Banksy's Kissing Coppers Essay Sample
Intro
In this essay I am going to discuss the Banksy street artwork ‘Kissing Coppers’ located on the side of the Prince Albert pub near Brighton train station. Kissing Coppers is a stencil artwork created using spray paint. It depicts two male policemen in uniform embracing each other in a passionate kiss. The policeman on the left is carrying a truncheon, while the other has a pair of handcuffs attached to his belt. The original was removed by the pub’s owner and sold at auction in __ and the one that can be seen today is a replica created by ___. I am going to explore the historical context of street art and investigate how the replacement of the artwork has altered its meaning and significance, and compare this to other street artworks that’s meaning have also been altered over time.
Research of street art
For centuries, urban space has been claimed by graffiti artists and they have used the city walls as their canvas. In Stencil Grafitti, Manco opens with the sentence ‘Street art is both an expression of our culture and a counterculture in itself’. (Manco, 7). Often graffiti artists’ aims are to relay a message through their artworks, sometimes this is simply a tag or in the case of Banksy, may touch upon contentious social issues. While it often seen as a modern phenomenon, associated with urban city life, graffiti has existed as long as civilasition itself (expand) (Routledge 17). The act of defacing a building without authorisation could be considered an act of rebellion as public space is reclaimed and used as a platform for the artist’s own agenda. ‘Mural painting is not inherently socialistic but it is social’ (Sommer, 27). The debate over who owns street art is a point of both social and political contention.
Pro-removal activists will argue that the act of defacing a building is a vandalist act and so the artist has no right to say who ownership belongs to. Anti-removal activists will counter the argument by saying that street art enhances the value of the area and that is a gift to the community (Salib, 300) KEITH HARRING
Context of Kissing Coppers
In ‘Kissing Coppers’, the tender gesture creates a stark juxtaposition with the baton and handcuffs the policemen are carrying which carry connotations of oppression and violence. I think this also slightly humorous as the tools are also associated with the BDSM community and so the nature of the meeting alters the intentions of the tools. There is no coincidence that the artwork was made in Brighton, the unofficial ‘gay capital’ of the UK, known for its highly gay population. The Prince Albert pub is located (500 yards) from Brighton train station and so the footfall in this part of town is particularly high. By placing the artwork in such a densely populated area, Banksy would have intended for it to be seen by as many passer bys as possible. Visitors would immediately be exposed to the artwork to provoke a response or quickly establish Brighton as a city closely tied to counter culture.
Removal and meaning altered
After a series of vandalist attacks on the piece, the owner of the Prince Albert decided to have the image removed and transferred to canvas. In February 2014, sold the artwork at auction for $575,000 . (Topper, Brighton kisses goodbye to Banksy's kissing coppers). While some might believe that the owner of the building had the right to do this as the grafitti was on their property which was itself being targeted for it being there, the act of removing a public artwork intended to be enjoyed by the masses, and profiting from it is an inherently capitalist move and is in a way, giving in to the homophobes who defaced it by removing it from their reach and not allowing the debate to continue. The replicas reinstatement could be seen as an act of resilience and simultaneously, commodification.
Other example of Banksy
In ___, another of Banksy’s artwork met a similar fate. ‘No Ball Games’ was first appeared on a shop wall in Tottenham in 2009, though it was based on a ‘Barely Legal’ an artwork that was produced for an exhibition. In 2013 the wall was removed, split into three parts and sold to ‘benefit disadvantaged children’. The piece is ironic and observes how even children are forced to abide to rules and regulations. While the piece being sold to help children may seem more appropriate than the profit of an individual, as was the case with ‘Kissing Coppers’, by removing the piece so too removed is any future impact and inspiration it can have and influence the social dynamic. The removal of the artwork from the public sphere preserves the art work but ends the opportunity for public discourse.
Example of other street art altered
Street art is constantly being drawn over, sometimes it is erased completely and leaves no trace and in other instances words are erased or replaced as the image is reappropriated and a public dialogue ensues. Sometimes this can humorous and playful, for example……. ‘Kissing Copper’s was repeatedly vandalised, at one point it was covered in black paint and Banksy’s depiction of the embracing policemen completely obscured, suggesting whoever did it was offended by the homosexual gesture and did not want anyone to be able to view the piece. This be viewed as a form of censorship in its extremity and highlights the need for such imagery to be normalised and put into the public sphere. The reproduction of the art work is now protected by a glass frame, ironically this adds a new layer of meaning to the artwork and suggests there is something unsafe about public acts of homosexuality.
Today the walls of the building are painted with portraits of musical artists from the past. Directly the left of the Banksy replica is an image of Aretha Franklin with ‘RESEPECT’ written underneath her. Respect is one of Franklin’s most famous songs, but the placement of these words next to the Banksy artwork causes a sense of tension, as though she is telling passers-by to be respectful of the artwork and what it means to the city.
In 2011, the Mubarak regime ruled with terror in Egypt. In Tahrir Square, small messages on discontent began to appear on the walls as political chaos and social injustice echoes through the country. In response to these messages, pre-made stencil works followed and eventually large-scale murals dominated the previously barren wall (Awad). The authorities attempted to whitewash this and paint over the murals to conceal the rebellion that was taking place against them, but more and more messages appeared and the visual identity of the revolution was incidentally realised. The public denied the intended erasure of their voices and continued to mark the walls with messages of discontent and images that mocked the current regime (Routledge Handbook, 324). In Awad’s essay, Urban Dialogues, states ‘Once an image producer intervenes in a certain space with an image, this image takes on a social life of its own as it is appropriated and transformed by different (re)producers, audiences, and censors’. The act of concealing an artwork can itself be seen as part of the dialogue and its reappearance as an act of defiance against censorship.
Conclusion
Unlike other forms of visual communication, the placement of an artwork in a public environment renders it mutable and invites engagement, its function is transient by nature. The removal and replication or in the case of Tahrir square, reiterations, by all means, provide an answer to the original purpose it was created and highlight the need for its very existence, to invite public discourse and consequentially, the evolution of its own form.
