Tag: banksy

Posted on

Banksy’s identity is…

UPDATE: As pretty much everyone expected, this was a PR stunt and the short film is actually just an animation. Screw you Encounters International Film Festival! Don’t such dicks next time.

About to be revealed. Maybe. Or maybe not. Or maybe it was revealed a while ago and we’ve wisely chosen to believe he is still anonymous because it’s better that way.

Canimation, a series of short films that combine graffiti and animation and part of Encounters International Film Festival, claims to have CCTV footage of Banksy that conclusively shows his identity. The CCTV footage was apparently captured when Banksy painted something on a building where Aardman, an animation studio, is located.

From UK Street Art:

Animation Programme manager, Keiran Argo, programmed the Canimation strand of the festival to act as a celebration for Bristol’s involvement in both animation and street art development.

Kieran said: “The programme would have been incomplete without a local contribution so the hunt was on for something special. What Banksy didn’t bargain for when recently stencilling the back wall of Aardman’s new building was the discrete CCTV system they had installed allowing us, for the first time, to put a face to the name. All will be revealed in the programme…’

Anyone else think this is probably just a PR stunt and that perhaps this supposed CCTV video is actually an animation or something? I really hope it is, because I don’t want Banksy’s identity to be proven conclusively. Eine and Shepard Fairey have both mentioned that Banksy doesn’t paint a lot of his own street work, so why would he have painted this particular piece that got captured on CCTV? If the footage is real, it could easily be one of his assistants.

The film screens in Bristol at Encounters International Film Festival on November 20th at 9pm.

Here are some of Banksy’s self portraits from over the years:

Photo by JasonBlait
Banksy for Wired
Banksy for Time Out

Photos by/courtesy of Time Out, Wired and JasonBlait

Posted on

Weekend link-o-rama

Unknown artist

Just got back from Jordan Seiler’s show at Vincent Michael Gallery. I’ll have more on that in the next few days, but I found an awesome store in the same area as the gallery: Jinxed. It sells cool toys and the like. Here’s what I didn’t write about this week while I was busy procrastinating and thinking about The Underbelly Project.

Photo by nolionsinengland

Posted on

The art market makes no sense!

The nice thing about street art is that, for 99% of the people who look at it (the people who see it on the street and not on blogs like this one), there’s not market consideration about “how much is that worth?” or anything like that. But then there’s the 1% of us (the people who follow blogs and write and forums and so on) who do see the art market side of street art. Sometimes the art market provides opportunities for Boxi, Steve Powers and other artists can show up in London and paint walls with permission and free paint. Other times, the art market makes me want to cry.

This week, Philips de Pury had a few pieces in their London day auction by low-brow and street artists. Street Art Is Dead notes that two Mr. Brainwash pieces sold for £42,000 and £75,000 even though the estimates were already a seemingly insane £7-9,000 and £15-20,000 respectively. What makes those results even more disgusting is when you compare them to other results in that same sale:

  • A massive and beautiful Ryan McGinness which has been shown in The Saatchi Gallery sold for just under £19,000. A collector could have 4 of those paintings, or one crappy Mr. Brainwash.
  • The Kaws piece pictured above sold for £13,750. Not my favorite, but you would think that Star Wars fans would be all over that one.
  • And then the two most surprising results were that both a Margaret Kilgallen cluster and an old Barry McGee piece failed to sell at all! While this particular Kilgallen cluster has been floating around for quite a while, it’s not a bad piece and Kilgallen’s art is almost impossible to find for sale.

Similarly, while it doesn’t outrage me quite as much, I don’t exactly understand why this Banksy sold for $75,000. It’s just not a strong image.

The art market makes no sense and sometimes I wish it would just go away.

Photo courtesy of Phillips de Pury

Posted on

New Works from the Weekend Onwards

With the run-up to Frieze in London and everyone and their mother in town for events, there has been a bit of an explosion of art this week. So, I thought I would do a little round-up of pieces I have come across online since for the next few days all you will hear is “Oh my God! Hell’s Half Acre is Amazing!!” and “Moniker looks so cool!” Sometimes we need a break from that. Ok, well at least I do.

Motor in Leake Street by Steph Keller
Banksy Door at Old Vic Tunnels by Butterfly
Trustocorp for Reform School in NYC
Eine "Calculate" by VNA
Sando by Walls of Milano
Stik on Great Eastern Street by Spen H
Banksy "haring dog" by Romany W G

Oh come on, I had to post this one! It is one of my favorites of the new Banksy pieces. Plus, whoever made the Haring sculpture in response is awesome. It is a great addition unlike the graffiti next to it.

Posted on

Robbo Showing at Pure Evil Gallery

Usually, I love the shows that Pure Evil hosts. With a keen eye for fellow artistic talent, Pure Evil has put on some amazing solo shows with the likes of ROA, Dran and Specter, just to name a few. This time around though, I am a little disappointed to hear that Robbo is the latest artist to invade the gallery. You can think what you want, but in my blunt opinion, I think this atrocious to back an artist who has remade a name for himself late in his career because of a beef with another artist. I am, however, surprised it has taken this long for him to capitalize on his rejuvenated fame since the “War on Banksy” began. No doubt, there will be some pieces that make fun of the stencil artist, but I think this would be a good time for Robbo to step away from the controversy and show his own talent in a gallery, especially one that is so well respected in the street art community. If he does, I will eat my words. But his current actions in London, hyping the show, beg the differ as he and his cronies continue to bomb over Banksy pieces and make digs at him. For someone who has issues with an artist selling out and getting too big for his britches, I think the pot is calling the kettle black.

The show’s preview will take place tomorrow, September 30, at Pure Evil Gallery on Great Eastern Street. Stop by and let me know how it goes down since I am in Liverpool for the Biennial this week.

Top Cat at the Canal in Camden
More from The Canal

Photos courtesy of Robbo, Nolionsinengland, and Pure Evil

Posted on

ABOVE: Because now I’m worth it

A classic Banksy

Many Banksy fans will recognize that classic Because I’m Worthless rat. And Vandalog readers will probably be aware that Banksy’s artwork doesn’t always stay on the wall it’s painted on anymore.

ABOVE‘s latest stencil is an interesting take on those events. Check it out in this video:

“BECAUSE NOW I’M WORTH IT” from ABOVE on Vimeo.

And if you go to the video’s Vimeo page, you’ll see that ABOVE has written an explanation of the piece and how it came about.

Photo by DigitalParadox

Posted on

Jeffrey Deitch’s street art show at MOCA LA

One of Jenny Holzer's Inflammatory Essays. She had better be in this show if it's to be any good

A few months ago, this was mentioned briefly in an NYTimes article, but now the first real information is starting to come out about Jeffrey Deitch’s upcoming street art show at MOCA in LA. Culture Monster has a post all about the show, Art in the Streets. I’ve been hearing a lot of great things about this event for a while, but it’s all been rumors, so it’s nice to finally get some facts to write about.

Deitch says that Art in the Streets aims to be a broad look at street art, but will also dig deep into the history of outdoor art. That sounds like music to my ears, but it also sounds like a nearly insurmountable challenge. For example, the show will certainly involve graffiti, but so much graffiti had localized differences that now influence modern street artists and writers. So where do you draw the line at what to include? And what about the Philadelphia Mural Arts program, created to eradicate graffiti? It’s not street art, but it might deserve a place in a show titled Art in the Streets… Anyway, I’m sure we’ll know more in a few weeks when a formalized press release is sent out.

In the mean time, here’s what else is known…

  • Art in the Streets opens April 2011 at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary
  • The show will include work from the last few years as well as art from as long ago as the 1970’s, which seems about right.
  • There will be around 25 artists doing installations/murals.
  • Banksy will be involved, so yeah. That’s interesting I guess… I’m not his biggest fan lately, so it’s hard for me to get excited about that.
  • Over 100 artists will be represented in the show.
  • Aaron Rose (from Alleged Gallery/the Beautiful Losers film) and all-around graffiti and street art expert Roger Gastman are helping to curate the show.

This show could be the best thing to happen to street art since… ever. But even if it’s not perfect, it’s still going to be pretty damn good. Deitch isn’t going to screw this up. He, Rose and Gastman all know their shit.

Photo by Lord Jim

Posted on

Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art by Carlo McCormick and more

It looks like Taschen is about to publish the first street art book to seriously compete with Cedar Lewisohn’s Street Art. Ignoring an irrelevant cover image, Cedar’s book provided an overview of street art’s history and considered the art with the same level of seriousness that you might see in a book on Renaissance art. Now, Carlo McCormick (arguably the world’s foremost street art expert) has teamed up with Marc and Sara Schiller of Wooster Collective to write Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art. The book brings together what they consider to be four generations of street artists (150 artists in total). That means Trespass will have to go back to the artists seen in Allan Schwartzman’s Street Art book from 1985 (also an essential book for fans of street art history) like Gordon Matta-Clark and Jenny Holzer and then tie that to the present with artists like Blu. This is the street art book that I’ve been waiting for. Oh, and the book has an introduction by Banksy, so that’s pretty unique.

You can already check out some of Trespass on Taschen’s website, including Banksy’s hilariously ironic introduction which disses marketing.

Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art will be available sometime in September (Wooster will be hosting a launch party in NYC on the 28th)

Via Wooster Collective