Banksy has come out with a new statue, stealthily installed in central London in the dead of night, in order to evade the council, who then loudly proclaimed how much they loved the piece.
Whether he was given permission or not (and he almost certainly was), Banksy is the very epitome of a Regime artist.
But what does that mean in the year of our Lord 2026?
For me, there are two main strands to consider. The first is the endless political rebellion that the left are engaged in against a straw man conservative establishment, probably manned by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s great-great-grandfather.
By the time Banksy defaced his first shopping centre, this ruling class was already long gone. But it suits the left’s self-image to tilt at this particular windmill, long after it has been incorporated into the vast wind farm of progressivism.
We see it in comedians like Stewart Lee, publications like Private Eye, and most rock stars, with a few noble exceptions. It is a perpetual pose of rebellion against a fantasy enemy, when the reality is they’ve reached the top and had to stop and that’s what’s bothering them.
We all easily recognise this nonsense by now, and there are numerous memes about the performative rebelliousness of those whose views align with all major corporations and state institutions.
Perhaps the more interesting question, then, is whether state-approved art can ever be any good. I’m certainly no art historian, but it strikes me that in simpler times, when belief in God was almost ubiquitous, and belief in one’s own culture was virtually a given, art commissioned by those in power was often of extraordinary quality.
One thinks of Pope Julius II (AKA the ‘Warrior Pope’) essentially forcing Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Or Count Franz von Walsegg commissioning Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor. And there are many more examples we could cite where a work being requested, or even demanded, by figures of authority did not compromise the work, and perhaps even pushed the artist to further greatness.
