''Spy Booth'' was an artwork by

Banksy Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigram ...

in Cheltenham,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. The piece has been seen as a critique of the global surveillance disclosures of 2013. In 2014, Robin Barton and Bankrobber London helped with the preservation of the artwork, and attempted to broker the removal and sale of the piece. However the artwork was painted onto a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

(

153–159 Fairview Road 153–159 Fairview Road is a terrace of four houses in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on the south side of Fairview Road beside the roundabout at its junction with Hewlett Road. The terrace became a Grade II listed building in 1972. The street arti ...

) and the council prevented it from being removed, giving it retrospective listed building consent in 2015 and affording it some protection from removal. Despite this, the artwork was removed, destroying it in August 2016. ''Spy Booth'' was auctioned as nine stucco-faced brick fragments sawed from the wall and as an

NFT A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided, that is recorded in a blockchain, and that is used to certify authenticity and ownership. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the b ...

. The

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Uni ...

has used the picture, as a symbolic image for "How does an analyst catch a terrorist?", on its "what we do" page, on its website.

References

External links

* Banksy
''Spy Booth''
Photo: Jules Annan/Barcroft Media 14 April 2014 2014 in art English contemporary works of art Culture in Cheltenham Global surveillance GCHQ Graffiti in England Works by Banksy 2014 in England Lost works of art {{England-stub