After the removal of Banksy’s latest mural, Mission takes a look at other artworks censored in our time.
On September 8th 2025, a fresh Banksy mural appeared overnight, splashed across a wall outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London. The mural, depicting a protester being beaten by a judge wielding a gavel, blood splattered across their sign, was removed just days after its appearance.
Banksy himself may be an anonymous street artist, but you would be hard pressed to find a person in the U.K. that hasn’t heard his name. Over the last 30 years, Banksy’s graffiti has become a staple of British art, his work some of the most iconic and recognisable of our time. But, where his work is usually praised and revered, often raising the value of the property that they are painted on, this most recent work seems to have crossed a line, leading to the attempted removal of the piece and even a campaign to unmask and prosecute the artist.
While the authorities claim the removal was the result of ‘criminal damage’ to the listed building it was painted on, many see it as an attempt to silence the presumed political statement behind the work – though the art work wasn’t accompanied by any explanation, it did appear following the 900 arrests at London’s Palestine Action protests the week proceeding it.
Modern Art’s Political Censorship Proble
Banksy’s most recent run-in with the law may have made headlines, but it is certainly not the first political piece to ruffle feathers. Over the last fifty years, political art has been stifled and silenced across the world. In effort to explore what seems to be an increasingly tumultuous relationship between the arts and the law, here is a timeline of five of the most shocking moments of artistic censorship.
Peter Kennard “Santiago Stadium 1” & “Santiago Stadium 3” – Barbican Centre, 1985.
Peter Kennard’s photomontages “Santiago Stadium 1” & “Santiago Stadium 3,” symbolising the violent military repression going on in 1970s Chile as part of his exhibition “Images Against War” were ordered to be removed just a day before the exhibition was to open at the Barbican Centre in London. It later turned out that the reason for this removal was that high-ranking Chilean finance officials were due to walk past the images that same day. Kennard maintains that his art was censored to appease a foreign military regime.
Karen Finley “We keep our victims ready,” 1989.
In 1989, artist Karen Finley completed a performance art piece named “We keep our victims ready,” in which she covered her naked body in chocolate as a metaphor for the victimisation of women. The performance was a response to the case of a 16 year-old girl, Tawana Brawley, who was found in a trash bag covered in feces after having been raped.
The piece caused much controversy at the time, with conservative Senator Jesse Helms calling the piece ‘offensive,’ and withholding Finley’s educational grants for violating ‘standards of decency.’
Yoshua Okon, “Freedom Fries,” – 2014
Mexican artist Yoshua Okon’s video installation ‘Freedom Fries’ depicts an obese, naked body photographed atop a McDonald’s table as a commentary on consumerism and overconsumption. The piece was refused acceptance from a London based gallery as a result of its ‘political nature.’
Zoya Falkova, “Evermust” – 2019
In a feminist exhibition dedicated to women’s rights held at Kyrgyzstan’s National Museum of Fine Arts in 2019, Zoya Falkova was among many women to have their work censored and removed by Kyrgyzstan’s government.
Falkova’s piece, titled ‘Evermust,’ consisted of a punching bag in the shape of a woman’s torso, hanging from the ceiling, and stood as a powerful visual metaphor for violence against women. The exhibition caused outrage from right-wing nationalists in Kyrgyzstan, and resulted in the eventual ousting of Mira Djangaracheva, the museum’s director.
Patrick Amadon’s “No Rioters” – 2023
Los Angeles based artist Patrick Amadon had his digital artwork projected on the facade of a department store in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay in 2023. The piece, titled “No Rioters,” was removed after Amadon revealed that it contained hidden messages in support of jailed ‘pro-democracy’ activists. The work’s title comes from a popular protest slogan from Hong Kong’s 2019 protests: “No rioters, only a tyrannical regime.”
The qualities that can make artworks like these so dangerous to authority – timelessness; the transgression of language, geography and religion, combined with the ability to unite viewers in a shared cause, is also what makes them so important. Art can hold a mirror to the society we live in. If we don’t like what we see, doesn’t that say enough?
Image courtesy of Dan Meyers/Unsplash.
