THE GEEKY BIT ...

Throughout 2006 many people responded to my leading questions and downright Miss Marpleesque annoyance about where to find a lot of this graffiti. I also discovered a lot myself whilst wandering the streets like a stray dog, following hunches and leads, and smelling the odd lamp-post to get that authentic feel. Over the last four years I have continued to give and take information from various sources.

In an effort to share this info and to let people take their own photos (if they want to - it's not compulsory) I gave a lot of free location information on internet groups/forums/maps, and in 2006 I ran a series of free guided tours in London. All of this then accidentally formulated this book, especially the first two UK editions when the 'tours' were more do-able.

Although the days of 'tours' are over, some of the locations in the book still exist (as of spring 2011 usually), and I will post free book/status updates on my own website: www.shellshockpublishing.co.uk

And I can send these updates to you by email if you want. Just email me at m@shellshockpublishing.co.uk

I will try to continue to contribute graffiti/location information on the internet, especially on the following sites:

• The Banksy group on Flickr: www.flickr.com/groups/banksy/

• The Banksy Forum: www.thebanksyforum.com

BUY BYE BYE, SALE SELL SELL

(A.K.A. LEAVE THEM ON THE STREETS PLEASE!)

Without wishing to sound too grave or pompous (this is graffiti after all, where there aren't any rules really), I feel that recent circumstances mean it's an apt time to give a summary of my personal feelings on removing, buying, and selling street pieces by Banksy. You of course have free will to do whatever you want to, hopefully using your conscience and internal moral compass.

First things first. I am just talking about pieces done on the streets, and not canvases, screenprints, etc. Without even knowing what others may think, my natural feeling has always clearly been to 'leave them on the street where they are supposed to be'. Simple as that. I don't need to intellectualise it by going on about the utilitarian 'gift' of work to the street, and the 'democracy of street art'. Whilst people have these inane discussions, real writers are taking risks out on train tracks and climbing shonky drainpipes.

This issue has raised its head higher for me because some people have tried to use BLT as a type of provenance when they are dealing in street pieces. For example, the door the Refuse Store Rat in Clerkenwell was on (see location F8) was removed, and in Sept 2008 it turned up in a Contemporary Art auction by the Scottish auctioneer Lyon & Turnball. This auction controversially contained five Banksy street pieces, all allegedly 'authenticated' by Vermin, a company that has no connection to Banksy.

I was very unhappy when a friend told me they had referenced this book in their description of the piece. I rattled off a complaint to Lyon & Turnball, but they refused to take out the reference to BLT. My follow-up emails went unanswered (not surprisingly I guess, especially as the third one was childishly smug that their auction had been a colossal flop). The estimate price was £20-25,000, but it remained unsold.

My books are a bit of fun really and are not meant to provide some sort of claim of provenance for a street piece. I'm just a big geeky fan of Banksy's work, and these are meant as information books and DIY guides. Believe it or not, these books have actually been quite hard work as well. They are not sales catalogues, nor a map to find what pieces to steal, take to auction or buy from the owner. And anyway, Banksy and Pest Control are the only people that can provide 'provenance' for anything (definitely not me!), and quite correctly none of them will give provenance on street pieces because they don't want to. Is that an accident? No, it's because street pieces are meant for the street.

This particular auction led to a rare statement from Banksy, as reported by the Evening Standard. He said: "Graffiti art has a hard enough life as it is - with council workers wanting to remove it and kids wanting to draw moustaches on it, before you add hedgefund managers wanting to chop it out and hang it over the fireplace. For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs, I'd encourage people not to buy anything by anybody unless it was created for sale in the first place." (my emboldening)

Similarly, Pest Control added a note of warning about street pieces, as it said on its website: "[Banksy] would encourage anyone wanting to purchase one of his images to do so with extreme caution, but does point out that many copies are superior in quality to the originals. Since the creation of Pest Control in January 2008 we have identified 89 street pieces ... falsely attributed to the artist."

HOXTON & SHOREDITCH

This was the biggest tour by far, and at a pretty decent pace it took us three hours. It could have been far more if I included all the local streets and all the local graffiti. It is everywhere, although the Council do seem to be less tolerant now. And it's ever-changing, so even though most of the featured graffiti has now gone, you're bound to always find something new in this area, or even something you never noticed before.

Literally stumbling across 'the maid' (see S20) early-ish one Sunday morning in May 2006 (I suspect Banksy did it in the small hours of that morning) is a pleasure you can only really get by wandering around, keeping your eyes open, and following your destiny. So I suggest getting out of the house and taking the dog for a walk if you can (even if you don't have a dog ...).

This tour went around the capital of UK street art - Hoxton, Old St, Shoreditch, and Brick Lane - the creative, yet run-down, nuevo-trendy East End. The streets (and railway bridges and skanky alleys) are literally awash with graffiti of different styles, plus paste-ups, stickers, installations, art projects and all sorts of weird and wonderfully creative ramblings (picture frames on the street, nailed up art, tattooists, photographers, fashion victims and maybe even Nathan Barley on his poxy BMX if you are unlucky enough).

S1

POISON RAT

Postcode: EC1Y 1AU

Map/GPS reference: TQ 32796 82288

Location & Any Other Info I Can Think Of

Oliver's Yard, just off City Rd (A501). As seen in the Banksy books and on his website. Not surprisingly it's now very faded (it's been there since at least mid-2005) but it's the only Poison Rat left in the area, and is complete with green waste spewing across the pavement.

Status

Still just visible (June 2011).

S2

CHECK OUT THE WALL ...

Postcode: EC1V 2NR

Map/GPS reference: TQ 32706 82522

Location & Geeky History

By Exit 8 of Old Street tube station. It may be white, it...