Banksy and the judge: why great art happens when things go wrong

Here's a suggestion that'll make some art purists wince. Banksy's controversial artwork outside the Royal Courts of Justice looks infinitely better now it's been scrubbed off than it ever did before.

That might sound like sacrilege. But bear with me and I'll explain why a government cleaner with a pressure washer might have just become an unwitting art director for the Banksy corporation.

When that mural first appeared, depicting a bewigged judge looming over a bloodied protester, it was provocative enough (see more excellent street art here). But it was also, if we're honest, kinda obvious. Free speech good, jailing protestors bad. Message received, and filed under 'Things We Already Know About Power Structures'.

But then the authorities did exactly what Banksy no doubt expected them to: scrambled to erase it. And here's when the magic happened. What remains isn't a painting; it's a phantom. A blurred outline that whispers, rather than screams.

In short, the scrubbing has created something far more unsettling than the original image: a ghostly apparition of state repression. And the very act of censorship has given added meaning to the piece, transforming a straightforward cartoon into something quite haunting.

Girl interrupted

All this makes me remember how this isn't the first time Banksy's work has been elevated by forces beyond his control. Cast your mind back to October 2018, when Girl with Balloon sold at Sotheby's for a tidy £1 million, only to purposely self-destruct moments later. The canvas dropped through a hidden shredder built into the frame, leaving the bottom half in tatters and creating the artwork that became known as Love is in the Bin.

What's come to light since, however, is that the shredding was actually supposed to destroy the entire canvas. Banksy later released a video with a caption that read: "In rehearsals, it worked every time." Yet on the day, the mechanism jammed halfway through, turning a perfectly composed image of a child into a cascade of paper strips.

It was all, in other words, an accident. But it turned out to be a glorious, multi-million-pound accident. Because when Love is in the Bin went back to auction three years later, it didn't just beat its guide price; it obliterated it. The partially shredded work sold for £18.5 million, making it Banksy's highest-grossing piece.

Think about that for a moment. A mechanical failure turned a £1 million artwork into an £18.5 million masterpiece. The broken shredder didn't destroy value; it multiplied it exponentially.

Beauty in the unplanned

There's something profound happening here that extends far beyond Banksy's particular brand of mischief. That sometimes the most honest expression of an idea comes not from careful planning, but from the messy, unpredictable collision between intent and reality.

For creatives in general, there's a lesson here about embracing the unplanned. How many of us have experienced that moment when a technical glitch, a client's "impossible" request, or budget cuts force us to abandon our carefully crafted concept… only to find that the compromise solution is actually stronger?

No one wants these problems to happen, of course. But it pays to remain open to the possibility that Plan B might actually be your masterpiece.

Think about Jackson Pollock's revolutionary "drip" technique, which emerged after he'd accidently knocked over a can of paint in his studio. Instead of just cleaning it up, he became captivated by the chaotic, swirling patterns it created.

Or how about Claude Monet, who developed cataracts which distorted his vision late in life? Rather than give up painting, he embraced this new, blurred reality, resulting in an impressionistic style that's today considered his most profound and expressive work.

I could go on, but you get the point. Sometimes the most powerful art emerges not from perfect execution, but from the creative friction between what you want to happen and what actually does.

Because in a world obsessed with control and predictability, there's still magic to be found in the art of the accident.

Want to read more about creative mistakes? See this piece on the worst professional mistakes.