Is Banksy art or graffiti? Here's what Yahoo readers think
Yahoo UK's poll of the week lets you vote and indicate your strength of feeling on one of the week's hot topics. After 72 hours the poll closes and, each Friday, we'll publish and analyse the results, giving readers the chance to see how polarising a topic has become and if their view chimes with other Yahoo UK readers.
Banksy’s animal-themed series appeared to come to an end this week.
From 5 August until Tuesday, the street artist, whose identity is unknown but widely speculated on, unveiled animal artworks across London on consecutive days.
As ever, Banksy’s pieces attracted huge attention from the public, not to mention thieves in Peckham who took a satellite dish and contractors in Cricklewood who removed a billboard for safety reasons.
But the series across the capital also prompted a question to resurface: is Banksy’s work art or graffiti?
Whether or not it should be considered art is subjective, but a crowd's reaction this week - “Why did you do that?!” - to his eighth piece being defaced in Charlton shows how much it means to some people.
The subjective nature of the debate was further demonstrated by the removal of Sunday’s artwork: piranhas on a police sentry box near the Old Bailey court.
The City of London Corporation's decision to remove the piece to preserve it while it searches for a permanent home suggested a local authority which sees the cultural value of his work.
However, City of London Police still said it was investigating "criminal damage", suggesting that no matter how popular Banksy's artwork might be, the law is still the law.
Yahoo News UK asked our readers what they think and here are the results...
Our first poll from Monday at midday until midday on Thursday asked: "Is Banksy art or graffiti?"
It received 1,719 votes and showed 60% of Yahoo readers consider it art, with 35% seeing it as vandalism.
Six in 10 Yahoo readers see Banksy's pieces as art as opposed to graffiti
Yahoo readers were also asked, on a scale of zero to 10, "how happy would you be to have a Banksy in your local area? (0 = unhappy)".
This poll received 1,016 votes with the most common vote being 10, which received 502. A happiness rating of nine had 110 votes with zero 206.
The average strength-of-feeling score on all the votes was 6.79, showing a majority of readers would welcome a Banksy artwork in their area.
A majority of Yahoo readers would be happy if a Banksy artwork appeared in their area
Our original poll article can be found here.
Meanwhile, a separate YouGov poll carried out on Tuesday showed Yahoo readers' views on Banksy generally tally with those of the wider public.
From a survey of 4,523 British adults, 65% said they have a favourable view of Banksy, compared to just 12% saying unfavourable.
Read more of Yahoo UK's Poll of the week articles
