ROYAL GUARD (PISSING)

The Guard Off Duty

Painted in London in 2002, Royal Guard depicts one of the most recognizable symbols of British ceremony caught in a decidedly unceremonious act. Wearing his scarlet tunic and towering bearskin hat, a guardsman turns toward the wall to urinate.

The joke depends upon the contrast. The King's—or at the time, Queen's—Guard traditionally embodies discipline, decorum and the carefully choreographed spectacle of the British state. Banksy retains the immaculate uniform but replaces the ceremonial pose with an ordinary bodily function. Beneath the costume and symbolism of authority is simply another human being.

The original street setting made the image considerably stronger. Positioned at the corner of an unremarkable brick wall in Borough, the guardsman appears almost naturally present in the street rather than displayed as an isolated image. The red of his tunic provides the only strong color against the surrounding masonry, making a figure normally associated with palaces and royal ceremony conspicuous in an everyday London environment. The work was subsequently reproduced in Banksy's Wall and Piece.

Bringing Authority Down to Earth

Royal Guard belongs to Banksy's early fascination with overturning familiar symbols of authority. Policemen kiss, soldiers paint peace signs, and here one of Britain's most ceremonial military figures quietly urinates against a wall.

There is also a particularly appropriate relationship between subject and medium. Urinating on a wall is itself a minor transgression of public order. Banksy depicts that transgression through another unauthorized act on exactly the same wall. The supposedly disciplined representative of authority and the graffiti artist briefly occupy the same position: both are doing something in public that they are not supposed to do.

The mural no longer survives, but the image became one of Banksy's recognizable early motifs and was also circulated in poster form in 2002.