Banksy London Zoo Breakout

Banksy’s London Zoo menagerie started to pop on Monday 5th August 2024).  It WAS classic Banksy characterised by humour, clever use of building features and that hallmark of great street art – how did he get up there?  It was a thrilling 9 days for the London based street art nerd.  My strava certainly acquired a whole bunch of new bike routes!

Sister blog on Shoreditch Street Art Tours gushed a first response to the excitement but as Graffoto is just so much more chill, here is an over the shoulder perspective, reviewing Banksy’s London Zoo project.

The first Banksy animal appeared out of nowhere.  A mountain goat, or Alpine Ibex would probably be more accurate, was precariously perched atop a building buttress in Kew.  Banksy confirmed the start of this project by uploading one photo, with no title or comment.

The next day the owner of the building was photographed tweaking the CCTV camera on the wall, not to protect to the art but to monitor a door in the building not included in Banksy’s shot.  Turns out that as part of his installation Banksy had turned the CCTV camera to point at the Ibex, check the photo on Banksy’s instagram.

This one remains in situ though it has been covered in Perspex.  Not really clear why!

The next day Banksy’s second street art piece appeared, two elephants hanging out in posh Chelsea.  Again Banksy’s midday upload had no trace of information or explanation.   Speculation on Banksy’s meaning went almost as wild as the animals. 

The elephants remain in situ albeit for a period augmented by poorly painted vertical roller brush stripes, perhaps a reference to The White Stripes classic album “Elephant”, and accompanied by art from other opportunistic photo bombers.  

The local council restored the defaced Bankys to something like their original condition, which is hugely ironic as online they have a clumsily named  “Council Plan Action Plan”, which includes “Taking targeted action to deep clean our pavements and reduce graffiti”, the irony of their action in immortalising Banksy’s elephants is as square wheeled as the name of the policy.

On the Wednesday Shoreditch finally got what it needed but didn’t deserve, Banksy’s third street art piece.  Three monkeys swinging through the tree branches painted above Brick Lane on a railway bridge.   At this point it was beginning to feel a bit like the “Better Out Than In” project Banksy staged in New York when he created something new every day bar one in the month of October 2013.

The spraying technique was much more like Banksy’s characteristic technique with the animals had texture and a degree of depth, compared to the completely flat un-Banksyesque painting in the first two.  Being a virgin, previously unpainted location and the almost implausible access made this is many people’s favourite. 

On this day though a couple of stills captured on the now infamous Kew Bridge CCTV camera revealed two people creating the artwork using a hoist on a van.  The visible registration allowed the Banksy chasers to confirm the van was taxed and insured but nothing more but at least the means for accessing these high location was no longer a secret.

Currently still as good as the day Banksy faked some emergency overnight bridge repairs though the bridge owner has installed possibly the ugliest non museum quality art protection ever.  The irony is that the only people I am aware of who have been sent to prison for un-authorised painting have all been prosecuted by the bridge owner’s own in-house police force, BTP.

Very early on Thursday 8^th August Banksy placed a satellite dish on a roof in Peckham.    By the time I looked at Instagram when I got home after a morning private tour the Peckham howling wolf had already been stolen.

Banksy’s visual reference was horror movie poster artwork, the satellite dish forms a moon silhouetting a ferocious wolf venting a scary howl.  The piece really would be at its best viewed against a dark sky at night, Peckham sodium street lighting would have to do. The only night photo I have seen is Banksy’s grainy effort so this is a rare post of a photo we didn’t take, photo here courtesy Banksy, thanks.

Yet again all kinds of conspiracies have been dreamt up about this one but theories based on the number of animals incrementing +1 every day could now be abandoned.  Phew. 

Next up, Walthamstow, famed for its collection of street art murals unexpectedly filled a yawning gap in its artist roster when a pair of Banksy pelicans, starving after traveling so far stopped off for a British culinary highlight, fish and chips.

Traditional British fish and chips come in paper wrappers not tetrapak cartons, the merchandise opportunities for the lucky chip shop owner are vast.  However, with super nonchalance and a rare Banksy indifference, the shop was closed for the month, the owner was abroad and not coming back until the holiday has finished in September.  Well played!   Now protected under Perspex.

On the sixth day Banksy created another wild animal.  For good measure the stretching cat, or was it a Panther, was soon surrounded by a wilder and truly comical circus.  The usual suspects all present: Banksy fans, the passing curious, news reporters, the law and someone determined to remove the art all present and correct.

The owners of the billboard, Global Media, contracted someone to come and remove Banksy’s new art piece; street art fans squatted the ladders to prevent the art removal; the contractor confirmed to me that it was he who called the police; the cops arrived in 4 of their fastest intercept cars and one riot van and after much “ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, wot’s going on ‘ere then” and whispering into police radios decided that the contractor was operating legally and the street art fan cabal were due a stern talking to and bed with no supper. 

Then the highlight of the show materialised, a sight never seen before at a Banksy street art jamboree – an fly-by opportunist guerrilla ice cream lady.  She told me it was lovely to find the police turning out for some art for a change, she said usually when she pulled up in her ice cream van at police scenes in Cricklewood there were bodies on the ground.

A bunch of us street art photographers, a group of die-hard Banksy followers none of whom can hold down a proper job, still owe the magnificently generous Hooked Blog a large whippy 99, which for people outside the UK is one of those spiral soft whip ice creams with a Cadbury chocolate flake (called a 99 flake).

As the cops would say “Let’s be ‘aving you, move along now, nothing to see here”, the contractor accomplished his task and the artwork has gone.

On the seventh day Banksy did not rest, for an apparition manifested among the temples of Mammon.  Translucent piranhas swam in the windows of a police shelter at one of the street leading into the City Of London, the older of London’s two financial districts.

Technically this was the most curious of Banksy’s London Zoo pieces, a surreptitious scratch at a corner did not feel like some kind of film had been applied to the window and a couple of the fish that straddled the corner of the box have been sprayed across the inside of the corners, necessarily so otherwise those fish would appear to be outside the tank, confirming the presence of actual paint in the area.

“I don’t like all these sharks in the City” sang The Charlatans and while many gasped at Banksy’s audacity at vandalising a police box, suited city worker looking down from their glass towers chuckled whispering “call that a crime? You should see what our computers can do”.

Yet another one removed by the property owners, the Corporation of London (aka the council) and currently on display the Guildhall, where the biggest fat cats in the land gather to celebrate themselves.

Day 8 of Banksy’s London Zoo was a surprise for several reasons.  The snooty “We get tipped off first” English broadsheets flaunting their inner sanctum sources, had boasted they had been informed by spokespeople for Banksy that the project would extend to 7 art pieces and they were just simple images intended to make people happy in “these dark times”.  A short-sighted rhinoceroses mistaking a grey car with a traffic cone as marriage material arrived contrary to those expectations and while most of us found it amusing and very much in the classic Banksy vein it is easy to see how some might find rhino rumpypumpy on the streets a tad tasteless.

Located out in remotest south east London Banksy certainly ensured I upped my level of cycling exercise for the week.  The piece suffered multiple indignities starting with the owner of the adjacent works surrounding the piece with their brand logo, then a little light tagging followed by the removal of the car and the perspexing of the stencil on the wall.  I don’t see anything down there to tempt another visit to the area, though perhaps an away game next season at Charlton Athletic is on the cards for QPR

At the crack of dawn on Tuesday 13th Banksy gave us resolution in two forms.   First he DID have a coherent narrative and second it was clear that this was the end of the story.  A gorilla lifts up the base of the shutter at the entrance to London Zoo in Regent’s park and animal seize the opportunity to flee.  Now we knew all those animals had scattered across London after a mass London Zoo breakout.

Several long standing reputable street artists confided in me that they found the theme a little simplistic compared to Banksy’s previous more politicised works and the actual stencils rather plain, That rather misses the point.   You should see the faff and drama most street artists make trying to arrange a permission wall, yet Banksy found 9 virgin non-permissioned walls and delivered those artworks to a schedule every 24 hours which is pretty extraordinary.  

There was more to this placement than meets the eye.  Do you think the Zoo piece was done without the Zoo’s prior knowledge (Just asking)?  The zoo were very keen to see this as Banksy’s endorsement even though criticism of zoos has been implied in previous Banksy zoo intrusions.  London Zoo didn’t want to roll up this shutter in case that damaged the paint, the shutter was carefully removed and on that day speaking to senior staff their thinking was to display the shutter inside, meaning a zoo admission would be necessary to view.   

The original shutter has been removed and a box constructed at the entrance with a reproduction of the image. Somehow this is supposed to get the entrance “Up and running” again though admission to the zoo through the adjacent entrance was never impeded.   There are lots of similarities with the initial arrangements for the Merryvale model village stable and you know what happened with that. (original removed for safekeeping, reproduction built and displayed, entrance fee required for viewing, original sold for £1m at auction)

The mere fact Banksy is active and in your area is exciting, maybe here in London we are spoilt, we own Banksy, our standards perhaps lowered and critical senses blunted.  For all the sniffiness and broadsheet criticism, If Banksy was a conventional contemporary artist you can bet the establishment would have been fawning over the artistic merits of Banksy’s achievements over those 9 days.

All photos Dave Stuart except Banksy where noted