Artistic CleansingFollow

Seems like the money would be better spent painting the walls and facades that need a fresh coat, rather than "cleaning" the only interesting things around.

Well, that and the fact that the Buhddists probably owned the stones they were carving.

He seems talented and famous enough. Maybe he can afford his own walls. While I found his stuff interesting, I agree that a zero-tolerance policy is much easier than deciding which "artists" are allowed to deface property and which ones aren't.

Edited, Oct 29th 2007 9:59am by Jophiel

I'm not following you on this.

If the guy doesn't want to see his 'art' painted over and/or destroyed he ought not be leaving it lying around on city walls.





Edited, Oct 29th 2007 5:14pm by Elinda

If the Powers That Be smile and nod, he's not a guerilla graffitti artist either. He's just some schlub dumb enough to be doing free work for the Chamber of Tourism.Meh. Maybe it's because I just came off of my trip to Italy where every square inch was spraypainted by some idiot n'er-do-well but I don't have a ton of respect for defacing property you don't own on account of "art". I can't imagine Banksey honestly wants me to crap on his door handle and call it "Portrait of my Mother #44".

If he does, my starting price is $500,000.

Wow.

I have mixed feelings about graffiti/wall art. Most of it is trash, but some is very well executed, or moving, or both. I suppose the same can be said about any art form.

/nod There are some beautiful murals outside in San Diego and yet I look at other murals and think the artist was on crack.

Yeah, that I agree with. There is a threshold somewhere. He starts off as a guerilla graffiti artist, and he takes the inherent risk of it being washed. its not even a "risk" at this stage, just part of the artistic process.

But then his stuff becomes famous, and loved, purely through word of mouth, and he becomes "famous". I agree that there is a change there and then. Not only because it's not really guerilla, but also because he puts himself in a "subversive/anti-establishment" narrative which is not easy to reconcile with being famous and having Brad Pitt buy your stuff.

At this point on (which is where we are now), I agree that the whole "anti-establishment" side loses authenticity. But, by he same token, he becomes a recognised artist, and the Council therefore shouldn't wash away his stuff. If they do, they're killing art which can't be reproduced, since if banksy repaints his murals on normal paper tomorrow, it'll have 0 authenticity as "art".

All this to say that since it's clearly recognisable, and yet "un-reconstructable" art, they should clearly leave the damn things alone.



Crapping on someone's door handle and doing a cool paiting on a derelict wall that no one needs are not the same thing.

Even for a stupid Hackney Council worker.

Ninety-nine percent of all artistic endeavors end up as crap. Graffiti is just a little behind that curve.

I'd leave out tagging, since it's the equivalent of peeing on the wall to mark territory; but honestly I'm half convinced that's what most graffiti is. Some of it's just better-presented pee.

Or reading certain best-selling writers, or hearing "Britney, *****" through no fault of your own.

This one is unbelievable. Look at the detail in the mountain painting.

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/images/landscapes/palestine/pal_armchair.jpg

Edit: Damn he's good

http://www.banksy.co.uk/outdoors/images/landscapes/palestine/bucketboys2.jpg

Edited, Oct 29th 2007 12:46pm by Elderon

I've always found this one inspiring.

As for Camden, there are other reasons I think they're a bunch o' cUnts. Part of Banksy's appeal is that a lot of his work is ephemeral and the risk of its removal gives it edge.

I've been a fan for ages and hope he keeps on doing the street stuff as well as the lucrative commissioned stuff.

And Graffiti? Usually love it. The murals in Shankill & the Falls, the Trompe L'oeuils you see around French cities; even tags in remote places raise a smile on me face. Yes, I'd get pissy if someone painted a huge wang on the side of my house, but that's good old fashioned hypocrisy for you.

On a recent coast-to-coast train trip here in the US I saw plenty of amazing graffiti. Also read a recent article on it in Archaeology. The main thing I got was that it was a flowing art form, with artists free to paint over previous work in order for it to evolve. If this artist wants his works to last for all time, he should be doing them on canvas or privately owned lots.

Ideally graffiti should be allowed to stay up. But ideally new artists would paint over this dude's stuff in a few years, so I don't get complaining that it's destructive to a single artist, or comparing it to thousands-year old Buddhist works in an expected permanent art form. Maybe it's different in the UK. In the US every five or 20 years municipalities will mass whitewash their graffitied walls. This is a shame in some ways, but in others it's as inevitable as new artists themselves whitewashing so they can make their mark.

Any graffiti artist who wants his graffiti to never be covered up is a bit full of himself, or naive.

Tricky--good point

Edited, Oct 29th 2007 8:44pm by Palpitus

Banksy himself hasn't complained, but that's part of his all thing, he doesn't speak to the media, or give much interviews, most people have no idea what he looks like or what his real name is.

I totally agree with what a lot of people have said about grafitti being ephemeral, and I agree.

At the same time, this is beyong simple grafiti now, and i think if hackney council had half a brain cell between them, they would preserve his paintings and use them as part of the cultural heritage of Hackney, instead of cleaning it because "the government judges us on how many clean walls we have." It has to be the stupidest and most bureaucractic reason to kill some art, ever.

Personally, I love the stuff he did on the Israel-Palestinian wall, the two that Eldy linked, of course, and this one.