I NOTE your article today concerning Banksy murals at The Arches ("Three of Banksy’s murals at Arches to be saved for the nation", The Herald, August 7). It states that the Banksy murals are being restored after they were "accidentally covered with grey emulsion" 11 years ago. Well they weren’t accidentally painted over – it was our conscious decision to obliterate them to make way for other arts activities in the building.
Banksy himself would be the first person to testify that all art of this nature should be transitory. These pieces were never meant to have a permanent place in that once-hallowed arts building. Rather they were celebrated for a moment and then we moved on.
All this talk of restoring them for the nation seems to me be tosh – it is in my view a cynical move to earn cash from what were never intended to be anything more than a statement of the time.
The Arches isn't a public building with the same access as a gallery or museum. It is now run as a private commercial business. Indeed the idea of peeling away the paint was originally mooted by the administrators when the arts venue went belly up as a means of exploring ways of paying off the creditors.
I'm pretty sure that the owners of the Arches, Network Rail, and the current sitting tenants will soon be squabbling over who has the right to sell them on.
Andy Arnold (Founder and Artistic Director of The Arches 1991-2008),
Tron Theatre, 63 Trongate, Glasgow.
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