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BANKSY RAT SPRUNG FROM CULTURE COMPANY’S TRAP

By Sam Richards ⋅ February 25, 2008 ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Thank god that it now appears that the Liverpool Culture Company have seen some sense and decided not to board up the Banksy Rat that is spray-painted on the abandoned White Horse pub on Berry Street. After a bizarre sequence of events that at one point planned to merely conceal half of the famous graffiti artist’s work, the Company have succumbed to public response and decided to restore it instead. Surely the previously planned action would have achieved nothing; the rat would still have been visible and as a result the building would look even more like what has been termed a ‘grot spot’. However, this is just one example of the bodged-up manner in which Liverpool is being changed to fit in with its Capital of Culture status. You need only look over the road to see another, with glitzy new Chinese-style boards drawing attention to the city’s standing adorning the windows of another long-term derelict building. This superficial change is the kind of transformation that resembles that of a student clearing up their house before their landlord comes for a visit, putting cushions over the stains on the sofa. This should not be the type of regeneration incorporated by a city that hopes to gain a higher-profile. I also hope that the Culture Company have got better things to spend their money on; this funding should be directed at communities that will benefit from it, those that are often left behind the scenes of the media attention going on in the centre. This is much more important than shooting themselves in the foot by attempting to cover up something that increases public interest in art just as much as Antony Gormley’s inspiring Another Place sculptures on Crosby beach. How can this not be seen as culture? It would be interesting to see what the Liverpool Culture Company would have done had the graffiti been on John, Paul, George or Ringo…