Rivington Street — Two Banksys Under Glass
On Rivington Street in London, a protected courtyard preserves two original 2003 Banksy stencils at the exact location where the street artist staged his illegal debut London exhibition in May 2000. The surviving artworks, Guard Dog and His Master's Voice, remain sealed under protective perspex glass, marking the site where Banksy painted twelve stencils in just twenty-five minutes for his legendary guerrilla launch party.
London · from the walk “Walls That Talk: Shoreditch Street Art & Urban Creativity” · Generated
Rivington Street, London EC2A 3QP
- Banksy staged his first London exhibition on Rivington Street on May 31, 2000, creating twelve stencils.
- The guerrilla installation on Rivington Street was painted in twenty-five minutes by artists wearing decorators' overalls.
- Banksy returned to Rivington Street in 2003 to paint Guard Dog and His Master's Voice.
- The stencil His Master's Voice parodies Francis Barraud's 1899 painting that inspired the iconic HMV logo.
Which original Banksy artworks are preserved on Rivington Street in London?
Stop here on Rivington Street... and look through the iron gate into the courtyard. Behind that sheet of perspex, you're staring at something increasingly rare in London — original Banksy stencils, still clinging to the wall where he sprayed them over two decades ago.
The piece known as Guard Dog — or Graffiti Area — dates from two thousand and three. It's a mockery of the police and the authorities, depicting a policeman and his poodle on patrol in a designated graffiti area. Think about that irony for a moment. Banksy literally created a "designated graffiti area"... by spraying it onto a wall, without anyone's permission.
And next to it — His Master's Voice. It portrays a white dog casually pointing a bazooka towards a nineteenth century gramophone. You might recognize the reference. The name "His Master's Voice" was coined in eighteen ninety-nine as the title of a painting of a dog named Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone — the painting was by English artist Francis Barood. That image became the iconic Hmv logo. But Banksy flipped it. Instead of a loyal dog obeying its master... the dog is armed and ready to Destroy the old machine. The gramophone symbolizes past generations and conservatism the dog is determined to destroy in order to create room for something new.
But here's what most people walking past don't realize. It was here, underneath the archway on Rivington Street, that Banksy held his First exhibition in London. He produced twelve stencils for the show. Speaking to a reporter from The Independent beforehand, Banksy said that "on the wall will be my greatest hits." The opening was set on the thirty-first of May, two thousand.
And the story of how he pulled it off is pure Banksy. He got the idea coming out of a pub one evening, arguing with a friend about how easy it would be to hold an exhibition in London without asking anyone's permission. He then painted a series of stencils from his back catalog and covered the walls on either side of what is today the entrance to this courtyard. They hung up decorators' signs nicked off a building site, painted the walls white wearing overalls, got the artwork up in twenty-five minutes, and held an opening party later that week with beers and hip hop pumping out the back of a transit van.
That guerrilla show happened three years Before these two pieces appeared. By then, Cargo nightclub had been built into the railway arches, opening in November two thousand. So Banksy returned to the very spot that launched him in London... and left these two stencils behind.
Now look around you. Many of Banksy's early works have been removed due to damage, theft, or being painted over. This work has been protected by perspex for about fifteen years now, and crowds still gather to see it. In a neighborhood where street art appears and vanishes overnight... these two pieces are survivors. Sealed under glass like specimens in a museum — which is, of course, Exactly what Banksy would hate.