Peckham Rock

Short description: Archaeological forgery

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.

## Contents

* 1 Original installation
* 2 Subsequent exhibits
* 3 See also
* 4 References

## 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]

## See also

* List of works by Banksy

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Banksy hoax caveman art to go back on display at British Museum", BBC News, 16 May 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44140200
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 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, https://books.google.com/books?id=tmCWDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT178
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Dickens, Luke (October 2008), "Placing post-graffiti: the journey of the Peckham Rock", Cultural Geographies 15 (4): 471–496, doi:10.1177/1474474008094317, Bibcode: 2008CuGeo..15..471D, http://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/23225
4. ↑ Reynolds, Nigel (19 May 2005), "Origin of new British Museum exhibit looks a bit wobbly", The Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490296/Origin-of-new-British-Museum-exhibit-looks-a-bit-wobbly.html
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Marshall, Alex (6 September 2018), "An Exhibition That Gives the Finger to Authority", The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/arts/design/i-object-british-museum-ian-hislop.html
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Bailey, Martin (1 February 2019), "Kerching! Banksy-note enters British Museum", The Art Newspaper, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2019/02/01/kerching-banksy-note-enters-british-museum

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