{"id":291777,"date":"2025-11-18T03:54:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T03:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291777\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T03:54:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T03:54:29","slug":"scotlands-banksy-gives-glasgows-duke-statue-a-pigeon-topping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291777\/","title":{"rendered":"Scotland\u2019s \u2018Banksy\u2019 gives Glasgow\u2019s duke statue a pigeon topping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Visitors to Scotland\u2019s largest city are used to seeing its most famous statue wearing a traffic cone. <\/p>\n

But the Duke of Wellington memorial outside the city\u2019s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) on Queen Street has been given a surprise new look \u2014 by a street artist dubbed the Scottish Banksy.<\/p>\n

The makeover by the Rebel Bear is a statue of a pigeon reading a newspaper with a traffic cone<\/a> on its head sitting on top of the duke.<\/p>\n

\"Statue<\/p>\n

The pigeon gets its own cone and special edition newspaper to read<\/p>\n

GERARD FERRY \/ALAMY LIVE NEWS<\/p>\n

\"Artwork<\/p>\n

JEFF J MITCHELL\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

JEFF J MITCHELL\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

Posting pictures of their work on Instagram, the Rebel Bear wrote: \u201cThe dignified and undignified beasts. Located: well, youse know where.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wellington\u2019s head is topped with a dollop of white pigeon poop underneath the bird\u2019s backside.<\/p>\n

The Rebel Bear<\/a> makes political street art out of Glasgow\u2019s town centre. In August they unveiled a mural of a child trying to climb a broken ladder towards the Hope Street road sign, carrying a Palestinian flag.<\/p>\n

Last month they were spotted painting a large mural on a wall on Washington Street while wearing a bear suit. <\/p>\n

The pigeon\u2019s newspaper is titled The Daily Dropping and is complete with news and sports sections.<\/p>\n

The headlines are \u201cSeagull Gang Caught\u201d, \u201cPark bench poop crisis deepens\u201d and \u2014 in relation to a pigeon race in the sports section \u2014 \u201cCliffy wins by a beak\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"Equestrian<\/p>\n

Wellington\u2019s cone had a propeller added to mark the end of Banksy\u2019s exhibition in 2023<\/p>\n

CREDIT GERARD FERRY\/ALAMY LIVE NEWS<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sauchiehall Street is a disgrace to Glasgow, says Andrew Neil<\/a><\/p>\n

The Instagram post about the makeover was liked more than 2,400 times and has drawn more than 100 comments. Users called the artwork \u201cbrilliant\u201d, \u201cabsolutely phenomenal\u201d, and \u201csuperb\u201d. Others called for it to remain as a permanent feature, instead of the traditional cone.<\/p>\n

The Rebel Bear has made another artwork inspired by the Duke of Wellington before. In 2023 a painting in Glasgow\u2019s Argyle Street showed a rat<\/a> sitting on a mock-up of the duke statue<\/a>. It had a traffic cone above its head and was raising it as if tipping its hat.<\/p>\n

The painting emerged during Banksy\u2019s Cut and Run exhibition<\/a> at the GoMa. The artist revealed his exhibition was at the Royal Exchange Square venue due to his love of the statue and its add-on.<\/p>\n

At the time, the Rebel Bear shared a photo of his own work on Instagram and wrote: \u201cA tip of the hat to welcome the man himself, Banksy, coming to Glasgow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The equestrian statue of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was sculpted by the Italian-born French artist Carlo Marochetti and went up in 1844.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visitors to Scotland\u2019s largest city are used to seeing its most famous statue wearing a traffic cone. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-291777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}