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. [2] 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 a donation to its collections". [3] However, it was eventually labelled 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
- ^ a b c "Banksy hoax caveman art to go back on display at British Museum", BBC News, 16 May 2018
- ^ a b c d e f 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
- ^ a b c Dickens, Luke (October 2008), "Placing post-graffiti: the journey of the Peckham Rock", Cultural Geographies, 15 (4): 471–496, Bibcode: 2008CuGeo..15..471D, doi: 10.1177/1474474008094317, S2CID 144852084
- ^ Reynolds, Nigel (19 May 2005), "Origin of new British Museum exhibit looks a bit wobbly", The Telegraph
- ^ a b Marshall, Alex (6 September 2018), "An Exhibition That Gives the Finger to Authority", The New York Times
- ^ a b Bailey, Martin (1 February 2019), "Kerching! Banksy-note enters British Museum", The Art Newspaper