Be informed

Gio Iozzi asks, why does it take an artist to expose the assault on our urban trees? This in light of Banksy’s latest addition to his portfolio recently found in Finsbury Park, London. It is an interesting work, and slightly different from his usual work, as it requires a significant prop. A tree. The tree is special because it has been “pollarded” – severely pruned in normal parlance. It has been pollarded because, according to the Council (the owners of the land on which the tree stands) it was diseased. It is a cherry tree, and they do not, it seems, respond well to radical pruning. There is also a question of whether diseased trees need to be pruned or felled. Many of us are a little diseased, but we do not lob off all of our limbs to deal with it. Or at least not as the first option.

It seems that Banksy, whoever he is, saw the opportunity to provide this sad tree with leaves by painting them – or spray painting them – onto an adjacent side wall. Viewed from one angle, the tree looks healthy and with full plumage. And like all Banksy artwork, there’s a message.

Art is there for the receiver to interpret, even if the artist provides the artwork with their own meaning. So we take liberties – rightly – with interpretations. So let us interpret this widely. This is a dual statement about the state of our urban trees and about climate change. Urban trees are under threat, just at a the time when we need them most. Our cities are getting hotter. Trees provide shade, for sure. But they also cool the air. Even diseased ones. So much urban landscape is devoid of trees. Devoid of ways of cooling and, increasingly, draining.

More broadly the onslaught against the planet’s forest ecosystems is relentless. The cutting and burning of the Amazon has slowed, but not stopped. Forests elsewhere in Indonesia and Africa are also in retreat. In Brazil particularly to provide land and feed for cattle. So not only do we lose carbon-capturing trees, we also increase our emissions through bovines, notorious methane producers. All because we want to eat large quantities of beef.

In response to Iozzi’s opening question about artists, I respond simply by saying, it is what artists do. It is why they are an essential part of the democratic process. Throughout history artists (not all, for sure) have made statements about society, power and morals. Degenerate art in Nazi Germany was degenerate for a reason. Artists have been subtle sometimes in their representations. Messages that eluded the censors because they were unable adequately to understand what they were actually looking at. Even Picasso, not known for his political statements, produced his masterpiece, Guernica, to say something to the perpetrators of the destruction of the Spanish town in 1937. Famously when asked by a Nazi Officer at his Paris studio whether he had “done” this painting, his reply was “no, you did this”.

To add value to the picture and to the metaphor, Islington Council put a protective fence around the work, but within 48 hours it had been defaced. I am pretty sure that Banksky was smiling. I rest my case.

Original picture source: https://twitter.com/IslingtonBC/status/1769722470355828821/photo/1