Tor (@toris64) picked us up at the airport using his hand-made faux-Banksy Nuart sign, wearing his fresh Dismaland t-shirt, and we immediately knew we were home here in Stavanger. Born and raised in this town Tor knows it’s every turn and twist and because he travels extensively for his regular profession, he also gets to explore other cities and take photos of Street Art and share them on Instagram. Luckily there is a pretty notable festival right here and his enthusiasm grows with the opportunity to meet so many of his favorite artists each year.
This small Norwegian town is again hosting a kick-ass mural/street art/graffiti festival again this year and its sort of rainy today but Icy & Sot are painting anyway, as are Ella & Pitr. Ernest Zacharevic has arrived and Martin Whatson has finished his piece, as have Pejac and Dot Dot Dot. Harmen de Koop is devising a live performance with an economist giving a lecture on a wall Thursday (not kidding), Bordalo is gathering garbage and throwing it into the back of a truck for his trash installation, and Martha Cooper just arrived this morning and Tor took her to find a hidden conceptual piece in a doorway by Fra. Biancoshock that says “Martha Please Take a Picture of Me”.
Once settled in yesterday we immediately began tooling around town with Isaac Cordal, the Northern Spanish activist with a big heart in these small sculptures of desperate/guilty/soulless little corporate men who he positions in precarious locations wherever he travels. We carried a bag full of these fellows yesterday while he shouldered an expandable ladder and marched though the hilly streets looking upward, scanning battered Noregian industrial architecture for opportune ledges for his little men to teeter off the edge of.
As we have featured his work numerous times over the years on BSA, it was finally great to meet Cordal and accompany him on his interventions – which sort of magically transform a mundane spot into a stage for his “figurativos” to contemplate their lives. Cordal says they are meant to symbolize many things – one of them being the corrupt wolves in business suits who are running much of the world today, and you immediately know of whom he speaks. Comedic in placement, dastardly in deed, you want them to fall, or jump, but somehow it is better that they are frozen in the midst of their drama, frozen with fright and fear.
Cordal also talks about the current romance that many public art fans are having with the mural as a means of public expression (which we can verify) and how he feels like his very small concrete (now resin) men can be just as powerful as a large mural. And in a way we can entirely agree – the placing of these figures transforms the space by engaging your imagination, and you KNOW where that can take you; the key unlocks a part of the viewer that he or she once accessed regularly as a child when wild stallions and robots and Jesus and pop stars and Darth Vader all seemed like plausible characters in the same play. Seeing Isaac and his enthusiasm will assure you that art in the streets can have a formidable impact on a passerby, no matter its diminutive scale.
Banksy has ventured into the entertaining resort business. One that would possibly be your last resort.
A scathing social and political critique of any number of targets that routinely come under the purview of this artist/curator/commentator/showman, this big tent brings everyone inside for a beating. Rampant capitalism, civic hypocrisy, the war industry, advertising deceit, an encroaching police state, environmental destruction, the widening gap in social equality, xenophobia with its inherent racism, and our insatiable penchant for sunny denial are a partial list of woes addressed. If you don’t feel sickened or guilty after visiting Dismaland perhaps you could affect a certain smugness that says, “Finally, someone is talking about all of these important issues that I’ve been going on about.”
Cheerfully cynical and sarcastic, this magic kingdom is most successful when you are challenged to reconsider a behavior or position – and with 50 or so invited co-exhibitionists, some whose bodies of work are substantial on their own, Banksy clearly intends to challenge you and indict you with a relentless barrage of over-the-top funhouse symbolism and metaphor. If, for example, you are enthralled by those American right-wing Christian Halloween “Hell House” installations that feature pregnant teen girls in stirrups and sallow-faced gay HIV-positive patients in hospital beds you’ll cherish the harrowing Banksy path to salvation. Alas, there may be no salvation, sorry.
Here you can see bright yellow bathtub ducks swimming in an oil spill, there you can play paparazzi with the other flashing bulbs recording Cinderalla’s overturned carriage crash. Next, get a load of the toy boats dangerously overloaded with refugees and the knife-wielding butcher eye-balling the horses he’s riding with on the merry-go-round. If Disneyland clobbers you with candy-covered bromides and implausibly rosy fantasy, Dismaland brings you to the edge of the abyss of man’s folly and gently nudges you to fall into it. Or jump.
Particularly effective to the experience are the grim and listless personnel who mind the grounds and offer no clear or meaningful help. Not quite menacing, they could just be impersonating sullen teens. Perhaps they are buckling under the weight of low wages and dim opportunities on the horizon or are simply humiliated by the balloons some are made to carry that say, “I’m an Imbecil”.
On a particularly gray and dreary day periodically warmed with the sun, the photographer named Butterfly made her pilgrimage to this nightmare fairy tale by the seaside for the big opening and below she shares with BSA readers her images and observations on the pop-up exhibition to help us all feel a bit of the dreadful experience first-hand.
Weston-Super-Mare is a British seaside town, 30 minutes from Bristol, where families spend the day out donkey riding, visiting the Seaquarium or trying arcades at the Pier while kids build sandcastles on a muddy beach in miserable weather.
Rumors had been circulating for weeks about big installations being built in the former Tropicana, a derelict lido closed since 2000 which once hosted the biggest outdoor swimming pool in Europe. The rumblings and the build up to the announcement to the show was phenomenal, along with the conjecture: Is it a film set? Is it a show? Is it a fair? Is it art?
Finally we know: This is Banksy’s biggest show to date: Dismaland. It is, according to promotional materials “is a festival of art, amusements and entry-level anarchism.”
Moving towards Contemporary Art, the show is billed as a ‘Bemusement Park’. The global scale, diversity of installations, artworks and participating artists is unprecedented with 50 contemporary artists from 17 countries aiming to exhibit contemporary art and raise discussion about consumerism, political and environmental issues and to spur people to take action.
1000 lucky local people were invited to experience Dismaland before its’ opening to the general public. Concurrently the online ticket sales failed miserably, with the website crashing all day and earning it the award of ‘the most disappointing new website’.
We first enter the premises through a cardboard security control room built by Bill Barminksi where the security staff asks the most random questions. After the clearing security, doors open to a sinister derelict place with trash, paper on the floor and mud. It almost looks like a dump. The surrounding staff members are dressed in pink hi-vis (vests) and are looking bored, miserable and haggard. Some are holding David Shrigley’s ‘I’m an Imbecile’ balloons. When asking questions, they respond by whispering messages that are beyond understanding. Customer service is below standard and not responsive at best.
Surrounded by murky water with a dumped riot van that has been transformed into an impromptu water fountain, a decrepit fairy-tale castle ‘shows how it feels to be a real princess’. A sinister scene of a Cinderella pumpkin crash sculpture is lit up by the swarm of paparazzi, with flashing cameras taking photo after photo of the tragic crash scene, echoing Princess Diana’s death. You may also pose with it and have your souvenir photo of the experience.
The amusements are purposely confusing – as they don’t let you win. An ESPO sign reads
‘WINNING IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED’. Arcade fans attempt miserably to score some of the bling necklaces by shooting spray cans, only to realize that they are screwed to the wall.
Some local families were confused with Banksy’s Mediterranean Boat Ride, where the public can drive robotic boats of migrants amongst floating bodies. Kids tried to play on Paul Insect‘s overcrowded sandpit while others were desperately looking for disappearing golf balls on the impossible Mini Gulf course. Families enjoyed rides on the merry-go-round without noticing a butcher sitting next to a hanging horse draining blood with cardboard boxes marked Lasagnes (a nod to a horse food scandal in 2013).
Alongside the rides, contemporary artworks are displayed throughout the site. There is also a large indoor space hosting 3 galleries with a selection of some of the best contemporary art. A circus tent features a freak show of strange animals from Polly Morgan and Dorcas Casey to a unicorn by Damien Hirst and a Banksy animatronic rabbit that makes the magician disappear.
The seaside and funfair themes have been given a certain twist as well: A statue of a woman being attacked by seagulls (Banksy), a giant ice cream cone (Ben Long), a wooden carved horse sculpture (Maskull Lasserre), a beach ball floating above razor sharp knives (Damien Hirst), a seaside painting showing a mother and child playing on the sand unaware of the tsunami of detritus coming toward them (Banksy).
Environmental issues and relationships between human and nature are also highlighted with artworks from Paco Pomet and Josh Keyes. A Banksy killer whale sculpture is jumping out of a toilet peace. Other topics addressed are on war, geopolitics, and the Arab Spring. Artists from Palestine and Israel are displayed side by side. Within the Guerilla Island, the dome presents of series of activist banners from all over the world, including drawings from Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani.
A bus turned into a touring Museum of Cruel Objects curated by Dr. Gavin Grindon educates the public on surveying the role of design for social control, including CCTV. And you can sign up to one of the union stalls for action. Finally there is the mind-blowing model village installation by James Cauty called The Aftermath Dislocation Principle.
The evening turned into a big party with live music while a massive show of fireworks sealed the official opening. I found the experience to be overwhelming with so much artwork to discover and actions to be taken.
Did you have a chance to hit some of the shows during New York’s Amory Week? Part blessing and curse, New York has this pre-Spring ritual of organized galleries tucked into little booths in far-flung neo-convention center architectural spaces that offer an onslaught of fascinating new ideas and artists who inspire you and give you a glimpse of the future. Alternately the works on display can sadden you with much derivative mediocrity scattered around and small chartreuse plumes of resentful dealers who clearly are not “people” people alternately ignoring or staring at you.
Before we headed to Berlin for a show we had time to made a mad dash through Scope and The Spring Break Art Show. Here are a few things that caught our eye.
The Spring/Break Art Show, now in its 4th year, is perhaps a current favorite because it creates space for exploring and considering. A 40 curator-driven art fair that featured 150+ artists on display in the re-purposed Moynihan Station (the enormous and grand old main post office), the panoply of concepts tweaked and piqued electrodes in the brain with plays on perception – one of the best outcomes you can hope for with contemporary art. Perhaps because the space is free for the curator, the ideas are similarly liberated.
And everyone is welcomed – collectors, artists, galleries, critics, scene junkies. TRANSACTION was the theme in the Skylight wing that looked like it hadn’t been used for about 20 years. There was a faint fear of Asbestos swirling around our heads while we appreciated the institutional decay of the interiors, laying a background for the fairs multiple installations. Somehow the possibilities for the curators to transform the space were endless, and one wasn’t completely sure when the decay of the interior was intentional or residual…but that was part of the fun.
What separates this fair from the rest of the pack is that the art here is not presented as an unattainable commodity, rather for the most part it is an installation/performance art show where you roam through custom fashioned rooms on both sides of long hallways of deadened fluorescent lights and ceiling leaks. Maybe its because we see a lot of urban art in detritus and abandoned buildings, but this was fun. And yes some of the art was amazing. Good to see artists are still experimenting and taking risks and can make site-specific installations that are alive and provocative.
Over at Scope the story was much different. In their press release and on their site they were heralding a “progressive format” in a new location. The latter was true. It was a new location. The former didn’t materialize and we were hard pressed to find what was progressive or new about it. There were still the temporary partitions and rented booths and while some of the spaces did run into each other it wasn’t with any particular goal for a collaborative spirit or some such idealist notion. If anything, Scope was chaotic with visitors and exhibitors remarking about not having enough time to set up when the doors open at 2:00 pm for the VIP and press, giving a frustrated aura of discord that may have influenced our perception.
Many galleries were still hanging works and adding price and information tags on the walls when we were there. But we know how it is when your dinner party guest arrives at 7 on the dot and you haven’t gotten dressed- you may want them to go out for a cocktail and then return.
Additionally, and unfortunately, Scope more than any of the other show seems to incorporate more derivative and secondary market works than their competitors. Street Art/Urban Art is increasingly hot so it appeared at many more galleries this year but without much curatorial consideration. The fair also including works we have already seen elsewhere, so it was hard to get too excited about that. But there were definitely some gems in there as well. Here are some shots of things we saw:
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Banksy in Gaza: Vacation Promo
2. SOFLES Projection Mapping of His Mural in Melbourne
3.OLEK takes a Victory Lap Through 2014
4. Ben Eine Tags A Museum
Banksy in Gaza: Vacation Promo
This new video from Banksy takes you on a grim tour of Gaza that is laced with sarcasm bordering on total cynicism. Released on his website Wednesday with a few photos from his trip, Banksy appears to have stenciled the last standing door in the ruins of a building. The anonymous UK Street Artist uses his art and satirical way with the language to make his point. “Gaza is often described as ‘the world’s largest open air prison’ because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons – they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day,” he says on his page. His video says he climbed through tunnels to get there but maybe Banksy was in Tony Blair’s suitcase – the UN website says the former Prime Minister of the UK was there mid-month. “Gaza is a metaphor for all that is wrong,” wrote Mr. Tony Blair in an article after visiting Gaza on 14 February.
SOFLES Projection Mapping of His Mural in Melbourne
Selina Miles again directs and produces a film of Sofles at work that transcends the experience and gives you a sense of awe at his work, which truthfully is already often awesome. We’ve been a fan of and producer of events with projection mapping so we are glad to see a talented street artist use the technology in an effective way. The video begins innocently enough with some inking out an illustration on a canvas, then buffing of a wall in Melbourne. Later the sun goes down, and BAM!
OLEK takes a Victory Lap Through 2014
Expect to see Olek everywhere, we do!
Ben Eine Tags A Museum
London based street and graffiti artist Ben Eine knocked out a wall inside the Middlebury College Museum of Art as part of the upcoming exhibition OUTSIDE IN: ART OF THE STREET.
Gruner + Jahr, Europe’s largest publishing firm has just released a hot issue of their magazine ART that focuses exclusively on Street Art and we are pleased that they asked us to participate. You’ll see a number of names you recognize in this magazine that reads more like a book – although you’ll need to be familiar with German.
Of special note for us are the spreads that include many images by BSA editor of photography Jaime Rojo whose shots of work by Brooklyn’s Swoon make us happy just to see them here across the pages of this prestigious magazine.
We don’t usually mention print releases on the editorial part of the site but it just so happens that today a new screenprint edition of “Dawn and Gemma” by Swoon is being released at 12 noon New York time. We saw this image first this spring at the Brooklyn Museum exhibit “Submerged Motherlands” and spoke about it during our In Conversation show there with her in April. Currently she’s just done a version of this in Miami as well. Her print is being released alongside a new print by another Brooklyn Street Artist Elbow-Toe. Check out more news on Paper Monster’s site.
There are SO many avid and creative fans of Banksy on Instagram it’s pretty astounding. If you look through all of the feeds from the folks who tagged #BSABlackFriday on Instagram you will find some serious fans of Street Art, and a few artists as well. It was great to learn more about you and the stuff you take shots of, where you like to go – and it is generally gratifying to see the BSA community in all your splendor. Makes us love you more!
Thank you to every person who tagged their own Banksy photos for the BSA Black Friday Giveaway – it was seriously difficult to pick the best and we wish we could have picked more. We basically looked for the personal story and a good shot.
Here are the winners – go check them out on Instagram.
If you won, send us an email so we know where to send your book. Thank you sincerely to EVERYONE who participated – BSA peeps are the best.
The new extended hardcover edition of Banksy In New York, by Ray Mock with introduction by BSA’s Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo is also available now at CarnageNYC.com.
“Banksy Does New York”, a new documentary by director Chris Moukarbel, meticulously culls and artfully arranges the play and the actors for you in just over an hour with new revelations popping up every few minutes – and you may not believe what you actually missed. But don’t feel bad; everyone missed something during the one-month “Better Out Than In” residency of the Brisol-based street artist during October, 2013. Luckily Moukarbel has done the hard work of sifting through the thousands of Instagram posts, Tweets, YouTube videos, and Banksy’s own digital clues to deftly tell you the story, or rather, stories.
The latest HBO documentary, which airs November 17th, confronts the conventions of typical documentary making by compiling user-generated digital content, or crowd-sourcing the thousands of individual perspectives that occurred in tandem as the new works were unveiled on the streets of New York’s five boroughs. (Full disclosure: We are both interviewed in it.)
“There’s no way we could have gotten cameras everywhere even if we were trying and if we wanted to,” said Moukarbel at a special screening in Manhattan at HBO’s offices last week for many of the “content creators” whose work is woven together to reveal the larger narratives arising from the events.
“No one really knew what Banksy was doing. No one had put a frame around it,” says Chris as he describes the process of allowing the stories to tell him and producer Jack Turner what actually happened. “I mean he so expertly used social media,” says Turner, “Having an Instagram account from the first day — he invented a way for communicating his work and created a following for it and created an event that is a work itself.”
Aside from the mechanics of the unfolding dramas, “Banksy Does New York” attempts to give many of the actors center stage here where other film makers would have relegated them to the roles of extras. Out of town vloggers drive into the city to record their daily discoveries, bonafide Banksy hunters who pool their clues in real time virtually and race to discover the new piece before it is stolen or vandalized, neighborhood entrepreneurs who charge a fee to onlookers for peeking at the paintings, and even the human stories behind the public heist and subsequent art sale that is arranged for one of the sculptures.
Somehow the elusive street artist pulling strings behind the scenes comes off as a sardonic populist everyman although he probably really is just a flagrant [insert your personal projection here]. By removing himself from the show, everyone else is revealed.
And they are nearly all here too. Like the fictional nightlife doyen Stefon Zolesky on Saturday Night Live might say, “This club has everything”; artists, fans, intellectuals, court jesters, minstrels, charlatans, sideshows, soldiers, police, politicians, a priest, dogs, passion, sweetness, sarcasm, irony, jealousy, chicanery, a Greek chorus, car chases, a few fights, a couple of heartfelt speeches, some arrests, bleating lambs being lead to slaughter.
… And a winking wizard somewhere behind the curtain.
Like we said last year as the month drew to a close in an article entitled Banksy’s Final Trick, “No longer asking, ‘Who is Banksy’, many strolling New Yorkers this October were only half-kidding when they would point to nearly any scene or object on the street and ask each other, ‘Is that a Banksy?’”
We turned the interview tables on director Chris Moukarbel and producer Jack Turner to see how they developed their story for “Banksy Does New York”.
Brooklyn Street Art:They say that a documentary filmmaker can’t really have a story in mind going in to the project – because the story reveals itself as you go. Did you see the story developing as you met people and looked at video? Chris Moukarbel: No one had really looked at the residency in its entirety so we felt like archeologists piecing together all these bits of information and trying to create a complete vision of what went down that month. Certain themes began to emerge and it was interesting to find where the work was actually pointing. The locations of each piece appeared random and actually were incredibly important to how you were supposed to see the work. Sometimes you realized that the work itself only served to bring peoples attention to the significance of the location.
Brooklyn Street Art:There are so many moving parts in this story – the enigmatic artist, the illegal nature of the work, the intersection with social media, the unpredictable nature of the responses. Was this a story that was difficult to get your hands around? Jack Turner: Good question…the basic idea from the start was simply to relive that month-long circus for those people who were not aware, not in NYC or just missed it. To be honest, we originally thought that a sequential catalogue of the work would feel repetitive – but as we did more research, we found that each of the works created vastly different reactions from the public and they helped us explore all of these themes. We can only draw our own meaning from some of the work but that is when the public reaction becomes part of the work itself – which is why public art, street art and graffiti exist.
Brooklyn Street Art:Had you had much exposure to the Street Art and graffiti worlds previous to taking on this project? What surprised you about it that you wouldn’t have expected? Chris Moukarbel: I was never a part of the street art world but I have an art background and a lot of my work was site specific. I would create pieces that were meant to live online or on public access TV, as well as street pieces. It was interesting to get to know more about an art world with its own language – available in plain view of New Yorkers.
Brooklyn Street Art:What element first attracted your interest in the Banksy story when you heard that he had executed this residency in New York? Chris Moukarbel: When HBO approached us about making the film I felt like it could be a great archive of an artists work and also a snapshot of the Internet for one month. I love public art and I was interested in the way that Banksy was using the Internet and social media as if it were the street.
Brooklyn Street Art:After seeing “Exit Through the Gift Shop” many people reported feeling like they were more confused than before about Banksy and his story. How would you like people to feel after “Banksy Does New York?” Jack Turner: Banksy is an incredibly prolific artist and this film covers only one of the many chapters in his career. By remaining anonymous, Banksy takes the focus away from the artist or the source and he puts the focus on the statement and the work. There is a reason that he is the most infamous artist working today, he represents an idea that many people identify with…and he is really funny! I think this film, more than anything, highlights how well he uses social media to his disposal.
Brooklyn Street Art:You must have imagined what a response might be from Banksy to your film. What do you think he will think of this piece? Jack Turner: It is extremely important in any project that Chris or I do to make sure that we present the whole story in a truthful way. That is why we have had such success accessing user-generated footage. We went from having a one camera crew, as documentaries are often made, to having a thousand cameras throughout the city – each giving us footage that reflects what really happened. Maybe Banksy will love it, maybe he will hate it – but the most important thing to us is that he feels like it is a true reflection of what happened over the course of that month.
Brooklyn Street Art:As producers and the director, do you think of yourselves as artists, reporters, sociologists, detectives? Jack Turner: A couple years ago a friend of mine said that making a documentary is like getting paid (very little) to learn an enormous amount about something. I’ll take that. Chris Moukarbel: I think of myself as a storyteller. In a way, I was still a storyteller when I was making fine art but now I’m using a popular medium that reaches a wider audience.
Banksy Does New York airs November 17 on HBO and is available now on HBO GO.
Director: Chris Moukarbel
Producers: Chris Moukarbel, Jack Turner
Executive producer: Sheila Nevins
Directors of photography: Mai Iskander, Karim Raoul
Editor: Jennifer Harrington
Production companies: Matador Content, Permanent Wave, Home Box Office
Two things in the news today about Street Art man of mystery, Banksy:
Thing 1: He was not arrested, cuffed and covered with a shroud yesterday as reported and re-Tweeted throughout the street-art-isphere, but that hoax was excellent! (Also, don’t you think he must be older than 35 by now?) See video at end.
Thing 2: It looks like he has just created a new piece referencing a 350 year old painting by the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer that uses a pearl earring for a focal point. In Banksy’s case, it is golden ADT security alarm box.
“Girl With the Pierced Ear” in this new image just released online, appears to be Banksy’s monochromatic take on the oil master Vermeer, below.
Johannes Vermeer. Girl With a Pearl Earring, Oil on canvas, 1865.
A lovely cafe from which you can enjoy some chips and a refreshment while gazing upon the new masterpiece by Banksy.
As we hear of the sudden appearance of a new Banksy in southeast England we recall that it was exactly a year ago today that the international Street Art man of mystery grabbed New York by the mobiles and invited everyone to a month-long exhibition of painting, sculpture, installation, performance and real life detective games on our own streets.
To commemorate Banksy’s very successful offering to the city and the excitement that ensued with its inhabitants we decided to put together a series of messages left out for him on walls, doors, trucks and fences. Not all the messages are demonstrations of love (indeed some are hostile) but all them are an indication of his clever ability to move people with wit and indicate a certain feeling of familiarity that people have with the anonymous Street Artist.
We’ve all recovered quite well of course from the month-long treasure hunt, and for many it was enough of a jarring public works project/ anthropological experiment / hype campaign to merit a year of examination and reflection. And now, the commemorations: This fall we know of at least one book (Banksy in New York) and one documentary (Banksy Does New York) that will mark the anniversary of the “Better Out Than In” residency and many New Yorkers will remember their own keen behaviors on social media and crowded sidewalks chasing after the near-daily revelations – and a few may possibly experience joy or a twinge of awkward discomfort in retrospect.
We think the biggest takeaway for us was that whether it was man or marketing team, Banksy helped New Yorkers to re-examine nearly everything in the man-made environment and to consider that it may actually be a piece of art.
For the guys and gals who make up the graffiti/ Street Art scene in New York of course, not everyone was gob-smacked by this peer, this charming and wisecracking Brit who monopolized the mindshare of fans of art in the streets. Almost from Day 1 the buffs, the side busting, the cross-outs, and the free-flowing entreaties addressing our visiting jester were alternately ringing of respect, bemusement, longing after, semi-passive xenophobia, or full-on red-faced insults. And of course there were those just along for the coat-tail ride.
It’s all really just part of the ongoing conversation that always exists on the street, and while you may not have caught all the action last October a look at these images will inform you that Banksy’s impact was felt by many.
Ray Mock, the one man publisher who photographs, designs, and writes insightful observations of his daily Banksy revelations in his new book is no stranger to the New York graffiti and Street Art scene. “I had mostly been shooting graffiti in recent years, preferably grimy tagged up doors, man-size fill-ins, freight trains and illegal pieces in abandoned buildings or along railroad tracks,” he says in the introduction to Banksy in New York, one of the first books dedicated to the one month “residency” the superstar Street Artist mounted in October of 2013.
Banksy In New York by Ray Mock. (photo of book cover by Jaime Rojo)
Filled with photos of the various installations of his “Better Out Than In” show, as well as the scenes that popped up around them, Mock finds that the personal experience is a fitting voice for description when it comes to how you see art on the street. With humor and a bit of sarcasm not unlike the subject of the book, Mock leads the reader along the path of the near-daily occurrences of new aerosol stencils, paintings, sculptures, mobile performances, and even a bucolic diorama in the back of a box truck.
Only a street watcher like Mock is able to reveal through observations and posing questions just how much of the great Banksy caper may be staged, and how much is real. If the art doesn’t get your attention, the circus that surrounded it for a month in New York streets will.
Banksy In New York by Ray Mock. (re-photo by Jaime Rojo)
Banksy In New York by Ray Mock. (re-photo by Jaime Rojo)
Banksy In New York by Ray Mock. (re-photo by Jaime Rojo)
Banksy In New York by Ray Mock. (re-photo by Jaime Rojo)
Banksy In New York by Ray Mock. (re-photo by Jaime Rojo)
Banksy In New York by Ray Mock. (re-photo by Jaime Rojo)
To purchase your copy of “Banksy In New York” By Ray Mock click HERE, published by Carnage.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Da Mental Vaporz and ‘The Wall’
2. YZ – Lost in the City
3. NYCHOS: Pen and Paper
4. Stealing Banksy
5. E1000 x Pablo Herrero at Memorie Urbane 2014
BSA Special Feature: Da Mental Vaporz and ‘The Wall’
To mark their new show that opened this week at BC Gallery, the 10 member France-based collective known as “Da Mental Vaporz” release this panoply of inventive and tight wall work and, as it turns out, canvasses. It is reassuring to see original thinking and solid skills still can win the day, and good to see artists sticking together to make great collaborations.
Included are Bom.k, Blo, Brusk, Iso, Dran, Kan, Lek, Gris1, Jaw and Sowat.
“The works of these artists can speak for themselves independently, differentiating from each other mostly in medium as in style and technique that which as soon as they are shown in a common context, creates an extraordinarily interesting and thrilling relationship. As can be deduced from the name ‘Da Mental Vaporz’, which, translated, means “The Vapors of the Psyche” it is for the artists a matter of concern to make the observer aware of the abyss of the personal psyche.” – from the description on Vimeo.
YZ – Lost in the City
YZ takes us on a trip through her city and invites us to get lost with her. For those non-French speakers, it is still a rewarding discovery that comes two thirds of the way through the small film that features jazz rhythms that wend you through the avenues of Paris, the suburban streets and into her studio.
NYCHOS: Pen and Paper
“All of my family – my dad, my grandpa, they all are hunters,” says Nychos at the picnic table as he explains his fascination for slicing apart animals and allowing us to see what organs and systems are arranged within. While listening to heavy metal you learn that Nychos was elated when he discovered his love of depicting dissection in graphic detail. He said, “Okay this is something I can stick to and go crazy on it.” May we all be so fortunate to find that thing too.
Stealing Banksy
“It’s like looking at a collection of hunting trophies severed from their natural environment,” our narrator intones, “stuffed into frames and soon to be seen by the privileged few”. Fair enough, you say, as long as I’m one of them. Wendy Hurrell says in her description of her new documentary “Stealing Banksy”, that she has been following Banksy’s work for a decade or more, and “it has been my privilege to wallow through the moral dilemma that is taking his works from the streets, legally and selling them for charity – never to be seen by the masses again.”
E1000 x Pablo Herrero at Memorie Urbane
The Blind Eye Factory shot this very large mural painted on the wall of a cemetary for the 2014 Memorie Urbane Street Srt festival in Gaeta, Italy
This year represents a high-water mark for current Street Artists being represented at the New York fairs if what we have just seen over the last couple of days is any indication. For those who have been following the trajectory of the new kids we’ve been talking about for the last decade, the room is rather getting a lot more crowded. Only a handful of years ago names that produced blank stares at your forehead and a little sniff of dismissal are garnering an extra lingering moment near the canvas and snap of the cellphone pic, complimentary champagne flute in hand.
With the gusts of wind provided by a couple of recent auctions, optimism about an up-turning economy, and even the Banksy one-month residency, it is not hard to imagine that we have some “overnight” stars in the midst of this constellation, but it is really anyone’s guess.
While we are certainly aware of it, we don’t dedicate too much ink to the commercial aspect of the Street Art scene, preferring to learn the lingua franca of these artists who have developed their narrative and visual style before our eyes, to celebrate experimentation, the creative spirit, and to give a pedestrian view of the street without being pedestrian.
But just as neighborhoods like Bushwick in Brooklyn, El Raval in Barcelona, LA’s downtown Arts District, and parts of London, Berlin, and Paris have been transforming by gentrification, we would be remiss if we didn’t note the more frequent raising of commercial eyebrows all around us when the topic turns to Street Art. It’s not a fever pitch, but can it be far off? There is already a solid first tier that everyone can name – and the stratification is taking shape below it.
Buffeted by blossoming sales of works by early 2000s Street Artists and the burgeoning of lifestyle companies now appropriating this cultural wealth and transforming it into “content” that helpfully couriers all manner of merch from spirits to soda, sneakers, and electronic smoking devices, we are looking for our seat belts as there a major shift in popular acceptance and critical embracing of 21st century Street Artists up ahead.
As for the streets, the flood is going to continue. Street Art is Dead? Yes, we’ve been hearing this since 2002…
Here’s a brief non-specific and uneven survey of only some work showing this weekend by current or former Street Artists and graffiti writers – perhaps a third of what you can see in the New York fairs and satellite galleries.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
