"This is the first time the essentially bourgeois world of art has belonged to the people. We need to make it count." -Banksy
Not much is known about the famous graffiti artist called Banksy. Despite being one of Time Magazine’s top 100 most influent people of 2010 and a following of 10.2 million on Instagram, the artist’s identity is unconfirmed. What is known largely comes from early interviews done before Banksy’s fame grew. From them, we can conclude that the British artist comes from a rough upbringing: expelled from school, imprisoned for petty theft. As with many creatives, this past likely has work. inspired his politically minded works which are. While little can be known about Banksy’s process, what is clear is his purpose. Each piece is a carefully thought out social commentary delivered with the biting, satirical wit he is renowned for. His favorite subjects revolve around class issues, poverty, socialist rhetoric, and conflict. But, unique to Banksy are his provocative methods for getting his point across.
Banksy began his career in the 90s, evolving to the stencil graffiti style he’s most known for. The style, and his anonymity, were a necessity in his street art roots. Banksy turned to stencils to shorten the time it took to complete a piece and concealed his identity to lessen his chance of being caught illegally painting the streets of Bristol. From there, Banksy moved on to bigger and more outrageous stunts: spreading artistically fake money from the “Banksy of England”, putting a live elephant in the room(pun intended) to talk about poverty, and graffitiing increasingly incendiary images across the UK and Israel.
In 2010, Banksy brought his work to the US and Canada, secretly scattering images in major cities including San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Boston. In 2013, he created a month-long show in New York City. To start, he set up a booth selling his original paintings for 60$ as a commentary on the arbitrary value of art. The rest of the month was both a scavenger hunt through the city for new Banksy pieces and a race against the NYPD’s vandal squad who sought to remove the graffiti installations and stop the artist.
In 2018 Banksy made headlines by publicly destroying one of his paintings purchased for over 1 million dollars. Just after the piece sold at auction, it went through a shredder hidden in the frame. This ignited a conflict over who now owned the painting, since the stunt had greatly appreciated its value. Again Banksy held a mirror to the ridiculous nature of fine art.
Banksy is still active today, though he has lost the renegade
charm of his street art roots as his work became mainstream. Recently, he
appeared in the news again with a project he’d occupied himself with while quarantined.
He posted a picture of his bathroom overrun with graffiti rats, an image that
both underlines the importance of quarantine and pokes fun at it.
Banksy’s unique contribution to the art world has had strong
effect. His use of clever graffiti has elevated street art into the fine art
sphere and illuminated many previously unknown street artists. His confronting
art, fighting against the traditions of his field and leading a one-man rebellion,
has pushed street art into public demonstration.
Sources
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/?all
I have always loved street art - Banksy included! A lot of people don't always understand how art can be political, but I think he toes the line perfectly between seriousness and satire. Shredding his own painting was a big C moment of creativity, in my opinion!
ReplyDeleteI love that you chose Banksy fro this blog post. He somewhat faded from my mind in the past couple years but this post reminded me of how obsessed with his art I used to be, so thanks for that. The way he uses his art to bring serious topics to light and even confront his own domain of fine art, its both mind-boggling and inspiring at the same time. No one else in the art community uses their platform the way he does, and that speaks volumes to his creativity.
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite work of his has hands down got to be "Dismaland", it was so cool!
Thanks for sharing about Banksy! I think his anonymous style of artistry brings up some really interesting points about the crossroads of art and identity. I think it is really fascinating that Banksy is still unknown yet all we know about him is his through his work. So much is unknown to his creative process or motivation and yet he still has contributed so many works worthy of Big-C creativity, such as shredding his own painting at the auction. Banksy is obviously a very complex person, and it's hard to try to imagine how they make these world-renowned works that invoke so much thought and reflection. Really a great choice!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love Banksy! I love his street art and what he stands for, and also the way he handles art and identity. I actually have a Banksy reprint painting on my wall: one of his new ones where the child plays with the nurse action figure rather than the superheroes. Its a wonderful reference to the pandemic and the way the world reacted, and as a future nurse, the painting and the meaning are both held dear to my heart. He is so unknown but also so widely known, and he really offers up Big-C creativity by recreating what it means to be a street artist rather than just being a tagger. What a great person to write about!
ReplyDeleteI love this post! I was able to visit the Moco Museum in Amsterdam while I was studying abroad last fall. The entire museum was inspired by Banksy's works and it originally housed only his street work. His work is absolutely beautiful in person. I learned a lot about him and his creative processes while I was there. He was driven a lot by politics, which is really cool. As Banksy grew in popularity other artists started contributing to the museum. He was a great idea to use for a blog post! He is definitely an inspiration to the artistic community! Great job!
ReplyDelete