Banksy in Detroit

An incident in Detroit raises several questions about street art. Renowned British graffiti artist Banksy visited a crumbling factory in the city and painted a wall.

Discovered last weekend, the stenciled work shows a forlorn boy holding a can of red paint next to the words “I remember when all this was trees.” But by Tuesday, artists from the 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios, a feisty grassroots group, had excavated the 7-by-8-foot, 1,500-pound cinder block wall with a masonry saw and forklift and moved the piece to their grounds near the foot of the Ambassador Bridge in southwest Detroit.

The move — a guerilla act on top of Banksy’s initial guerilla act — has sparked an intense debate about the nature of graffiti art, including complicated questions of meaning, legality, value and ownership. Some say the work should be protected and preserved at all costs. Others say that no one had a right to move it — and that the power and meaning of graffiti art is so intrinsic to its location that to relocate it is to kill it.

The gallery defends its action by pointing out that the artwork would have been destroyed soon along with the building. Others respond that Banksy may have intended for that to happen. And then there’s the fact that the context gave the painting it meaning in the first place. One could say that while Banksy broke laws against trespassing and vandalism, the gallery is guilty of theft. The property owner hasn’t said anything about it yet. No one yet knows who, if anyone, stands to profit from the incident. Link

Banksy Art Painted Over in Australia

MELBOURNE Council has inadvertently painted over a priceless piece of CBD street art by world-famous stencil guru Banksy.

In a move sure to anger Melbourne’s street art community, council’s anti-graffiti crew has painted over what is believed to be the only remaining work by the enigmatic British artist left in the city, the Melbourne Leader reports.

The image of a rat descending in a parachute adorned the wall of an old council building behind the Forum in Hosier Lane.

Hugh Thorne, of Hosier Lane cocktail bar Misty Place, said council officers had told him about the mistake this morning.

“It’s a shame, but no one really knew it was there. It was a quiet one,” Mr Thorne said.

Vandals created a public outcry in 2008 when they poured paint over another iconic Banksy stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat on the corner of Swanston St and Flinders Lane. In that same year, another Banksy artwork stencilled onto a London wall sold for $472,528.

Melbourne Council has introduced a permit system that can give building owners permission to display graffiti works, but Mr Thorne said the building displaying Banksy’s rat did not have one.

“The council is trying to clean up all of the tagging in the city and they’re trying to differentiate between tagging and street art and I guess in this case they just couldn’t,” Mr Thorne said.

“At the end of the day, if they really want to get an art restorer in and spend thousands of dollars they could bring it back.”

Melbourne Leader is awaiting comment from the council.

link

Banksy and the Band

The painting arrived outside Simon Duncan's west London home inside a battered old van. Overnight it has put him at the heart of street culture and made him £200,000 wealthier. The new work by Banksy was sent unexpectedly last week to Duncan, a 41-year-old web developer, as compensation for the world-renowned graffiti artist having coincidentally chosen the name of Duncan's band as the title for his film, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

"I am a drummer in a band that was called Exit Through the Gift Shop that I started with friends 18 months before I turned 40. It was a kind of midlife crisis, but we are still going, with a different line-up, and it has become a bit more serious," said Duncan, who agreed to change his band's name to Brace Yourself in an arrangement with Banksy.



"We had these hilarious emails from someone saying he was Banksy, but we didn't know if they were genuine," said Duncan. "Then a scruffy white van arrived. The driver had no idea what he was carrying." The band plan to unveil their new name and backdrop, which shows the grim reaper riding a dodgem car, at a London gig this week.

"When we saw the painting we could not believe it," said Duncan. "It is the size of a double bed, for a start. We had to insure it, so a man from Sotheby's came over to see it in my loft. He said to me, 'This is surreal. I have just been valuing an 18th-century portrait in a stately home, but it is not as valuable as this.'" The band have put the painting in storage at Sotheby's and will perform in front of a full-size copy.

A Banksy Movie: Exit Through the Gift Shop

From The New York Times

"Exit Through the Gift Shop" is about an eccentric French shop keeper and amateur film maker who was so obsessed with Banksy that he wanted to make a documentary about him. But the British-born Banksy turned the tables and made a film about the effort to film him.

The trailer:

Banksy becomes a pet shop boy in New York

Looks like this is an exhibit we have to go see.

Banksy has just opened a new installation entitled The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill.

It concentrates on the contradictory ways in which people see and use animals – for instance as food, pets, exotic beasts, and clothing.



In this work, entitled Chicken Nuggets, two bite-sized ready-to-eat pieces peck at a single-serving carton of tomato ketchup, watched over by their mother hen.


A second installation in the series shows what appears to be a leopard resting on a branch in a zoo enclosure, which turns out on closer inspection to be a fur coat. Another sees two fishfingers swimming gently around in a goldfish bowl.

The exhibition is on at 89, Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York, until October 31.

Source.

Banksy Identified

We've admired his work many times in the past. Now it looks as if Banksy has been identified.

The artist formerly known as Banksy

Apparently his name is Robin Gunningham, age 34, a former public schoolboy from Bristol.

Click on the label of Banksy for all previous posts.

Banksy joins plastic bag campaign

Banksy appears to have joined the campaign to ban plastic bags.

The guerrilla artist is believed to be responsible for a new image to emerge overnight on the wall of a north London pharmacy.

The painting depicts two children pledging allegiance to a Tesco plastic carrier bag in place of a flag.

The owner of the pharmacy in Essex Road, Islington, said he was thrilled by his new paint job.

"I just walked into the shop on Monday and, lo and behold, there it was," he told the London Paper.

"I am absolutely delighted - I think it's just fantastic. I've heard how much these works can go for.

"We would consider selling the wall, but not the shop. I think anyone who would want to erase it is crazy. It's a piece of art."

£208,100 eBay bid for Banksy wall

You knew it was inevitable.

Online bidding for a wall painted on by graffiti artist Banksy has closed with a final bid of £208,100.

However, neither auction site eBay nor seller Luti Fagbenle has confirmed if the bid has been accepted.



The painting is on a wall on the side of a media production firm's base in Portobello Road in west London. Mr Fagbenle owns the company.

The final bid does not include the cost of removal and repair of the wall, estimated to be about £5,000.

via Arbroath