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Here's what we know for certain about the art-world enigma named Banksy. "Banksy is NOT on Facebook, Twitter or represented by Steve Lazarides or any other commercial gallery." The source of that simple and direct statement is the artist's...
Here's what we know for certain about the art-world enigma named Banksy. "Banksy is NOT on Facebook, Twitter or represented by Steve Lazarides or any other commercial gallery." The source of that simple and direct statement is the artist's website. We also know that the artist has made a great number of stenciled graffiti paintings on walls in the U.K., North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In 2010, he released a film about his work called Exit Through the Gift Shop, and in 2015, Banksy curated and participated in a group show in the English seaside town of Weston-super-Mare called "Dismaland," which was open to the public for 36 days during that August and September.
But in a way, it matters little that we don't know the real name of this multimedia artist, or why he prefers anonymity over the fame that would usually follow an artist of his stature. On the other hand, maybe that's all there is to it—being followed around by paparazzi like a common celebrity does not exactly sound like the ideal creative conditions for an artist.
Besides, all you have to do is look at Banksy's graffiti pieces, objects, and prints to know what makes him tick. His work is at once angry and sweet, outraged and playful, ironic and sincere; it's not much of a stretch to assume the artist is like-minded.
Take the graffiti painting he stenciled around the corner of a windowless, cinder-block building. To the right of the corner, a boy painted in shades of gray and wearing a knitted cap, snow mittens, and winter clothes sticks his red tongue out to catch what appear to be snow flakes falling gently around him. But to the left of the building's sharp corner, we see that the source of the "snow" giving the lad so much innocent pleasure is the ash produced by a roaring dumpster fire. That push and pull between the world as it appears and the world as it really is can be found in much of Banksy's work.
Nor does Banksy give the interiors we create for ourselves—the paper, if you will, on the walls of our 21st-century caves—a break. In one piece made for his 2019 Gross Domestic Product pop-up store in Croydon, just south of London, the artist updated the trope of Victorian taxidermy by mounting the head of a squirrel on a wooden shield, its tail comically appearing behind the shield and running vertically up the wall. One of the squirrel's eyes is squinting, as if it had been injured during the struggle to kill the creature, and around its neck we see the apparent cause of its demise—a plastic soda ring appears to have strangled the little feller. Here, again, Banksy has given us a work of art that is at once gloomy and funny, steeped in history but perfectly willing to toss that history in the bin.
Speaking of which, perhaps the most famous Banksy piece in recent memory was the 2018 sale of a 2006 painting titled "Girl with Balloon," which was an art-product version of a graffiti piece he'd been stenciling on walls since 2002. When the hammer came down on the sale of the painting at Sotheby's in London (it brought just over one-million pounds), a paper shredder secreted by Banksy within the frame was turned on via remote control, causing fully half of the piece to literally be cut into ribbons. On his website, Banksy explained that the new shredded piece would now be called "Love is in the Bin."
Continue readingHere's what we know for certain about the art-world enigma named Banksy. "Banksy is NOT on Facebook, Twitter or represented by Steve Lazarides or any other commercial gallery." The source of that simple and direct statement is the artist's website. We also know that the artist has made a great number of stenciled graffiti paintings on walls in the U.K., North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In 2010, he released a film about his work called Exit Through the Gift Shop, and in 2015, Banksy curated and participated in a group show in the English seaside town of Weston-super-Mare called "Dismaland," which was open to the public for 36 days during that August and September.
But in a way, it matters little that we don't know the real name of this multimedia artist, or why he prefers anonymity over the fame that would usually follow an artist of his stature. On the other hand, maybe that's all there is to it—being followed around by paparazzi like a common celebrity does not exactly sound like the ideal creative conditions for an artist.
Besides, all you have to do is look at Banksy's graffiti pieces, objects, and prints to know what makes him tick. His work is at once angry and sweet, outraged and playful, ironic and sincere; it's not much of a stretch to assume the artist is like-minded.
Take the graffiti painting he stenciled around the corner of a windowless, cinder-block building. To the right of the corner, a boy painted in shades of gray and wearing a knitted cap, snow mittens, and winter clothes sticks his red tongue out to catch what appear to be snow flakes falling gently around him. But to the left of the building's sharp corner, we see that the source of the "snow" giving the lad so much innocent pleasure is the ash produced by a roaring dumpster fire. That push and pull between the world as it appears and the world as it really is can be found in much of Banksy's work.
Nor does Banksy give the interiors we create for ourselves—the paper,...
Here's what we know for certain about the art-world enigma named Banksy. "Banksy is NOT on Facebook, Twitter or represented by Steve Lazarides or any other commercial gallery." The source of that simple and direct statement is the artist's website. We also know that the artist has made a great number of stenciled graffiti paintings on walls in the U.K., North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In 2010, he released a film about his work called Exit Through the Gift Shop, and in 2015, Banksy curated and participated in a group show in the English seaside town of Weston-super-Mare called "Dismaland," which was open to the public for 36 days during that August and September.
But in a way, it matters little that we don't know the real name of this multimedia artist, or why he prefers anonymity over the fame that would usually follow an artist of his stature. On the other hand, maybe that's all there is to it—being followed around by paparazzi like a common celebrity does not exactly sound like the ideal creative conditions for an artist.
Besides, all you have to do is look at Banksy's graffiti pieces, objects, and prints to know what makes him tick. His work is at once angry and sweet, outraged and playful, ironic and sincere; it's not much of a stretch to assume the artist is like-minded.
Take the graffiti painting he stenciled around the corner of a windowless, cinder-block building. To the right of the corner, a boy painted in shades of gray and wearing a knitted cap, snow mittens, and winter clothes sticks his red tongue out to catch what appear to be snow flakes falling gently around him. But to the left of the building's sharp corner, we see that the source of the "snow" giving the lad so much innocent pleasure is the ash produced by a roaring dumpster fire. That push and pull between the world as it appears and the world as it really is can be found in much of Banksy's work.
Nor does Banksy give the interiors we create for ourselves—the paper, if you will, on the walls of our 21st-century caves—a break. In one piece made for his 2019 Gross Domestic Product pop-up store in Croydon, just south of London, the artist updated the trope of Victorian taxidermy by mounting the head of a squirrel on a wooden shield, its tail comically appearing behind the shield and running vertically up the wall. One of the squirrel's eyes is squinting, as if it had been injured during the struggle to kill the creature, and around its neck we see the apparent cause of its demise—a plastic soda ring appears to have strangled the little feller. Here, again, Banksy has given us a work of art that is at once gloomy and funny, steeped in history but perfectly willing to toss that history in the bin.
Speaking of which, perhaps the most famous Banksy piece in recent memory was the 2018 sale of a 2006 painting titled "Girl with Balloon," which was an art-product version of a graffiti piece he'd been stenciling on walls since 2002. When the hammer came down on the sale of the painting at Sotheby's in London (it brought just over one-million pounds), a paper shredder secreted by Banksy within the frame was turned on via remote control, causing fully half of the piece to literally be cut into ribbons. On his website, Banksy explained that the new shredded piece would now be called "Love is in the Bin."
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