Banksy in London

If you are a street art lover, visited London and have not seen any of Banksy’s work, consider that you have not been to London! Well, maybe not that dramatic but this is how I look at it and that’s why it was absolute must see for me in my first ever trip to London few weeks ago.

“Well, well, Banksy is from England and there must be a handful of his work all over London” – was my thought as I was on my way there. I was quite relaxed about it and expected some of his walls just magically pop up around the corner as I was walking around the city for the first few days. A week later to my surprise, not a single Banksy piece was spotted even after visiting Shoreditch – area known for it’s underground vibe and street art in London.

I started to get worried as the trip was getting to an end and I am yet to find Banksy. Finally, I got online hungry for any kind of “Banksy in London” piece of information I could find in Google. Bunch of articles come out in search but quite old and not relevant. What to do, what to do? I kept searching until finally I found one trustworthy looking source – artofthestate.co.uk – cool site about all things street art. And tada! They share London Banksy Map on the site for those looking to explore all the sites on their own. Thank you Steve!

Here is the map:

 

According to this map and other sources that I found online to be sure – there are about only 6 works of Banksy left until today in an entire London. I couldn’t believe the number – I expected something around 100+. But better then nothing!

We didn’t wait long and got on a road with my husband. The walls are quite spread out (about 30 minutes away from each other by public transport or even more) so we only made it to 3 but not without few stories to tell 🙂

1. Falling Shopper:

First we head off to Mayfair in hopes to find The Falling Shopper. And boom! Perfect start – it was there! The piece is very well visible and clean mostly due to the fact that it is located on a tall building and far from being reached so it didn’t get vandalized in any way:

2.   If Graffiti Could Change Anything:

Next stop – Fitzrovia – quite residential neighborhood. The wall is located about 15 minutes walk from the nearest bus or tube station so you need to be patient. We got there when the day light was still on only to find that the building is covered in black fence in preparation for full reconstruction or demolition. How disappointing! Such a long trip for nothing. “Only if we had a selfie stick on us!” – an idea crashed my mind, We could reach the edge of the fence with it and take a pic. On the mission to find a selfie-stick we stranded around for another 20 min until we actually found one in the one of the very few stores open. Back to the wall we put the stick in action and tadam! The wall is in fact still there! This is the best shot we could take of what is left there and will soon be gone:

3.   Guard Dog & His Masters Voice:

Getting cold and hungry, we headed to Shoreditch. According to the map, there is a Banksy wall covered by perspex in the beer garden of Cargo bar and club. It was already dark when we got there but was happy to find the wall well preserved and untouched:

I had to snap a pic on that red bench so here is me 🙂

 

It was getting dark and we didn’t have enough time to visit the other 3 locations left. I am only hoping they will still be there next time we come to back to London. Thanks to Steve of artofthestate.co.uk once again for putting the map together and to all of you for following along! Until next time! 🙂