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.
Editor’s note: Earlier this year, Brian Knowles reached out to me in response to Ryan Seslow’s post about teaching a class on street art and graffiti. Brian also teaches about street art and graffiti at the university level. As it turned out, I knew Brian’s Instagram account and his flickr and he always seems to be catching great work that I don’t see elsewhere, so I asked Brian if maybe he would like to do a guest post highlighting street art and graffiti in Oregon. Of course, what I was really hoping for was a post about The Reader/Read More Books/Boans…, but I figured I’d give Brian the freedom to do whatever he wanted. He responded that he would love to do a post about The Reader’s work in Oregon, so that turned out perfectly. The Reader is one of my favorite street artists/graffiti writers/whatever working outdoors, so I couldn’t be happier for Brian to let us publish some of his photos of The Reader’s work in Eugene and Springfield, Oregon. – RJ Rushmore
Eugene and adjacent Springfield, Oregon straddle the main rail line and Interstate 5. Two hours south of Portland, it’s the last big stop before San Francisco. It’s a good resting place for travelers heading north or south. The graffiti artist Read More Books has been a frequent visitor, as evidenced by the number of his pieces in the area. I’ve been documenting graffiti and street art here for the last 5 years. Every year a few new pieces appear as Reader passes through. None are ever legal, yet they seem like they were always supposed to exist in that spot.
For me, Read More’s style has a timeless quality. His work feels like it could have existed for decades, and his skulls and books give his admonishments to ‘Read up!’ and ‘Read More’ an apocalyptic flavor.
Below is the classic Reader throwy of the open book. Here inverted black on white and white on black. These are from 2011.There used to be trees between the books, hence the spacing. Here is an earlier photo.
The black and white book below is from the end of this summer, and the double books on the semi are also 2013. There’s a shot from its original location, and then one from its new home behind a fence with other trailers. Whomever moved it to the new location did Reader a solid and made the rear book visible from a major street. The colored triangle shapes are actually by one of Reader’s friends.
Higher than the rest, this Boans roller is all that’s left of a combo roller piece that Reader featured in his Label 228 zine. I never managed to see the wall before it had been dissed. The current graffiti underneath is better than the original diss, but not of the quality of that original epic piece. Here is a scan of that zine page.
Just down the tracks from that roller is “The Rapture”, a massively long spelling of the words with a still unfinished OYE drawn out in yellow lines at the far end. It’s visible from a local park and appeared around the time of those ‘end of the world/rapture’ predictions. Here is an earlier photo.
Update: As the New York Post notes (even though they reference the unverified and likely-fake Banksy twitter account), one interesting thing about this piece is the question of how long it will last before being vandalized.
For today’s Better Out Than In piece, Banksy has made a sort of 9/11 tribute or memorial. I suppose it’s interesting that Banksy is using a flower both as a memorial and to show an explosion, but I’m still not sure about this piece. Sidenote: Banksy has previously made at least twopieces referencing 9/11. And Gothamist reports that Banksy may have made two of this piece. There’s another similar stencil but sans-flower in Brooklyn Heights.
Kid Hazo in Philadelphia. Photo by Kid Hazo.Pablo Delgado. Photo by Boring Lovechild.Poster Boy and Bamn in Cuba. Photo by Poster Boy..frA* in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.
One thing that I’ve been hopeful of since the beginning of Better Out Than In is that Banksy might put up work in every borough. With today’s piece in Queens, that hope is one step closer to becoming a reality. This piece also seems to have been Banksy’s closest call yet, with Gothamist reporting the story of a woman spotting a man leaving the site of the piece wearing construction gear (while there is no nearby construction) while the paint was still wet and there was still a blue tarp pinned up on part of the wall. It was been reported in the past that Banksy might use a tarp to cover up his work while it is in progress. But other than the location and that story, not a particularly interesting piece in my opinion, so let’s have a look at today’s + 5.
For this + 5, I’ve got work by GATS, Trollz, Syd and three unknown artists:
GATS in the San Francisco Bay Area. Photo by Jeremy Brooks.Trollz in Melbourne. Photo by Michael Verhoef.Syd in London. Photo by Boring Lovechild.Unknown artists in Melbourne. Photo by 1llustr4t0r.com.Unknown artist (although tagged as possibly by Peat Wollaeger) in St. Louis. Photo by Shawn Semmler.
Once again, people such as myself are the butt of Banksy‘s joke for a Better Out Than In piece (and once again I’m late posting about a piece). This may be my favorite work in the show so far. Banksy arranged for a man to sell original Banksy artworks on the street next to Central Park. The paintings weren’t labeled as Banksy pieces in any way, and were available for $60 a piece (although one woman haggled a bit and snagged 2 for $60). The obvious comparison is to Joshua Bell playing in the DC Metro, though the parallels are not exact.
This piece by Banksy is great because, like so much of Better Out Than In, it’s about the crowd that follows Banksy’s work and the system in which Banksy exists. Jeffrey Deitch recently called Banksy a conceptual artist, and I think he is spot-on. This piece, and so many others in Better Out Than In, are not the physical art objects themselves but about the relationships that people have with the objects.
Most Vandalog readers will have heard people complain, or have complained themselves, about how mediocre Banksy pieces can get covered in plexiglass and preserved while masterpieces just around the corner by any other artist can get ignored or painted over. Even work by Banksy has been accidentally painted over when not identified as his work. For 99% of street art and graffiti, the vast majority of people see it without the context of “This is a work by Artist X, whose history is Y. It is important because Z,” but fewer and fewer people see Banksy’s work in that random way, as just another artist among thousands, as just another piece of visual information on a crowded streetscape. For a brief moment this past Saturday, Banksy was just another artist, not a media sensation. Any hey, for just another artist, $420 isn’t bad for a day’s work.
Of course, now I’ve got friends and relatives emailing me asking why the hell I didn’t give them a heads up about this and asking how they can get a Banksy for $60 in order to quickly flip it and possibly make quite a few thousand dollars. But while the works at the stall were authentic, I wonder whether or not Pest Control will authenticate them. Without that authentication, even the people in the video can’t really be trusted if they attempt to sell their “authentic” artworks. Those stencils would be easily enough to fake. But who really cares if the works are real or fake, so long as you’re not paying more than $60 for them?
Speaking of street artists being unappreciated when their name isn’t Banksy, here’s our + 5. These five works that range from very big to quite tiny and are by Ludo, 616, UFO, Cane Mortoedit: with Insurrectionize,Royce Bannon and Russell King:
Ludo in Paris. Photo by Carlos Ribeiro.UFO in NYC. Photo by Hrag Vartanian.616 in London. Photo by Alex Ellison.Cane Morto and Insurrectionize in Bergen. Photo by svennevenn. Click to view large.Russell King and Royce Bannon in Philadelphia. Photo by Ellen King.
