sprayed art

At the border of fancy Notting Hill and gritty Shepherd's Bush is Holland Park roundabout, a busy intersection mincing London-bound commuters from the east, north and south into one dirty noisy mess. The roundabout has five lanes. Strands of cars arrive from four sides, relentlessly pushing into the pulsating hub. Traffic jerks to a halt whenever one of the frequent buses, the size of small houses as they are around here, blocks three lanes of traffic in an attempt to make a turn. Delivery vans honk in vain while suicidal cyclists weave through in smug efficiency. Were it not for the traffic lights and lane markings trying obstinately to organize the flow, drivers would get stuck in the central circle as they do at the Place de l'Etoile in Paris, orbiting with increasing desperation but without end.

If you’re going to work with eyes half shut with sleep, leaning against the window of a double-decker bus, the roundabout is not a pretty sight. It is worse when you walk by. On the sidewalk at the perimeter, the dust and rattle of traffic transform pedestrians into rushed refugees whose only objective is to get away, quickly. The serene verdure of Holland Park is only ten minutes away but worlds apart.

In the center of the roundabout, shrouded in a cloud of exhaust and covered with the soot of years of tires grinding on concrete, stands Thames Water tower, the world's largest barometer and a veritable landmark and attraction if it were anywhere else. As it is lost in the grey of its sordid surroundings, few people ever notice it. Even the grass at the foot of the tower is ashen.

Underpasses used to let pedestrians walk to the tower, though what they were supposed to do there, in the middle of the fumes of traffic and with nowhere to go, is anyone's guess. Another guess is that these underpasses were discovered by drug dealers and then drunks in need of bladder relief. That would be consistent with their current state. They are now closed, their foreboding openings covered with stubborn wire mesh.

Despite the odds, the tower has briefly risen to fame recently. The other day, a Banksy was discovered at a corner of a sad little concrete enclosure at its base. With Banksy being the artist-of-the-moment, his honoring the neighborhood should have been cause for celebration. Instead, the little piece has been greeted with the customary condemnation of graffiti as vandalism and was quickly removed. Only a patch slighter lighter in gray remains on the wall and reminds passers-by of a day of notoriety or two of the borough.

To me, Banksy is art not vandalism, but the perception of what he does as vandalism is integral to the power of his message. Be it bitter comment on society or light-hearted completion of the cityscape by adding little details to a boring wall, his trademark is being spot-on and outrageously funny. He sprays onto walls that are not his, without asking the owners. What he does is not legal, and dodging the law is part of his game. He is creative and follows his passion, with complete disregard of conventions regarding ownership. His art is for the moment and given away freely.

That's what I like. I'm all for eternal pieces that people can enjoy for centuries in museums, but there must also be room for spontaneous outbursts of creativity, for art for art's sake, here today and gone tomorrow. Christo likes to transmogrify ordinary building or familiar surroundings into experiences the public doesn't dare to expect. Two weeks later, brutally and cold-heartedly, the installation must go – only preserved in the memories and photos of those who saw it and the magical drawings Christo created in advance.

In much the same spirit, Banksy puts graffiti on the walls of London and increasingly the whole world. Sometimes they're being painted over within a day. Sometimes, a wall is removed from a building and sold on eBay. The owner of that house will not complain about vandalism. Sometimes, graffiti remain, just so. I'm glad about all three reactions.

The third is my favorite. I might spot a Banksy if it just stays in one place long enough. The other day in Hampstead, I saw a graffito that could be his and took a picture of it (shown on the right). But it's just as valid a reaction, and arguably just a important for Banksy's art because it pushes him to continue, if people paint his graffiti over or sell them off on eBay. It just seems to me that inspired grafitti is the most democratic of arts – there's something for everyone.