Banksy’s Art and the Establishment
This morning I read a BBC article saying that Banksy’s relatively recent new piece of art that had appeared outside the Reading jail - depicting a prisoner escaping using a roll of paper and a typewriter - has been recently defaced. A blotch of red graffiti now covers the typewriter, with the words “Team Robbo” written below - a reference to another graffiti artist that had a feud with Banksy. The articles written about this incident are filled with despairing comments from a wide array of individuals, ranging from a member of the public who attempted to wash off the offending red graffiti to a member of the Reading Borough Council who found it “disappointing,” as the borough had been looking to purchase the defunct prison. What no one apparently realized was that Banksy’s works are acts of vandalism in the first place - no different from the graffiti that now covers it. The public’s reaction is the reaction to someone painting over a Mona Lisa. This is what happens when someone is en...