Banksy’s Spy Booth mural before being defaced
In a race against time an effort is underway by conservators to save Banksy’s Spy Booth mural from permanent damage. The mural appeared on the wall of a house in Cheltenham (south-west England) in April this year and shows three 1950s-style agents ‘snooping’ on either side of a (real) public telephone box. The mural is only three miles from Britain’s GCHQ’s ‘listening post’ which, in GCHQ’s own words, “…is an intelligence and security organisation, working to keep Britain safe and secure in the challenging environment of modern communications.” At the beginning of August, however, residents noticed that the mural had been defaced with red and silver spray paint. Fortunately, a transparent, anti-graffiti film, had already been applied to the mural to protect it from such vandalism. Unless remedial work is undertaken without delay, however, the spray paint is likely to seep through to the original and cause it permanent damage.
Banksy’s Spy Booth mural after being defaced
Campaigners have been trying to keep the artwork in situ after the owners of the house claimed it had been sold to an American buyer and workmen had arrived to remove it. Last month Cheltenham Borough Council issued a temporary stop notice preventing further removal work from taking place on the Grade II listed building. Meanwhile, a local businessman has generously agreed to pay ‘whatever it takes’ to keep the artwork in place.
It’s difficult to know what can be done to protect similar works of art from such vandalism – though it’s good to know that there’s such civic pride towards protecting Banksy’ works of art, and others like them. One thing’s for sure though, GCHQ seems to have been lacking in its objective of ‘working to keep Britain safe and secure in the challenging environment of modern communications’ in this instance!
See our earlier features about Banksy here.
The Heritage Trust 
3 comments
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13/08/2014 at 5:24 pm
Bucky Edgett
Hmmm, Banksy is an artist but the spray painters are vandals?
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13/08/2014 at 6:34 pm
Daniel D'Arcy
“Hmmm, Banksy is an artist but the spray painters are vandals?”
In a nutshell, yes.
Ditto Mark Rothko’s painting that was defaced by Wlodzimierz Umaniec a couple of years ago – not to mention the countless cases of graffiti found daubed on megaliths in Britain and elsewhere.
One might argue that ‘art’ is in the eye of the beholder but most people can differentiate between artless vandalism and creative works of (pictorial) art – with the possible exception of Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York that is, who is reported as saying, “Banksy is a vandal, not an artist… running up to somebody’s property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art.”
I doubt if Mr Bloomberg would know what art is if it jumped up and bit him on the butt – nor, if pressed, whether he could explain the difference between defacing walls in derelict areas and enhancing them with works to a Banksy standard.
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14/08/2014 at 9:48 am
Moss
Saving Banksy’s The Grim Reaper. Painted on to the ship called ‘Thekla’, a music venue in Bristol, the owners have decided to loan it to a Bristol Museum for safekeeping as the image is starting to fade and become damaged by the elements. No money involved!
Or this larger article…
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