Peckham Rock, also called Wall Art, is a 2005 artwork by British street artist Banksy, in the form of a lump of concrete decorated in the style of a cave painting and depicting "a supposed prehistoric figure pushing a shopping trolley".[1] It was originally displayed in the British Museum, without the knowledge of the museum staff, after being installed there by Banksy.

Original installation

Peckham Rock is a piece of concrete, approximately 15 cm × 25 cm, supposedly sourced from Peckham but actually from Hackney. It depicts a buffalo, pierced by arrows, and a "lumbering hominin-like figure" pushing a shopping trolley.[2]

In a 2005 art intervention, Banksy clandestinely attached the rock to a wall in the "Roman Britain" collection of the British Museum, with a placard in the style of the museum with the title "Wall art" that dated the piece to the "post catatonic era" and credited it to a little-known artist named "Banksymus Maximus".[2][3]

The work went undiscovered for "several days",[4] with later sources giving more specific but inconsistent amounts of time ranging from "three days",[1][2] to "weeks".[5] It was not the first such installation by Banksy; in 2003, he similarly hung a painting in the Tate,[6] and earlier in 2005, he installed a fake beetle in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[2]

Subsequent exhibits

After Peckham Rock was removed from the British Museum's walls, it was re-exhibited in 2005 at the Outside Institute in London, listed as on loan from Banksy and the British Museum.[3]

Banksy stated that he did not intend to retrieve Peckham Rock, and the British Museum wrote at the time that they were accepting it as "as a donation to its collections".[3] However, it was eventually labeled as "lost property" and returned to Banksy.[2] The only Banksy work actually in the museum's permanent collection is a counterfeit ten-pound note featuring Princess Diana.[6]

Peckham Rock returned to public display in the British Museum in 2018, on loan from Banksy, for an exhibit on protest art titled "I object".[1][5]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Banksy hoax caveman art to go back on display at British Museum", BBC News, 16 May 2018
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Pyne, Lydia (2019), "As seen in the British Museum", Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff, Bloomsbury Publishing, pp. 178–180, ISBN 9781472961815
  3. 1 2 3 Dickens, Luke (October 2008), "Placing post-graffiti: the journey of the Peckham Rock", Cultural Geographies, 15 (4): 471–496, doi:10.1177/1474474008094317
  4. ↑ Reynolds, Nigel (19 May 2005), "Origin of new British Museum exhibit looks a bit wobbly", The Telegraph
  5. 1 2 Marshall, Alex (6 September 2018), "An Exhibition That Gives the Finger to Authority", The New York Times
  6. 1 2 Bailey, Martin (1 February 2019), "Kerching! Banksy-note enters British Museum", The Art Newspaper
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