Banksy has literally defaced a statue in his latest work, replacing the face of a replica statue with pixels as a political statement:
Banksy titled the statue “Cardinal Sin”, and designed it as a comment on recent crimes perpetrated by the Catholic church—a response to the child abuse scandal that was covered-up.
In a statement, Banksy said: “I’m never sure who deserves to be put on a pedestal or crushed under one.”
It's a statement, no doubt, but is it worthy of sitting alongside the works of Van Dyck and Rubens?
Link
The article also says it's an 18th century stone replica, not a replica of an 18th century statue. So did he actually create a replica of a statue or deface an original one? Not very clear...
That said, I'm not sure I like the last statement of the article, as if we are all trying to compare him to artists of the traditional schools of art theory. Banksy is anything but. I would compare him more to V from "V for Vendetta".