Well, there you go. Banksy‘s film Exit Through The Gift Shop, while a good film, was apparently just not good enough for The Academy. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Feature but lost to Inside Job (a win which will probably has a larger postive impact on the world than a win for Exit).
While I can understand that some people were not excited when Exit was nominated, and I also certainly saw it as a sign of Banksy’s mainstream popularity and pandering, for better or worse, I would have the say that once it got nominated, I wanted to at least see it win.
Wow. This week has gone by really quickly. I guess the world feels like it is moving faster when you are running on less sleep. Such a counter-intuitive thing. Anyway, here is what has been going on that I didn’t have a chance to write about this week:
Two members of the Russian artist/activist group Voina are finally out on bail, in part thanks to Banksy.
I came across Street Art View only the other day, which is pretty pathetic considering the number of Facebook and Twitter posts on it. Right now I am teetering on how I feel about it. Powered by Red Bull (who seem to have their hands in street art related activities a lot recently) and Google Maps, the site allows people to virtually “tag” graff and street art as depicted on the Street View. Thing is though, isn’t most of the work already covered/altered/buffed/etc.? Just an initial look, there is work from JR and Banksy that are no longer on the streets. For historical purposes, I guess this is a good idea because you can find exact locations or learn where they used to be. But in the present, works change so much, that tagging something on the map misleads people looking to see works. Also, since the Street View is already created, won’t new works not be able to be seen at all? This is like a “Where is Waldo” of street art from a certain time period. I personally enjoyed finding the wizard more enjoyable.
This map is a lot like Marxism to me- sounds good in theory, but shit in practice.
I also hear there is an Iphone app in the making (already created?) that you can take a photo of a piece and it recognizes the artist when people upload the same work and tag it as an artist? I read this somewhere a few weeks ago, but don’t remember where. I bet the cops will have a field day with that application.
So with the Oscars less than a week away and an Oscar nomination under his belt, of course Banksy has hit up LA with some new work. Some of it’s good, some of it is barely worth a mention and all of it is getting lots of attention.
My personal favorite from this series of hits is the above billboard, the aftermath of which can be seen in this video. Expect it to show up on eBay any day now.
The other piece I really like is this Charlie Brown on a burnt out building:
Photo by Lord Jim
Hieronymus spotted the Charlie Brown piece getting covered by the property management company. His thoughts on the subject as well as on the general way that Banksy’s outdoor work has such a strange life these days are worth checking out. I would pretty much echo his sentiments. There’s also this video of the piece getting covered, but not much is clear except that the building owners want the work covered for now.
I think with either of those two pieces, they’d be worth mentioning even if they weren’t by Banksy, and that should be the measure by which his work is judged. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, and massive amounts of attention have also been paid to every new Banksy in LA, even the two mediocre ones. First, there’s Dog Wizz, which is kinda funny I guess but definitely not top-notch Banksy work:
Photo by Hieronymus
And then there’s this piece which looks to me like something Mr. Brainwash would dream up after looking at Banksy and Dran’s stuff for a bit too long:
Photo by Lord Jim
Besides being a really weak concept compared to the rest of Banksy’s work with kids drawing, there are a few crazy things about this crayon-gun stencil: It was first “discovered” by Lauren Conrad from The Hills and she posted a photo on her twitter. As Hrag speculates, this was pretty clearly staged for maximum publicity for both Lauren and Banksy. Additionally, there’s this painting by Nils Westergard from about a year ago that is pretty similar, so if you like this Banksy but can’t afford to hire somebody to chop a wall out for you, you can always buy the Westergard version on canvas for $500. I’m not saying that Banksy ripped off Westergard, just trying to point out how simple the concept of a crayon-gun is (then again, you could argue that the simple concepts are what makes some of Banksy’s art so good). Finally, I think it’s pretty hilarious to see Banksy fans loving this piece when the first thing it made me think of is that infamous Mr. Brainwash image of Elvis holding a toy gun instead of a guitar. Honestly, the concept of this piece seems so MBW-esque to me, even though the style is obviously Banksy’s. Oh, and it looks like somebody trashed this wall already.
So that’s Banksy’s most recent LA advertising campaign. Some good art and lots of hype. Hopefully it all works in his favor, because I’d still love to see him win that Oscar on Sunday. I just re-watched Exit Through The Gift Shop last week for the first time since the premiere, and I liked it more the second time around. It’s not a bad film.
A lot of people were first introduced to street art through Banksy and his rats. Then, you learn that Blek le Rat was painting stencils of rats back in the 1980’s. What people don’t often realize that one of street art’s early pioneers beat both of those artists to stenciled black rats. The Rat Patrol project by Christy Rupp, from 1979, consisted of wheatpasting images of rats all around New York City. Street Art, a book from 1985, is the invaluable resource that first introduced me to Rupp’s artwork, but since then, I don’t think she has been acknowledged for her work as one of the first street artists, and possibly the first street artist to use rats extensively, a character that has become iconic within the movement.
Here’s how Rupp describes the project:
Life size image of a rat placed amongst accumulated garbage. I started pasting these up during the 3 week garbage strike in May of 1979. Never intending to defend rats, I wanted to point out how we had created a habitat for them, and they would naturally occupy it. The city has it’s own ecosystem with a delicate balance. Rats were very visible in those days where I lived in the Wall St. area. Especially around dusk when the human traffic would abruptly taper off leaving all the days harvest for the first rats to discover. During this time I studied rat behavior and found them to be similar to people in many ways, not least of which was the ability to work together as a community, making them possibly better suited to living in NYC at times. Also it has been said that rats possess a culture- if you define culture as the ability to pass information through generations without direct experience- such as a fear of predators and pesticides. Humans are the only other species that can do that.
Also, there were even Rubble Rats, which took the form of sculptures:
Rupp’s artwork is a piece of street art history that should be longer be ignored. Certainly something that should be kept in mind with LA MOCA‘s upcoming street art show.
On her website, you can purchase a print of the 2nd photo in this post.
Also, I was looking around the rest of Rupp’s website and there are a number of other cool artworks worth checking out.
There’s been some speculation and wild guesses when it comes to how Banksy might possibly accept his Oscar, if Exit Through The Gift Shop wins this year for best documentary feature. An article on a NYTimes blog might have the answer. Supposedly, the Academy has arranged that producer Jaimie D’Cruz will have to accept the award on Banksy’s behalf, to avoid any monkey business that Banksy might try to pull otherwise.
And yes, one reason I’m posting about this is that I can make that bad pun about monkey business.
Last night hosted a packed opening at Black Rat Projects entitled Printmaking Today. Normally print shows tend to be a bit tedious, since they are usually reproduced images of originals or have been so before upon their initial releases. But Black Rat hosted a refreshingly eclectic display of prints by artists ranging from Damien Hirst, Banksy, Matt Small, D*Face, Shepard Fairey and more. As much shit as I got for a previous post of mine about street artists becoming accepted into the art canon, this show only adds further evidence to my point. While many high end fine art establishments look down on street art and find it a passing trend in galleries, this show saw Hirst’s work next to D*Face and Bridget Riley (whose work is in the Tate) close to a Shepard Fairey, without any work looking out of place. My friends and I were discussing how not only does street art borrow from fine art, but fine artists are definitely borrowing from the work of street and outsider artists. The lines are quickly blurring between low brow and fine art, so it is finally nice to see the two in such a show, and not just in an auction.
The show also boasted an incredible pop-up project space by ROA. Each angle showed a new image, and I swear you could walk around it ten time and would still see something different. The works may not be new, quite similar to the LA and NY shows, but the concept is so much more complex and is worth checking out just for that reason.
My favorite of the night had to be Pure Evil‘s “Dripping Liza” work that culminated with a puddle of teal paint down on the floor near the canvas. Andy Warhol may be done to death, but Pure Evil still manages to put a new spin on an over-saturated piece of art that needs to be seen in person to attain the full effect.
Had a pretty interesting week. Last Friday was the opening of, Sex Drive, the latest show at The Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, where I work part time. It’s a pretty great show, so if you’re in the Philadelphia area, I’d say it’s worth stopping by. But if you’re not, there’s also a lot of online content. But here’s what’s going on the more Vandalog-relevant world this week:
There’s a trailer out for a film called How To Sell A Banksy. It seems to be about a person or group who are trying to sell a street piece by Banksy that they removed or somehow got their hands on. I’m not sure what to think of the whole thing. On the one hand, it certainly raises some questions about the value of art and what Banksy is (like the guy from Andipa, a dealer in secondhand Banksy artwork, saying that perhaps Banksy’s street pieces are absolutely worthless), but I can’t help but believe that those questions will be obscured in the film by the filmmakers themselves being sucked into the system. They are trying to sell something after all, how could they not become part of this system that the film seem to be critiquing?
It’s just been announced that Banksy’s film Exit Through The Gift Shop did in fact make it from the Oscar short list to getting a nomination for this year’s Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. So that’s kind of cool. Interesting that The Academy a. doesn’t seem to have concerns about the authenticity of the film and b. doesn’t seem to mind that Banksy won’t be able to accept the award himself, both concerns that some people thought could keep Exit from getting nominated. Also nominated are Gasland, Inside Job, Restrepo and Waste Land. While a lot of people would note that I’m not the biggest Banksy fanboy in the world, I’m definitely hoping that Exit wins this award.
Getting back in the swing of things at school this week. Fair warning, today is the first meeting of a class I’m taking about conceptual art. I’m excited and the professor seems awesome, but just fair warning: That class could bleed over into the rest of my life and lead to an increase in bullshitting from me here on Vandalog. Unfortunately, I haven’t sorted out a proper internet connection yet since getting back to school, so I’ve been a bit lax this week. Here’s what’s been going on:
This isn’t street art or urban art or low brow or anything really related to Vandalog, but one of my favorite artists, Hiroyuki Doi, has a show on in New York right now. Definitely check it out.
I think some of these pieces from Phil Jones are old, some just remind me of Asbestos’ Lost series and some are pretty meh, but damn overall Jones is kicking ass with some fun street art.
Exit Through The Gift Shop was nominated for a BAFTA and won an award for documentaries. In other Banksy news, someone is trying to sell 5 Banksy works on paper, basically preparatory works, for £125,000.
This “news” article reads like a press release for Bonhams, but there is one surprising bit of information in there: Apparently the Shepard Fairey Peace Goddess, which sold earlier this month at Bonhams for £27,600, is the highest price ever paid for a Shepard Fairey work at auction. I would have thought he’d reached a higher number by now, but I guess most of the work that goes to auction tends to be prints and HPMs, not the large collages or retired stencils that might have otherwise already reached that number. UPDATE: Of course, the article is wrong. That isn’t the highest price paid for a Shepard Fairey work at auction. Not sure if this price is the highest, but it’s much higher than the Bonhams result. So I guess that article is just a giant press release. Sorry.
