Avon and Somerset Constabulary, 2000

Avon and Somerset Constabulary is one of Banksy’s earliest and most direct critiques of surveillance and police authority. Against a stark monochrome blue background, two police officers stand side by side, yet neither is watching the public. One speaks into a mobile phone while the other films the scene with a camcorder, transforming the agents of law into observers whose attention is focused on recording rather than protecting.

Another version in Pink of Avon and Somerset Constabulary of the exact same size was bought-in at Bonhams in London, on 23 October 2008.

Created in 2000 and exhibited at Banksy’s landmark Severnshed exhibition in Bristol, the work takes its title from the police force responsible for the artist’s native Bristol. Rather than depicting overt confrontation, Banksy highlights the quiet expansion of the surveillance state, suggesting that modern policing increasingly relies on observation and documentation as instruments of control.

Executed in an edition of only two unique colorways, Avon and Somerset Constabulary marks the beginning of a theme that would become one of the defining threads of Banksy’s oeuvre. From Flying Copper and Rude Copper to Stop and Search and SWAT Van, Banksy repeatedly transforms the figure of the police officer into a symbol through which he questions authority, civil liberties, and the uneasy relationship between security and freedom.