LONDON OLYMPICS

Banksy's Alternative Olympics

Four days before the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, Banksy unveiled two new works responding to the transformation of the capital surrounding the event. Photographs appeared on his website on 23 July 2012, but Banksy did not reveal where the murals had been painted.

In Hackney Welcomes the Olympics, an Olympic athlete prepares to throw what initially appears to be a javelin. Instead, he holds a military missile. The image directly echoed the controversial security measures surrounding London 2012, which included the deployment of surface-to-air missiles at several locations around the capital. The substitution is characteristically economical: the pose of athletic competition remains intact, while the equipment transforms sport into warfare.

The second work, Going for Mould, takes the opposite approach. A pole vaulter is shown suspended above a real wire fence, using the existing urban environment as an improvised Olympic stadium. On the ground beneath him, a discarded mattress becomes his landing mat.

The title parodies the familiar Olympic ambition of “going for gold.” Against the immaculate arenas and enormous expenditure associated with London 2012, Banksy substitutes a neglected wall, wire fencing and a mouldering mattress. The work is particularly successful because so little of the scene actually needs to be painted: Banksy supplies the athlete, while the street supplies the sporting equipment.

The Other Side of London 2012

The works appeared during an intensified crackdown on graffiti ahead of the Games, as London attempted to present a carefully controlled image to an international audience. Banksy's decision not to disclose their locations was therefore significant. The physical works remained elusive, while the photographs released online circulated around the world.

Together with Slave Labour, which had appeared in Wood Green earlier in 2012 and depicted a child producing Union Jack bunting, the two Olympic interventions offered an alternative commentary on the Games. Behind the official celebration of sport, regeneration and national pride, Banksy pointed toward militarization, inequality and the less polished urban landscape beyond the Olympic venues.

In one image, the javelin becomes a missile. In the other, the stadium becomes a fence and a discarded mattress. Banksy left the athletes untouched and changed the world around them.