Graffiti War: Team Robbo Versus Banksy

There’s a war going on in the world of London street art. It’s all very elegantly handled, and quite amusing, but it’s war none the less. Team Robbo is taking on Banksy – and I’m taking pictures.

Looks like a real Banksy to me, with the paint-roller-head heron, a lovely visual conceit.  But Team Robbo has a comment to make. (I hope you will all recognise the reference to Monty Python’s Life of Brian.) This is in Camden, quite near the lock; further down the canal, I found another Robbo-Banksy.

That’s quite amusing, I thought. But again, that rat looks just like a real Banksy. What’s going on here? It’s obviously war – “working class and proud” is pretty much an accusation that Banksy is Bourgeois.  And then further along I found yet another one;

Fascinating. Very, very cheeky, too. And again… it looks very like a Banksy, doesn’t it?

Well, these are all Banskys, apparently – it’s just that Team Robbo has been round to tag them.  And then Banksy has replied. And then Team Robbo has come back with yet another insult… ANIMAL and Banksy Prints have all the news, and pictures of the graffiti in a different state from the day I saw them, earlier and then later on.  And there’s a very funny report of the successive changes of another graffito, which I didn’t see, and which features Banksy (or someone masquerading as Banksy) retaliating by turning ‘KING ROBBO’ into a slightly different message by just adding three letters.

Of course one of the great joys of graffiti is that it’s a temporary, transient art form. But with this latest spat, it seems to have become a performance art – though, admittedly, a very slow (if not stately) one. I’ll have to keep an eye on what happens next.