Chasing Banksy

We poured over the coffee-table book the night before and in the morning walked down the broadway to an instant photo place, five PCs in the back room. Vague and non-specific printed map in hand we plotted our route through the labyrinthine tube network, our final goal a huge yellow flower on a wall near Bethnal Green.

Banksy is an icon now, his tongue in cheek creations worth thousands of pounds. Still, as we wander the streets of suburban London, we don’t see anyone else obviously doing what we are. We find four and are running concentric circles around where we think the fifth should be when a man pushing a scooter approaches us, “It’s not here. I know what you’re looking for, and it’s not here any more. They sold the wall it was on, the whole thing. Took it out and built a new wall. Two thousand pounds.”

“Oh,” we say, “that’s crazy. What a pity.” He snorts at us and rolls his eyes, “Crazy, yes, but it was there for three years,” as if it were stupid of us to dawdle on the opposite side of the world. Most don’t last a week.

There is a crack that runs the length of the Tate Modern, and I spend the afternoon looking at Pollocks and Mondrians, but nothing comes close to finding that yellow flower on the wall. Art is always personal.

Posted in Travel on Thursday January 24, 2008.