FTR, fuck zoos!
Protect it, sure, but don’t remove it. It’s location is part of the art.
Unfortunately, someone would vandalise it or try and steal it in some way. The best they can do is move it into the zoo behind a protective screen of some kind imo.
One persons vandalism is another persons art.
No doubt if someone else claimed responsibility for it, it would already have been washed off.
Tagging or defacing a banksy is not “art”. The art here can be appreciated by anyone, I think the idea is that the Gorilla opened the zoo and the animals are escaping, so the rest of London has the animals all over it
Defining something as “art” or “not art” seems a rather simplistic worldview.
Does art need to be “appreciated by anyone” to be “art”, is art only what is popular, or simplistic enough to be understood by a mass audience?
Is stencilling over/tagging a banksy vandalism, or is it a making a statement on the middle class hypocrisy of its widespread acceptance of street works from one author and the derision of others?
Which of these are “art” or “not art”…
- banksy later tagging his own work
- banksy later tagging his own work but not claiming authorship
- banksy later tagging his own work, but publicly saying someone else did it, and that he doesn’t approve
- someone else tagging banksy’s work, and banksy publicly saying that he approves
- banksy stencilling over the mona lisa (on the actual paint)
- banksy stencilling on the outside wall of fallingwater
- banksy stencilling something regarded as offensive by some people
- banksy stencilling something you like on the front of your house
- banksy stencilling something you don’t like on the front of your house, but is widely liked by others
- somebody else stencilling the same thing on the front of your house
Seems like the rules for what is/isn’t art could be quite complicated. There would be endless possible scenarios to judicate on. Not to mention, who gets to decide? Popular vote, experts, the owner of the substrate?
Much simpler to let art be undefined and interpretable however one wishes.
