Banksy US tour 2010

Yes.

He is famous for it.

In the UK the councils try to paint over them as soon as they arrive. Sometimes he sneaks artworks into museums where they remain undetected for a while.

I think you're not quite getting it.


Some of that's really cool...thanks for the link...


WHat is he trying to accomplish hmm...well...he's an artist. I guess in that context the art has to speak for itself and it's about what it says to you.

He does take it to a different level though in as much as he is clearly making statements about art, fame and money (apart from the political angle) - no-one knows who he is so he is eschewing the fame angle, he does not sell his works for major sums of money and he does not believe they should be in museums for the elite but rather for 'the people' in urban contexts.

I suppose some people - you apparently - might regard a festering, decrepit, refuse-strewn empty and decaying lot as 'un-vandalised' and conversely regard any attempt to brighten it or beautify it via street-art as somehow 'degrading' this paradise but that probably is very near the point he is trying to make maybe.

Sure, that's part of it. Are we just slaves who mindlessly allow idiots to pass laws and dictate our lives?

Personally I don't even think about the law ever really. If I want to do something I do it, if not then not. The law doesn't come into my thinking at all. I think that's a healthy attitude and maybe (I don't know) Banksy feels the same.

I don't get this attitude actually. If it were followed more rigorously then it is then there would be no Ghandi, no Mandela, probably no UK or USA. Those plotters who tried to kill Hitler would be mere criminals.

Bit of lawbreaking is essential from time to time imo - no more so than now too.

The basis would be a personal one in each case and based on the individual's world-view.

For example; If I were a Christian in the erstwhile Iron-Curtain countries where Churches and Bibles were banned I would still undertake my expression of faith even though it were illegal.

Similarly the comment above about 'asking permission' to graffiti a wall strikes me as particularly asinine as the answer would of course be 'no' and should Banksy take this route and heed the answer then there would be no Banksy would there?

I actually feel that there is a huge amount of hypocrisy and/or blatant stupidity in such an approach as this 'conforming to the law' as the people who express this view are, more often than not, conservatives and as such, do not really have occasion to disagree with The Law as by definition, they by nature support it whatever it is; because they ARE Conservatives.

If there was a Pinko Commie take-over (to borrow from their library of treasured bogeys) which imposed new 'Leftie' statutes then you would soon see them breaking laws quick enough.

Another factor is of course that Right-wingers (ie Banksy's polar opposites and oft-times targets) do not actually 'get' art or culture and traditioanlly are incapable of creating it, so for them, it is a logical position (as far as they can be said to have such a thing) to prefer the wall (being property and therefore sacrosanct) to any decoration done TO a wall.

Thanks for allowing me to have one.... I really appreciate it.

It doesn't make sense....can you try to elucidate??



Yes...it's nearly time for my evening self-medication....though I do seem to have a penetrating insight into the way things are when not under it's influence these days wouldn't you say? Maybe I need to up the dose.

It all has the horrible ring of truth when stripped of the verbiage and hyperbole though doesn't it?

Hope he does.

There is a long tradition of depictions of Muhammad in Islam - in fact it is a very Muslim thing to do.

The reason that there is any issue about it at all is basically because:

a) most people do not known anything at all about Islam and care even less - though strangely that does not seem to stop them opining about it at every opportunity.

b) The 'Islamists' who object to this are the same type of 'Muslims' who do myriad other un-Islamic things and are to a large extent (wittingly or unwittingly) seem to be hand in glove with Conservatives in as much as they are totally agreed on what Islam is but which in fact it is not.

Makes you wonder...

Meanwhile, while we're waiting for Banksy to get up to speed on his Islamic Art Historical traditions here's some more of my favourites from the apartheid wall in Israel like Sammi Jo's above:

Customer: "Can I see the menu please"

Waiter: "Yes, sir. We have steak, hamburger, beef, fillet, steak tartare, goujons of beef, roast beef, beef a l'orange, beef on the bone, beef fingers, beef dogs, beef chilli, beef in all sorts of wine and beef surprise"

Customer: "Wow! What choice, this is truly amazing...such a cornucopia of free choice to spend my hard-earned cash on...we are truly privileged to live in such a democracy where we can have anything we want."

Waiter: "The customer is King sir. The marketplace provides free choice of everything for everyone"

Customer: "Yes, thank God we don't live in Iran eh?"

Waiter: "God Bless America Sir".

Ok..I see I have to put it in much more simplistic terms. i was afraid of that.

You have a MENU and you call it CHOICE but you are actually only allowed to choose between options someone else chooses for you. Only allowed to choose from what THEY chose to be on the menu in the first place.

You see the menu and think you are so lucky because you cannot perceive all the millions of things they have left off - cannot understand that they have chosen for you. And for this 'freedom' people are prepared to die.

You can have any colour as long as it is black -it's an American motto no?

Quite frightening if you think about it...which is why people don't I suppose.


He hasn't done a lot of things.

The fact you brought up a spurious issue of ill-perceived alleged Islamic Iconoclasm says more about you and your preoccupations than his art.


I know of no such claim. I think you miss his point entirely.


I think you don't get it - which is natural enough.


He is making enough of an impact. And how do you know what he does? No-one knows who he is.


Except Jon Stewart is a US LIberal. You may not know it but to someone from the UK with such a political stance - me for instance - what you call a 'hardline Commie' looks to us like someone veering slightly Right of Thatcher and just a little Left of Hitler.


Except Al Gore is a multi-millionaire Capitalist.

And Banksy is an anarchist with numerous outstanding arrest warrants.


Why not think about them? I'm sure Banksy thinks Al Gore is a hypocritical Rightist wanker - as do I.

YOU seem to be the one obsessed with all these tossers.


Right

Probably best not to talk about injustice and the oppressed or those who want to change things. Not really your strong suit.

So you'll no doubt be able to counter the examples then with contrary examples of your own won't you?

Forgive me but you are not the benchmark..the chances of you straying too far from the acceptable trumpy are on a par with me voting Conservative.


I think Banksy has a massive impact though. Is quite well known.


Umm...didn't think you did Irony Trump!


Depends. He has inspired many guerilla artists. Not sure about the US but there is a massive underground in the UK who get up to all sorts of things.


I know...it's a curse, it really is!


No. He has been seen in profile and has a man's voice. I don't think millionaire capitalists are much given to painting 'Fuck the State' on people's garden walls.

But, there's nothing wrong with having millions. It's what you do with them. If Banksy had millions I have great faith he would use them 'creatively' in the service of anti-Conservatism and if he didn't well...he would be just another wanker like Al Gore as you say.

But that would mean nothing - it would not mean that all such characters would sell-out. I myself have some very creative plans for if I ever find myself with the odd disposable million.


I don't think you get it. I know for a fact that Banksy has radicalized quite a few people. I know at least 4 now hardcore Lefties doing some interesting things got first turned on by Banksy. I think there are many.

You are just not in tune with the underground and what's happening on the streets Trumps...


Your view of sheep and how people are transmuted into such is very different to mine.

When I see evidence linking Banksy to unthinking and moronic right-wing subservience then I'll be the first to publically agree with you.

You have the right idea though - many apparently 'radical' figures do serve this function; one might cite the execrable Dalai Lama, that tosser Bono and your fave Obama.


I don't know many hopeless victims Trumpy, but then you and I don't move in the same circles I think.


It's worse than I thought.

I am not saying that people do not haver a plethora of choices (third time).

I am saying that the available choices are chosen for them by someone else and hence no choice at all.

It's more complex though.

If someone is fed a certain diet that excludes X then after a while they will have no knowledge of, taste for or desire for X.

X to all intents and purpose will not exist so it will never appear on a menu and if it did then no-one would order it. this is not choice - it is engineering choice.

So what you say is true about the market being driven by people's wants but you fail to take into account the stage before - WHY those wants exist and HOW they became implanted and are maintained.

Where I am currently living there is no bagel shop. One opened once but went out of business very quickly because no locals wanted bagels.

I want them but I am a foreigner. So for me there is no choice. This is not on the menu. It is not on the menu for the locals either but they don't care - but this is not because bagels are bad or because they would not like them....it is because they are 'X' in the example above.

Now if someone were to introduce them correctly - with the proper marketing etc - then this could be changed. But it doesn't happen yet...maybe it might one day. This sort of thing often happens in business.

My point is though that there are certain things - and certain ideas and viewpoints - that are 'X' and will NEVER be 'marketed' so as people can be introduced to them because this is against the interests of those that administer and control the system.

And it is a system.

And you'd better believe that no matter how much choice you think there is on the menu or I think there isn't, someone else is controlling it.

And we have no choice in that.