If Banksy did today’s Better Out Than In piece illegally, he’s really outdone himself. The stencil of this lonely man is outside of the Hustler strip club, so I’ve got to assume that the spot is busy and guarded at pretty much all hours. It’s also a nice site-specific piece. So much of the best street art is about placement and responding to what’s nearby, and Banksy is a master of that.
For our +5 today, I’ve got work by FKDL, Deeker and three unknown artists:
FKDL in Brooklyn. Photo by Chris Christian.Deeker. Photo courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project.Unknown artist in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.Unknown artist. Photo by Tristan Taussac.Unknown artist in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.
Stik in the East Village facing Tompkins Square Park
Early last month, UK-based Stik spent a few days in NYC and left one more variation of his signature character on East 9th Street in the East Village. This coming Tuesday, October 29, he is participating in ARTWALK NY 2013, a benefit auction for the Coalition for the Homeless. Piggyback, a woodcut print on Japanese paper, was fashioned during his recent visit to Japan.
On a huge canvas at the Dorian Grey Gallery on East 9th StreetPiggyback, woodcut print on Japanese paper, to be auctioned at ARTWALK NY 2013.
Photo of Stik on East 9th Street by Tara Murray; inside Dorien Gray Gallery by Dani Reyes Mozeson and Piggyback print, courtesy of the artist
Banksy in Queens. Photo (which I’ve cropped) by carnagenyc.
Great piece for Better Out Than In today, although as I imagine Banksy expected, the piece is already in the hands of someone else. According to my source who got up close to the piece, Banksy’s Sphinx sculpture is not entirely made of cinderblocks, but the main bust and possibly more of it is made of some sort of foam and then coated with a thin layer of concrete dust.
I was going to write all about how this piece is a fantastic continuation of Banksy fascination with crowd response, and how this piece is really not about how the piece looks, but whether or not people would steal chunks of it or the whole thing, paralleling the history of theft and preservation that plagues real Egyptian monuments. But then Hyperallergic did that really well. So please, do read their article on this piece.
Aiko in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.Harlequinade in San Francisco. Photo by DangerRanger.Paul Richard in NYC. Photo by Chris Christian.Spud at 5 Pointz in NYC. Photo by David, Bergin, Emmett and Elliott.Unknown artist in Toronto. Photo by Mary Crandall.
Didn’t love this latest Better Out Than In piece at first because it’s not all that original, but once again Banksy shows us that his work is really about the crowd. Check out all the people posing with this piece. No audio guide today, so let me try over-analyzing the joke: Any of those people posing at the piece, or I for that matter, could be that kid with his fancy pants and specialized spray cans, making crappy graffiti or street art in an impossible attempt to identify with a romanticized idea of the ghetto.
Today’s + 5 includes work by Alber, Hero de Janeiro, edit: VJ Suave (thanks to Thiago Maia in the comments) and three two unknown artists:
Alber in Bordeaux, France. Photo by red DOT Photo Video.Hero de Janeiro in Amsterdam. Photo by Tobias Abel.Unknown artist in Granada. Photo by Jeanne Menjoulet.Unknown artist in Nottingham. Photo by KylaBorg.Unknown artist in Barcelona. Photo by Digerible.
Today we have Lush‘s fifth comic in a 10-part series. Remember folks, Shepard Fairey and Bansky are the exceptions and even they worked their asses off for years. As Woody Guthrie said, “if you ain’t got the do re mi, folks, you ain’t got the do re mi.” What do you think? – RJ
Banksy on the Upper West Side. Photo by carnagenyc.
Great placement by Banksy today for Better Out Than In. This is the sort of thing I love to see, where street art is more than just plastering an image onto any wall. The work actually involves the space it’s in. So effective.
For today’s + 5, I’m hoping for a lot of help identifying artists. We have work by Cel Out, one artist who wishes to remain anonymous, edit: Le Cyklop (thanks to everyone who helped with this identification) and twothree unknown artists:
“So long, and thanks for all the fins” by Cel Out in Melbourne. Photo by Cel Out.From the series “The silent revenge of Comic Sans” by anonymous in New York City. Photo by the artist.Le Cyclop in Paris. Photo by tangi_bertin.Unknown artist in Taimali, Taiwan. Photo by Alexander Synaptic.Unknown artist in New York City. Photo by Dave Baach.
For today’s Better Out Than In piece, Banksy posted the video shown above. As of when I’m posting this late on Saturday night, the video somehow has over 50,000 views and I know at least two people who searched all day for the spot where it was filmed. The power of Banksy…
On a related note, since it’s a little over halfway through October, I thought this might be a good time to remind readers what this Banksy + 5 series is about and why I’ve been posting every single pieces from Better Out Than In and accompanied (almost) all of them with 5 photos of street art or graffiti by artists other than Banksy. Initially, I had planned not to post daily updates about every piece in the show. Maybe I’d send out a link on Facebook, but I didn’t want to take the time to write up and format blog posts every day for something that 1000 other sites would be covering. But Jonathan Lynn from Anewspace in Dublin suggested to me, “you should do a column called ‘this is the new banksy & here is 5 more artists who painted today.” From that, I modified things slightly and we got Banksy + 5: Today’s Banksy plus five photos of work that had either been uploaded to flickr or emailed to me within about 24 hours of that day’s Banksy’ going up. Banksy is a mastermind of getting media attention, and I knew that even the simplest posts on Vandalog mentioning Banksy would get more hits than posts mentioning just about other artist or providing interesting or exclusive content. Just as Banksy uses the media, I figured we could use Banksy a bit. So, let’s get on with the + 5…
Today I want to share with by Nathan Bowen, Skeleton Cardboard, Sened, and three unknown artistsedit: Anser, Aaron Rose and one unknown artist. Please leave a comment or get in touch if you know any of the artists that I don’t.
Nathan Bowen and Skeleton Cardboard in London. Photo by Dave Nolionsinengland.Sened in Tel Aviv. Photo by Astra Nilsson.Aaron Rose in Berlin. Photo by aesthetics of crisis.Unknown artist in Athens. Photo by Jean-Claude Utard.Anser in Toronto. Photo by Mary Crandall.
Banksy underneath the High Line. Photo by Hrag Vartanian.
Today’s Banksy, which runs through midnight Sunday, is Better Out Than In at its most literal yet: Two collaborative works by Banksy and Os Gêmeos that could easily hang inside a gallery (and practically any gallery in the city would probably be happy to have them), but instead they are on display in Chelsea underneath the High Line park. As usual, the audio guide is a great addition to the work. Seems like Banksy is almost taunting all of the nearby galleries in Chelsea, while they are desperate for a few people to come inside, Banksy has a massive crowd trying to catch a glimpse of these two pieces outside (which are of course well-guarded lest anyone try to steal or harm them). Or perhaps art galleries are just terribly uncomfortable places to view art and they don’t actually want visitors anyway. More info on the whole situation at this site over at Hyperallergic.
The crowd at Banksy’s “gallery.” Photo by Hrag Vartanian.
Yotes and SINUS outside of DC. The piece was painted at the start of the federal government shutdown. Photo by Yotes.stikman in Philadelphia. Photo by RJ Rushmore.Poster Boy in Cuba. Photo by Poster Boy.Unknown artist. Photo by liborius.Unknown artist in Vizela, Portugal. Photo by CláudioM.
Today’s Better Out Than In piece only lasted for a few minutes after it was announced before it was defaced, which is too bad because it’s really a great example of how a simple intervention with the right placement can be great. Banksy is one of the best at this sort of thing.
Swoon in London. Photo by Alex Ellison.Zap in Paris. Photo by vitostreet.Mygalo in Paris. Photo by vitostreet.Sweet Toof and Paul Insect in London. Photo by liborius.Unknown artist in Cádiz, Spain. Photo by Iztok Alf Kurnik.
Banksy in the South Bronx. Photo courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project.
Another performance piece today from Banksy for Better Out Than In. This custom Ronald McDonald statue will be traveling to McDonald’s restaurants (okay, restaurants is a stretch) around the city all week, where you can visit it to see “his shoes shined by a real live boy.” Definitely check out the audio guide on this piece. Funny as always.
In random Banksy updates: Check what Hyperallergic found – a photo of a “signature” that the shoe shining actor in this piece gave to a fan (plus their description of the context for this sculpture is helpful); apparently the Bronx Borough President is a fan of Banksy, unlike Mayor Bloomberg.
As usual, we have a + 5 today. This time, I’m featuring work by C215, Clam Nation, Lisk Bot, Dylan Egon (although this piece is also a blatant ad for a show if you look closely, so there’s that…) and Beastie.
C215 in London. Photo by Boring Lovechild.Clam Nation in Chicago. Photo by Brian Knowles.Lisk Bot. Photo by markheybo.Dylan Egon in Jersey City. Photo by Bill Benzon.Beastie in Gloucester, UK. Photo by kennysarmy.
