Urban Art Association

www.thisisbristol.co.uk/homepage/Banksy-paid-1-stage-Bristol/article-1249569-detail/article.html

Banksy was paid the princely sum of £1 by Bristol City Council for staging his massively popular exhibition at the City Museum and Art Gallery.

The contract drawn up between a company representing the graffiti artist and the city council has been released after a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

It also insists the museum destroy all CCTV footage that might have captured the elusive artist install, view or remove the exhibits 30 days after it was shot.

The document, published online, also commits the museum to cooperating with "the creation by the artist of a book about the exhibition".

But key areas of the contract have been blacked out by the city council before the document was released.

They include insurance valuations of each individual exhibit, several clauses relating to the costs of staging the exhibition and even the name of the company representing Banksy.

In a letter accompanying the documents, council solicitor Shahzia Daya said the blacked out or "redacted" information had been removed on grounds that it was personal information, subject to legal professional privilege or concerned commercial interests and "the public interest in disclosure is not believed to outweigh this information being withheld".

The letter said: "This is because disclosure may lead to the identity of the artist being at risk, which is crucial to his commercial interests and the need to maintain confidentiality regarding the special contractual arrangements between the artist and the council."

Another section of the contract, which was scored through but remains on the document released by the council, would have committed the museum to resisting any Freedom of Information request for copies of its CCTV footage.

Although the contract does not refer to Banksy or the company which represented him in the agreement, it does refer to an organisation called PCO, believed to be short for Pest Control Office, the official organisation for verifying Banksy works.

It also reveals the meticulous cataloguing of each item in the exhibition. Names of the items include the animatronic models Chicken Nuggets in a Birdcage and Two Kissing Hot Dogs.

The free Banksy vs Bristol Museum exhibition has now attracted more than 230,000 visitors since it opened on June 13, bringing huge financial rewards to Bristol and putting it on the art map.

Bristol City Council deputy leader Simon Cook said: "This is definitely the best pound the city council has ever spent."

when you hear about public moneys being wasted on art it is always loudest in the english newspapers so I hope the same newspapers make as much fuss about this side of the banksy show.....

for the city i think it is the best pound they ever spemnt for tourism and interest in Bristol. BRILLIANT!!!