“If people lacked this capacity to receive the thoughts conceived by the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts…
And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people might be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from, and more hostile to, one another.”
From What is Art? By Leo Tolstoy
Tassa and I have had the unique experience to be in London when street artist Banksy unveiled an ongoing art project, dubbed the animal trail. On Monday, August 5th south-west London awoke to find a goat painted on a wall in Richmond. On Tuesday, two elephants were found in Chelsea and then on Wednesday, monkeys were found swinging from a train overpass on Brick Lane. By this time the public, including us started to take notice. On the 8th, there was a wolf painted in a white satellite dish, but it was stolen just hours after it was discovered. The 9th found some birds eating fish in Walthamstow. On the 10th a cat was found on a decrepit billboard, and it was quickly taken down for safety concerns. On August 11th, Banksy painted a piranha fishbowl around a police kiosk in the downtown area. Then on the 12th a rhino was found in the far east end corner of London mounting a car that had an orange cone on the hood like a horn. The finale was found on the 13th at the London Zoo in Regent’s Park. Banksy painted a gorilla opening a shutter by the entrance of the zoo and letting all the animals out. Genius!
Banksy started his graffiti art in the early 90’s and has risen to international status. He is one of the most famous artists in the contemporary art world, but he remains anonymous. In fact, when you see where his art is around London it is mind-boggling how he can pull off his work without being noticed and having his identity compromised. Yet he does it. Some of the different sites of his animal trail, the monkeys at Brick Lane and the piranha fishbowl on Ludgate Hill especially, are in extremely populated areas and on busy streets. Banksy is a legend and a local hero! He is a symbol for anti-establishment causes. I have seen how much his work means to people and how susceptible it is to defacement and destruction. The authorities try to protect the art even though it is, in all actuality, vandalism to public property. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is how much authority and power Banksy has achieved over the years from public interest and monetary value, each of which creates a real dilemma whenever and wherever he decides to produce a piece of art, because people demand that it be preserved, others try to destroy it, and some pay huge sums to acquire and own it.
Our first encounter with Banksy happened right before this new project was set in motion. I had heard about the tree mural he did, so Tassa and I went to Finsbury Park to check it out. The Tree piece is on the side of a busy street in a long rectangular yard between the sidewalk and an apartment building. The mural is a green background on a wall with a girl on the side with a hand pump and sprayer behind a bare tree. Originally the tree was just bare branches after being pruned and the branches cut off. When you looked at the tree straight on towards the green background, it looked like the tree was alive. It was almost unviewable when we went there. The tree had started to grow leaves and little branches out of the cut off large branches. Someone had defaced the work by throwing white paint all over it, so they built a wall around it with wood and plexiglass. It was kind of sad but also cool and I am glad we went.
What a surprise then to see a Banksy project happening live! Tassa and I decided on Monday evening August 12th to go see the rhino mural. I read in the comments from the Banksy Instagram page general directions for where it was. It was quite the trek. We took the overground train from Bruce Grove down to Bethnal Green, walked ten minutes to the Whitechapel Underground and took the Elizabeth Line to Woolwich. From there, we took bus 161 towards North Greenwich to Cleverly Close and that got us pretty close. After that it was another ten-minute walk to find Westmoor Street, which was back in an industrial area in the far east end of London and near the Thames Barrier. It was like a city-wide scavenger hunt.
As we approached the site, we saw people already congregated around the artwork. I admit that it felt really cool going and finding the site and then seeing that others had done the same thing. This may be the first time since being in London that I was actually happy that there were other people around. Banksy put these pieces around the city and people searched around to find them, for no other reason than it’s cool as hell. The rhino looked freshly painted. You could tell that it was new and pristine. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t last. The next day the work was vandalized by being painted on, supposedly by a Banksy rival called Robbo and the South Vandals according to the BBC. I am so glad that we were able to see the original before it was ruined. Someone even took the car.
In fact, Tassa and I were lucky enough to see five original pieces out of the nine. We were able to walk and see the birds eating fish in Walthamstow near the wetlands. This area of London is only a couple miles from our flat in Tottenham. It’s literally just down the road. We consider the Bonners Fish Bar Birds piece our own local Banksy. Just like at the rhino site, there were people who had come out to find the painting in this remote northern area of London.
We also traveled down to Brick Lane and saw the monkeys. There were lots of people there too checking out the artwork. Brick Lane is a cool area with shops, markets, breweries, and lots of thrift stores that we would have never experienced if not for seeking out Banksy’s art. We love walking around London, it is so huge and there is so much to see at every turn. We decided to walk from Brick Lane to the Zoo, which was a descent five-mile hike. On our way through the downtown area the strangest thing happened. No one talks to anyone in London. It is kind of weird given how many damn people there are but there is very minimal interaction between anyone. As we were walking down the street, a lady stopped us and asked us if we knew where the Banksy art was around there. Tassa almost cut her off to say, “We aren’t from here, we can’t help you.” But the conversation caused us to inquire and come to find out the piranha fishbowl was near there.
The fishbowl was painted on a police street kiosk, which I guess by looking at it is a place for a cop to sit and monitor things or call for help or something. The booth was moved from the street to Guildhall Yard, which was close by. We back tracked about a half mile to a huge church in a large stone courtyard and in there was a huge stone shelter with the police booth underneath. There was also a guy sitting there guarding the artwork. This was a Banksy bonus for us and worth the extra steps to get to.
After that, we kept walking to Regent’s Park and the London Zoo. It was a bit anticlimactic when we got there because the final piece, the gorilla letting all the animals out was not on display. Instead, the zoo had a replica of the original piece. There was a sign that stated in order to protect and preserve the piece and clear the zoo’s entrance they decided not to display the original but that they were going to find a permanent place for it at the zoo. The replica was a picture of the original work that was to scale and was still cool to see. It looked like they simply built a wall around the original for the time being. Seeing the spot and what Banksy did was truly amazing. After days of animal paintings popping up in different areas and corners of London and to find out that they were all escaping from the zoo brought the whole thing to an amusing and witty finale.
The next day, we found ourselves in the Chelsea area and realized that the Elephants were nearby. So, we took a short detour and walked down Edith Grove from the South Kensington station. As we got near, a chick was puking on the sidewalk. I think she was sick rather than drunk, but it was gross. The elephant piece was cool but one of them was defaced, some asshole painted white stripes on one of them. Out of all the pieces there were only a few, three I think, that were not defaced, destroyed, or removed. Which is very sad if you ask me. On the one hand you have people like Banksy, people who make art, whether that is paintings, books, music, or any other kind and people who enjoy art. Artists restore our faith in people and strengthens our faith in being a person ourselves. Then on the other hand you have those who have no respect for art, for nature, for things that are beautiful and cool for the simple sake of being beautiful and cool and they feel that they must destroy and deface things that they can’t create on their own. Then you lose faith in people and your resolve that people suck strengthens. It’s a happy, inspiring, sad, and frustrating catch-22.
Contemplating what, if anything, all of this means is interesting but at the same time not as important as the art itself. There were lots of comments about what Banksy was saying with this project. The obvious assumption was a social commentary about animals and their captivity versus freedom. I read a lot of the comments on social media and news articles about the project, and I think that seeing this as a statement on weapon disarmament or the Israel/Palestine conflict may be stretching it a bit far, but what do I know? What resonated with me was the idea of people being held in captivity; in cities, in modern society, on social media, economically, and on and on. Living here in this massive city for the past two months has been stimulating, there is so much beauty and history to see and explore. But at the same time, it seems that people here, in general behave as if they are not responsible for their environment. There is trash everywhere, literally shit on the sidewalks from people walking their dogs and not picking it up, and I have unfortunately seen human feces too, it’s dirty, crowded, and it feels like people are more or less stuck in this city and act sort of like animals in a zoo. It is so expensive to live here that I must assume that most people work to simply exist. The average income could only pay for housing and food and getting to and from work, without much left for much more. So why should they care about anything? I’m generalizing, obviously there are a lot of people with tons of money but there are more people who do not. Any escape that most people get, presumably would be a trip to some different part of the city. Just like the animals. They escaped the zoo only to be stuck in the city.
My conclusion. As an outsider, a spectator who is living here in different circumstances than I assume most people who are trying build their lives here, London can easily be likened to a zoo. The city offers sustenance and shelter, and the people provide an exhibition of culture and humanity. If you walk around enough and make close observations, you can see humanity at its best and worst. And just like a zoo is a makeshift habitat for animals, for me personally, the city doesn’t feel like a natural habitat for us either. Of course, I am biased because I grew up in rural Midwestern America, but perhaps there is something to it. I am happy being here experiencing everything, but I will never live in a big city/zoo again, as long as I can escape.
To go back to the Tolstoy quotes at the beginning of this post, this whole Banksy experience has me thinking about art, life, even being human. I’m not trying to be over sentimental, but I agree with Tolstoy in that the human capability to communicate and express ideas and thoughts is the line that separates us from being animals. Then to the extent that we can express ourselves and connect to others through art and transmit ideas and emotions by skill, intellect, beauty, and audacity is really quite magical. It keeps us a rung or two above total savagery, for the most part at least. Maybe on some level art keeps us from completely running amok because it reminds us sometimes that the human experience is shared and sacred. Or maybe it’s just pictures of animals painted on walls with a punchline. Either way, I enjoyed it and am happy I was here to see it.
MeatSpace Adventures 
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