One Nation Under CCTV

An infamous street vandal has recently created yet another profound and unlawful piece of art. Under the cover of night, the notorious Banksy painted one of his biggest murals to date (23ft). The immense scale of the work enhances the significance behind the idea of the artist. The “graffiti” depicts a lone assailant dressed in urban street attire plastering paint onto the side of a building. The vandal in the artwork has climbed to the top of a ladder in order to paint the words “One Nation Under CCTV” while a police officer and dog watch from a short distance.  The factor that makes this artwork so intense was its placement. Banksy chose to erect this three-story mural not only behind a security fence, but also just feet away from actual CCTV cameras. Luckily, the artist was able to pull it off without being caught. Banksy wanted the art’s audience to be the people of Central London, warning them of the mighty “Big Brother” just over their shoulder, but the artwork was also a direct slap to security society itself.

In the article I read, the author talks about the removal of Banksy’s latest work. Robert Davis, a chairman for Westminster stated, “If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art”. He then goes on to say that defacing any kind of property is graffiti, not art. Bansky, however has already been credited to being a very fine and respectable artist. Several of his canvases even sell for hundred of thousands of pounds. Some of these auctions are even held in the finest of art houses. The author then reminds us that although all these facts about Banksy and his work are true, he is still can be defined as an illegal street deviant and his works are nothing more than vandalism that should be cleaned up. However at the end of the article, rather than giving their personal opinion on Bansky, the author proposes us a question. “Banksy: an artist to be cherished or law dodging vandalism?”