One of the four new Banksy pieces in London has caused some controversy in the graffiti community. It’s a solid, well thought out piece, but it just so happened to have involved painting over a decades old piece by London graffiti writer Robbo. Well, Robbo was apparently not very happy about this, but instead of just doing a messy throw-up over Banksy’s piece, Robbo put some thought into his retaliation. Here’s the result:
Graffoto has all the interesting details.
Practically overnight, four new Banksy’s have appeared in London.
This piece is in Camden, where there is basically a tourist industry around the remnants of London punk culture:
I wouldn’t have thought this was a Banksy if people more knowledgeable than me hadn’t been saying so. It’s been a while since he’s painted rats:
This is definitely my favorite:
All photos by TheMammal
There was a very positive response from my first holiday gift guide post about affordable prints, so I thought it might be worth putting together a similar list for art books.
1. The Faith of Graffiti by Norman Mailer and Jon Naar
Okay, this book isn’t actually released until December 29th, but it absolutely needs to be included in this list. A full decade before Subway Art was published, Mailer wrote a brilliant essay to accompany Naar’s photographs of the very earliest New York City graffiti, most of which would be considered tags today. This book is an essential piece of graffiti history, but it has been largely ignored by history in favor of the next book on this list.
2. Subway Art: 25th Anniversary Edition by Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant
While Naar did a great job documenting the very earliest stages of graffiti, Subway Art is what turned graffiti into an international phenomena and forced people to look at graffiti as more than petty vandalism. This new edition of the book includes new photographs and is in a much larger format, so many of the photos that are in your old copy of Subway Art are now printed much larger and nicer. While The Faith of Graffiti documents the earliest moments in graffiti history, there is no more important book about graffiti or street art than Subway Art.
3. Keith Haring by Jeffrey Deitch and many others
If you like Keith Haring, this is the definitive book of his artwork. It’s pretty huge, weighing in at almost 9 pounds. It’s not cheap either (almost $40 at the time of this post), so it’s really for those who absolutely love Haring, but you’re not going to find a better book of his artwork.
4. Brooklyn Street Art by Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington
Probably the best of Prestel’s series of street art books, this is a solid overview of Brooklyn’s street art. A great stocking stuffer.
5. Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution by Cedar Lewisohn
In my opinion, maybe the best street art book for the street art lover. Not just a book of photos, this book covers a great deal of street art history in a very serious way.
6. Wall and Piece by Banksy
Honestly, I kind of hope that nobody buys Wall and Piece because it’s on this list. Pretty much anybody who reads Vandalog should have at least one copy of Wall and Piece. Banksy is a genius. ‘Nuff said.
7. Young, Sleek, And Full Of Hell by Aaron Rose
I just read this book a week or two ago, and if you liked the film Beautiful Losers, this book is a great companion. It tells the story of New York’s Alleged Gallery, mostly through pictures and interviews with many of the people who were associated with the gallery over it’s lifetime.
8. Pictures of Walls
A funny little stocking stuffer. One of those things that makes me smile.
9. Untitled II: The Beautiful Renaissance by Gary Shove
This book doesn’t take itself too seriously and it’s full of pretty pictures. It’s good overview of recent street art, and includes some new artists that I wasn’t familiar with as well as many of that greats that I know and love.
10. The Thousands: Painting Outside, Breaking In by RJ Rushmore
Can of had to include my own book, didn’t I? What I love about this book isn’t what I wrote, but what other people wrote. Know Hope’s biography of Chris Stain taught me as much about Chris as it did Know Hope’s personality. An excerpt from Mike Snelle’s forward to the book was recently posted on Drago’s website.
And here’s the latest in the saga of Banksy’s IEAK Punk piece in Croydon… The owners of the wall have removed it. They are saying that the removal to prevent more tagging because the piece has been severely tagged over. I hope that’s true. I give the owners a pretty good chance of trying to sell the wall tomorrow (hopefully not on eBay). The Sutton Guardian has the full story.
This piece, The Fool by Dale Grimshaw, appeared recently in Shoreditch. First of all, it’s a cool piece. But it is part of a larger point I’d like to make/question I’d like to ask. It seems like woodblock and lino-blocks are pretty popular in the USA, particularly NYC, but almost unheard of here in the UK. On the other hand, stencils seem much more popular in London than elsewhere. Why is this?
I think it has to do with Banksy and Swoon. Swoon is an American artist and she’s probably more popular in New York than London. She’s been wheatpasting for a long time now, and a lot of artists have been influenced by her. And in the UK, Banksy is a household name, and a lot of street artists picked up stencils after seeing Banksy’s work. But that’s just my take.
Any other thoughts?
Apparently there is a Banksy self portrait set to be revealed next week at a bar in Islington.
I’m not even going to link to this story. Google it if you think it’s interesting, but it sounds like PR hype to me.
Just a few weeks ago, Banksy painted this piece in Croydon. Well turns out he painted that on council owned property. Of course, if the council just went and buffed the piece, you’ve got to think that people wouldn’t be happy. So the council asked for community feedback about the piece. Here’s what happened (from The Guardian):
Since inviting people to email in last Thursday, the council has received more than 100 emails, with 85% ruling that the graffito should stay.
Colin Hall, executive member for environment on Sutton council, said the piece had “caught the imagination”, and that the decision to retain or remove it should be a public one.
“We don’t tolerate graffiti in Sutton, and have a pair of dedicated teams who go out daily to remove it,” Hall said.
“But we’re well aware that many people see a difference between mindless tagging and work such as this.”
Read the rest of the article on The Guardian’s website.
Well this is now two new Banksy pieces on the street in one week (see: Ikea Punk) (and three in about a month) and the 3rd 4th (UPDATE: Thanks to Mick for sending this image of the piece at the Barely Legal show from 2006) iteration of his “No Ball Games” image.
First there was this piece up for sale at the Dreweatts Urban Art Auction in March. If I remember correctly the piece was for charity and direct from Banksy:
Then there was this piece at Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum. If you look carefully, in some photos of this painting, you can see that Banksy has sprayed over the image of a tv and replaced it with this new sign:
And now with “No Ball Games” on the street (somewhere in London), it is looking great and truly where it belongs. Some pieces work well indoors, some work well outdoors. Banksy knows this. Yesterday’s post about his “Ikea Punk” is a good example of this point.
At Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum, there was a stencil piece of an anarchist being helped by his grandmother who was getting him dressed for a protest, and it was perfect for being inside. With “Ikea Punk”, that is an image (involving a similar character) that only works outside.
“No Ball Games” (IMHO) didn’t work as well indoors because for one thing that green background wasn’t enjoyable to look at, and for another thing that’s just the kind of joke that fits perfectly on a wall somewhere. Not to say this wouldn’t make a nice screen print, but like a sketch by Blu, what you’d really be buying is a nice piece of work and a memory of what the piece looks like outdoors.
Another reason I prefer this image outdoors instead of at Banksy Versus the Bristol Museum is that I’m a fool. When I saw that piece at the Bristol Museum and noticed that it was the same piece that was at Dreweatts but repainted slightly, I got the idea of a tv in my mind, and thought that the “No Ball Games” sign was a flat screen television. The mind plays tricks on us / I’m lazy. And I didn’t think the piece worked as well with a flat screen tv. Clearly though, after thinking about the piece for 2 seconds, you can see that a street sign is being thrown, not a flat screen tv, and the piece outdoors makes that even more clear.
Is this just the start of Banksy’s renewed work in London? Let’s hope so.
One of my favorite songs by AFI is “I Wanna Get A Mohawk” (see video at the end of this post), my favorite stencil from Banksy versus The Bristol Museum was this piece of an “anarchist’s” grandma helping him get dressed for a protest, so I guess it’s not too surprising that Banksy’s latest piece is probably my favorite outdoor piece by him since New Orleans.
This piece is in Brighton Croydon, right near an Ikea store.
Maybe the reason I love this piece so much is because I’m definitely a lot like that faux-punk. I’ve grown up very privileged, I sprayed a crappy stencil at Cans Festival, I’ve gone through phases of extreme left-leaning political outrage, and now I collect street art and I’m taking a gap year to travel (and do other things). If you can’t laugh at yourself, what can you laugh at?
And besides, for a stencil, that’s some real craftsmanship that few other artists even attempt.
That song by AFI:
Most cities, when they have a graffiti “problem,” they bring out the buff squad and say “Go crazy. If it’s graffiti, buff it ASAP.” The most obvious problem with that strategy is that legal graffiti and street art gets buffed, as well as graffiti and street art that people like.
Although it’s been an informal policy in Bristol and parts of London for a while now, Bristol is officially modifying their graffiti buffing policy to accommodate art that people want to keep up. Soon, the council website will have a voting area where photos of graffiti and street art art published and the public will be able to vote for which pieces they like and which should be removed. That’s a lot of respect from the council for something that is still technically illegal.
From The Guardian:
For some it is simply an eyesore, but for others graffiti has as much worth as an old master. In Bristol, reputed home of Banksy, the street artist who has done more than any other to elevate graffiti off concrete walls and into galleries, the question is to be settled by the public.
Bristol city council is planning to let the public vote before murals on buildings, walls and fences are scrubbed clean or painted over. If citizens decide they like it, the work will remain.
The move comes as the “Banksy v Bristol Museum” exhibition in the city closedtoday having attracted more than 300,000 visitors since June. Queues for admission were up to six hours long over the Bank Holiday weekend.
As part of its formal street-art policy “to seek to define and support the display of public art”, the council is pledging “where people tell us that murals or artworks make a positive contribution to the local environment, and where the property owner has raised no objection” the graffiti will not be removed.
Photographs will be posted on the council’s website and the public asked to voice their opinions.
The policy was created after a Banksy work, showing a naked man hanging out of a window while his lover’s partner looks for him, appeared on a council-owned building in 2005, sparking debate over whether it should be removed.
The council set up an online poll, with 93% of those voting saying they wanted to keep it.
