonable enough question for Martin Bull to ask, but he was wrong – or rather wrong when I arrived there. Peering between the wood and the tiles I could just see rat’s ears and the glint of a whisker. The rat was still there! On the street a man shuffled gingerly by, a huge patch over his eye, reminding me that this was one of the world’s leading eye hospitals. But I was celebrating the fact that I had found a Banksy that the author of the guide book thought would have been lost years ago.

  The next morning I wrote another email. This time to John Pelly, chief executive of Moorfields Eye Hospital, or rather to his PA in the hope that she would pass it on:

  Dear Mr Pelly,

  I am a writer researching a book about the graffiti artist, Banksy. In the course of my research I came across a reference to a Banksy ‘microphone rat’ at Moorfields. It is at the disused entrance to the hospital on City Road which looks as though it is still used as a fire escape. Shortly before you arrived at Moorfields the rat was neatly boarded up. But looking behind the wood I can still see the rat’s ears – I don’t know if it has been daubed but my guess is that it is in reasonable condition. (I can direct you to a guide book which shows the rat before it was boarded up if this would help.)

  I am writing to you about the future of the rat. If it stays there what is likely to happen? You could pick any one from a variety of things:

  The steps could be knocked down one day and the rat with them. There could be a general clean up – although it has survived one clean up – and the rat would be washed away or broken up if the tiles were replaced. Someone with the right tile cutter could steal it. You could open it up to the public again and in time a rival graffiti artist (it’s a funny world) would probably deface it.

  None of those options are any good especially since someone at Moorfields went to some trouble to preserve it. So I suggest that you have it cut out (carefully). You could then either have it mounted on a wall somewhere at Moorfields – a genuine Banksy in the hospital would be a cool touch. Or you could sell it.

  I have read that Banksy doesn’t authenticate his street art; he said in a recent interview that ‘that’s basically a signed confession on headed notepaper.’ But I suppose he might do so for the NHS and anyway I don’t think anyone is going to suggest that it’s anything but a Banksy.

  I am sorry to trouble you with all this but as a local resident and a grateful patient of Moorfields in the past I thought that one way or another Moorfields could get something out of your own genuine Banksy.

  I sent it off and forgot about it.

  From Moorfields I went via five disappeared rats and one disappeared smiley policeman to a friendly-looking rat with a CND sign around his neck, holding a placard that, according to the guide book, said ‘London doesn’t work’. Amazingly, given the fact that he was close to the Barbican, right on the edge of the City, he had survived. But the placard now read ‘I ♥ LONDON’ (with the heart designating ‘love’ painted in red) and then in red: ‘ROBBO’. So the ‘war’ between Banksy and Robbo had escaped the boundaries of the canal and any Banksy, particularly any Banksy rat holding a placard, was fair game.

  Thus on a wall behind the Royal Mail sorting office off Rosebery Avenue there was a rat by the bus stop, which was the first Banksy I had ever spotted. The rat was holding a placard which used to read ‘ALWAYS FAIL’ – and my guide book informed me that this was the rhyming slang nickname for the Royal Mail. But when I returned to see how the rat was faring, his placard again advertised TEAM ROBBO. However, when I next wanted the bus down to King’s Cross the placard was slogan-less, even though the rat was still there. I thought at first this was Banksy’s own clean-up team in action, but Robbo later told me he had chosen the wrong paint – ‘It faded because the ink was shit.’

  I made a detour from the guide book up to Camden Lock to see what else Banksy had done on the night he had painted over Robbo’s signature. The cleverest painting simply read (in graffiti scrawl) ‘I DON’T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING’. In itself this was not a particularly original thought, but it was written so close to the canal that you could almost see the water rising inch by inch, year by year and eventually drowning this disbelief. But Robbo had been there and whitewashed key parts of it so it now read ‘I DON’T BELIEVE IN WAR’, and then by the side of it he added ‘IT’S TOO LATE FOR THAT SONNY. TEAM ROBBO.’ The rest of the Banksys along the canal had suffered the same sort of treatment.

  Back on the guided tour, the book told me that in Fabric, the grooviest of nightclubs around Smithfield, was a Banksy bomb hugger sprayed on the wall by the toilets. ‘They even put a frame around it.’ So I put in what I thought was going to be an easy request to Fabric’s head of press to come in and take a look at it out of nightclub hours. What followed was a good introduction to the weird world of Banksy.

  To: Danna Hawley

  Subject: Banksy

  Dear Danna

  I am a writer researching a book on Banksy commissioned by Aurum Press. I have been tracking down various Banksys in London – most of them have disappeared for one reason or another. However I read that a ‘Bomb Hugger’ was sprayed straight on to Fabric’s wall some years ago and still survives today. I would very much like to see this survivor. It would only take about five minutes of anyone’s time and since I live relatively close it would be easy for me to fit in to whatever time would be convenient for Fabric.

  Thanks

  Back came the reply:

  From: Danna Hawley

  Subject: RE: Banksy

  Hi W
ill,

  I hope this finds you well . . .

  Can you please send us more information about the book?

  We’d like to know a bit more about the project.

  Many thanks.

  So I told her:

  To: Danna Hawley

  Subject: Banksy

  Danna,

  In short it is the story of how Banksy turned the art world upside down . . . .

  The chapter that involves Fabric will be about how we react to his art. Taking ‘Banksy Locations and Tour’ by Martin Bull as my guide I have now visited almost every one of the Banksy sites north of the river. Very few Banksys survive untouched. The majority have been painted over. Some have been stolen. Some have been protected by plastic covers, others have been boxed in with plywood or perspex. Some have been defaced by other graffiti artists. This chapter is not a tour guide but it will examine what happens to his work and why.

  Regards, Will

  You would think that at this point it would be easy. I was not exactly asking for a private viewing of the Sistine Chapel. But back came her reply:

  From: Danna Hawley

  Subject: RE: Banksy

  Hi Will,

  Thanks for the info, much appreciated.

  Has this book been sanctioned by Banksy’s management?

  Best, Danna

  I had had enough:

  Subject: RE: Banksy

  Danna,

  Thanks,

  Certainly not. The idea of a writer being sanctioned to write a book is as foreign to me as a graffiti artist being sanctioned to paint a wall. However what I have done is write to Banksy’s pr, and told her about the book in case she or Banksy think he has some mad stalker on his trail.

  Regards, Will

  Despite making further phone calls I never heard from Danna or Fabric again, although I did read on the Fabric website the thoughts of the club on Banksy: ‘Sadly, he’s one of those authentic, exceptional artists that unfairly got caught in a fast moving hype machine . . . we know all too well from the obscene amounts of money we get offered for the Banksy piece on the wall outside of our downstairs toilets.’ Perhaps Danna thought I wanted to buy it, not just look at it.

  Many months later a good friend suggested that I had been a little bit wet in not just going there. So, one damp Friday night, having already bought a ticket online and attempted to groove myself up a little (orange sneakers and a sad O’Neill surf shirt!), I managed to talk my way through the army of the club’s doormen and security guards, who were perplexed by this off-the-age-scale single man. They didn’t quite dare to be brutally ageist about it and simply turn me away but instead warned me of a ‘very heavy drum ’n’ bass night’ in the forlorn hope that I might just disappear.

  Once in I felt a bit like a potholer must feel when he’s not sure which way is safe. Marky and Friends were playing in one room, Urban Nerds in another, and amidst all this massive noise and crowd the idea of hunting down Banksy seemed absurd. But all of a sudden I came across it by mistake, right next to the toilets: a Banksy bomb hugger all alone on a wall and protected by a nice antiquey frame. There was too little light to judge how good a piece it was, but it really didn’t matter too much. It was a well-preserved Banksy in its original context; it spoke of the early, uncomplicated days in his life and the fact that there was none of the usual fuss; that few people even seemed to notice it somehow added to the appeal. It had been worth the effort and I left while my eardrums were still intact.

  Onwards. The rat on a street called Exmouth Market, famous now for Moro’s restaurant rather than any market, had gone together with the video shop it had been painted on. In the plaster, which had been whitewashed over, a few small holes were visible as though an eager archaeologist had picked at the surface in the hope of finding a hidden rat underneath. A few doors along the newsagent’s box with a Banksy on it had long gone, along with the Banksy. Someone will have made a killing.

  One street away, however, there was still a large Banksy to be seen – just. Mark Ellis, a builder, was asked by the landlord of a derelict shop to come in and do it up. As he was prising off a large piece of rusting metal next to the shop window, there on the wall beneath it was a Banksy. ‘I called Laurie, my daughter about it. I said, “You are not going to believe this, but there’s a Banksy here.” When she saw it she thought she’d won the Lottery. She said “Oh god, you’ve got to preserve it.” It was in a dreadful state when we found it, absolutely mullered. Someone had already rollered over it. We cleaned it right up. We framed it. Put a bit of Perspex over it. Don’t look too bad, does it?’

  Well, it doesn’t look too bad, but it doesn’t look too good either. It’s an odd one this; in the early photographs it was simply a cash machine stencilled on a bricked-up window with ‘Di faced tenners’ (a £10 note with a portrait of Lady Di replacing the Queen’s head) spewing out on to the pavement. At some point most of the tenners had been done away with, to be replaced by an evil-looking robotic arm that was stretching out from the machine and lifting a terrified schoolgirl up off her feet into the machine. But this in turn had been attacked and largely ruined by someone who had roller-painted two white lines down it. Finally it had been given a Perspex protective shield by Mark Ellis.

  His daughter had just finished university and they decided to go into business together. They would sell bagels to all the office workers nearby looking for a quick lunch. And what would they call it? Banksy Bagel Bar, and the bagels would have ‘a Banksy edge’ to them. I don’t know about a ‘Banksy edge’, but I was thankful to the guide book for leading me to their smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel with seeds on top. The survival of this piece illustrates once again just how far Banksy’s appeal stretches, for no one has ever cared to name their shop Seurat’s Sandwiches, Kahlo’s Coffee Bar, Picasso’s Pizza or Hopper’s Hamburgers. Just Banksy Bagels.

  ‘When we first opened there were twenty people or more coming by daily to take snaps of it,’ says Mark Ellis. ‘We still have loads of people coming to see it. Loads of Japanese.’ As we talk a young woman stops in her tracks, pulls out her mobile phone and snaps what is, at this point, quite a sadly defaced Banksy. ‘You get three or four of them a day, the phone merchants . . . We get a few eccentrics coming in about it as well. Sort of well-to-do people who have lost their way in life a little bit. Seems to be a little bit of a statement for them.’ But not enough of these eccentrics, photo-taking Japanese and fans were buying their excellent bagels, and a year after I saw him the business was for sale. A few months on it had become Diana’s Dry Cleaners. The Banksy on the wall next to it looked even more forlorn.

  From gentrified Exmouth Market I trailed up to very ungentrified New North Road, where Banksy’s girl with a balloon had disappeared along with her balloon. Disappointing, because the photographs show a very poignant image: a little girl has let go of her red heart-shaped balloon which is floating away, its string still trailing – has she just lost her balloon or is she deliberately letting it go? It had not merely been whitewashed over; it had been replaced by a set of five toasters – yes, toasters. Four relatively small ones and one very elegant one about six foot high and ten foot across, set on an orange and white background. Obviously immense care and skill had gone into these toasters. But a toaster as art? Again the internet came to the rescue. According to the Nelly Duff gallery in Shoreditch the Toaster Movement was ‘born on a cold New Year’s Eve in 1998, over a kitchen table in Wolverhampton. The Toaster project started life as an idea of how to make a mundane object famous, subverting the image by its placement and its graphic rendering. The Toaster project grew and has inevitably over the years created more questions than answers along the way.’ These toasters on the wall were all questions and no answers. But certainly they were a lot more life enhancing than the depressing squiggles in the nearby streets.

  From toasters I moved to helicopters: Banksy’s huge Happy Chopper, off Old Street, an ugly-looking, heavily armed attack helicopter with a pretty pink bow
on top which somehow made it look even more menacing. ‘HAVE A NICE DAY’ was stencilled alongside it, although you knew that the chopper was promising anything but. It had outlived the previous occupant that sat below it, Franco’s Fish and Chip, and now sat on top of Wa Do Chinese fast food. But the Happy Chopper was in trouble, for it had been surrounded, and although huge it was still very hard to find: above Wa Do there was a rampart high enough to partly obscure the bottom of the painting, while the top had been wholly concealed by a large electronic billboard. But by crossing the road and standing to one side I saw that the Happy Chopper was still there, although covered in large Perspex sheets hanging down in strips in front of it. Again it illustrates our slightly tortured view of Banksy. Is it here today and gone tomorrow – no worries? Or is it here today, so it’s got to be preserved – it’s worth too much to be gone tomorrow? In its present position it might as well not exist at all.

  Sometimes it seems that Banksy can’t win. He usually paints in fairly derelict areas of a city, but far from bringing down the neighbourhood even further a Banksy or two is often a sure sign that the neighbourhood is on the way up – where Banksy goes the gentry will follow. In Brooklyn, New York, a property developer used a Banksy skipping girl to help sell their $900,000 apartments at ‘Urban Green – New York City’s most exciting destination’. (It did not do them much good, the banking crisis proved more powerful than even Banksy and put paid to the development for some years.) But in Hoxton I discovered that Banksy’s ‘DESIGNATED PICNIC AREA’, neatly stencilled on the entrance steps of an unoccupied building, has been washed off and the steps now lead to a newly opened estate agent catering to just the sort of people who might now buy a Banksy.