Tag: banksy

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Banksy at Sotheby’s

With the recession, we’ve seen an end to those “Urban Art Auctions” at Bonhams and Dreweatts which seemed cool but a bit let they were secluding Urban Art away from the the rest of the art world. Now, urban/street art is appearing more in Contemporary Art auctions, which, I think, is a good sign for the future of the genre.

That’s why I was excited to see this iconic Banksy canvas in Sotheby’s Contemporary Day Auction on the 26th of June in London.

Banksy Flower Thrower

Of course, a lot of Banksy work has gone unsold in auctions lately. Hopefully Banksy’s Bristol show will pique interest in this piece. I’d love to see some more street art get strong prices at a contemporary auction, and this could be Banksy’s chance.

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Review: Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum

Banksy Sign

Everybody’s talking about Banksy‘s new exhibition, Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum, which runs from today until August 31st. I went for the preview last night, and so I thought I’d write a little run-through of the show.

The first thing you see when you walk into the museum is indeed that recreation of Banksy’s Glastonbury Stonehenge, photos of which leaked on Thursday. For me, it was Banksy’s attempt at mocking cliched museum exhibits. At least, that’s what I hope it is meant to be.

Banksy Main Hall

The next room is the main hall (or whatever you want to call it) of the museum. As you can see, the centerpiece of this room is a burted out ice cream van with a melted ice cream cone. A bit like the burnt out ice cream van at Cans Festival. Along the sides of the room, where you might expect to see statues of Bristol’s most historic figures, there are sculptures of a woman carrying shopping bags and a Buddha wearing a cast (recreating this stencil). At first glance, some of them, particularly the Buddha and the David (as a suicide bomber) fit in perfectly with the museums regular exhibits. Upon closer inspection of course, the works are classic Banksy. Although I doubt Banksy actually had much to do with making this statues beyond coming up with the idea, they are some of my favorite pieces in the show.

Banksy Sculpture

More after the jump… Continue reading “Review: Banksy Versus The Bristol Museum”

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Banksy versus the Bristol Museum

By Banksy and Damien Hirst. Photo by Sabeth718
By Banksy and Damien Hirst. Photo by Sabeth718

Yes that’s right. Banksy has invaded The Bristol City Museum for the next 3 months for his “Summer Show.” It is a flat out great show. Full review coming tomorrow, but this piece was one of my favorites. It’s a real Damien Hirst that Banksy has VASTLY improved. Some great photos in Sabeth718’s photo set.

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Banksy Show Rumors

UPDATE (12:56am): As the night has worn on, I’ve lost confidence the validity of this photo. I think there is at least a 50% chance that this photo is either fake, part of ploy/decoy, or only one component of the Banksy Summer Show. So no more rumors, you can probably just disregard this post, and let’s all wait until Friday or Saturday to hear all the real info about the show.

As mentioned yesterday, there is a Banksy show confirmed to open on June 13th. Other than that, not much is known. Personally, I haven’t even been following the rumors too closely, but this photo is too interesting to pass up.

Bristol Street Art Sneaky Pic

That photo was taken by Bristol Street Art through the door of Bristol’s City Museum, and is very similar to the Glastonbury Stonehenge piece that Banksy did in 2007 at the Glastonbury music festival.

This has led to rumors of a retrospective at the museum, which was closed today and is also closed tomorrow.

On the other hand, the unofficial (I assume) Banksynews twitter gave the clue “animals” about the show on May 22nd and that doesn’t seem to fit so well with a museum retrospective. So I guess we’ll just have to wait until the 13th to know for sure.

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Whole in The Wall

Update: turns out, the work from Banksy in this show is secondary market and not direct from Banksy. Still, looks to be an interesting show.

Looks like New York’s first must-see show of the year has been announced. I don’t have much to add about Whole in The Wall with Helenbeck Gallery other than to ask “Where else can you see brand new work from Banksy, Blek le Rat, and early graffiti writers in the same place?” Just read the press release and let me know if you don’t love it.

May 29 to June 27, 2009:

“Whole In The Wall: 1970 – Now”
Largest U.S. Street Art Exhibition Debuts in NYC
_______________________________________

Masters from the 1970s NYC graf movement (Blade, Crash, Daze, Jonone, Quik, Lee Quinones,  Rammellzee, Sharp) and European art stars (Victor Ash, Banksy, Blek le Rat, Ikon, Sozyone, Plateus) are among 19 painters, sculptors and photographers who’ve been working non-stop the last six months on new pieces for “Whole In The Wall: 1970 – Now”. It’s an unprecedented, museum-quality, 150-piece exploration of street art’s ongoing transition to, yes, fine art.

It’s not just the scale of the show that’s important. It’s presented in a lavish style only Europeans could pull off — with 17th Century antiques. This juxtaposition of authentic Luis XVI/XV furniture and crystal chandeliers in a two-story, 25,000-sf space on Manhattan’s industrial West Side puts the artists and their work in a setting Paris gallerists Chantal and Brigitte Helenbeck (Helenbeck Gallery) believe is simply . . . approprié.

The fun-loving, art-loving sisters — identical twins no less — staged a similar show in Paris in November, in which ALL pieces sold, explaining why their artists have been so hard at work). Well aware that NYC street artists command more major museum shows and higher prices in Europe galleries, the Helenbeck’s hope their dramatic presentation will inspire an elevated view of the genre in the city where it was born.

Legendary NYC graf photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant will also feature works, including a new, 40-foot Cooper mural. This show also marks the 25th anniversary re-release of Cooper and Chalfant’s groundbreaking photo book of NYC transit masterpieces, “Subway Art.” (Be on the look-out for updates, including previews of new works and video interviews, including exclusive clips with Cooper, Chalfant and other artists from this show.)

Friday, May 29 to Saturday, June 27
Open 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; Tuesdays through Saturdays
529-535 W. 35th St. @ 11th Ave. (former Splashlight Studio)

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Daily Mail Desperation

The Daily Mail seems to be grasping at straws with this latest attempt to discover Banksy’s identity. In an article from yesterday’s edition, The Daily Mail tried to once again prove they were correct last year when they announced Banksy’s identity is “Robin Gunningham” by saying that a recent stencil may be a self-portrait by Banksy.

Not Banksy

As the photographer, unusualimage, notes in the title of his photo though, this stencil was almost certainly not done by Banksy. This rat motif has been abandoned by Banksy for a while not, and this exact stencil has been used before (with different images on the rat’s sign) by the Not Banksy group. So who know, maybe the Daily Mail got it right when they identified Banksy, but this definitely isn’t the “self-portrait” they claim it could be.

Photo by unusualimage

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Joan Collins Duped Into Meeting Fake Banksy

This article from the Mail on Sunday is hilarious. It seems that a film-maker tricked Joan Collins into hosting a dinner party for an actor claiming to be Banksy, and she fell for it. Here’s a snippet of the article:

To Joan Collins it must have seemed an unexpected honour too good to refuse – the chance to meet the world-famous, and notoriously secretive, graffiti artist Banksy.

Not surprisingly, she readily accepted the invitation to host a dinner party for the mysterious artist in a grand country home, with other excited celebrities in attendance to share the unique experience.

But The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the entire story was an elaborate hoax, designed to dupe the Dynasty actress – and the rest of the world.

In reality, the ‘Banksy’ who Miss Collins spent five hours entertaining was actor Bryan Lawrence – whose career includes bit parts in The Bill and adverts for the Corby Trouser Press – not the controversial guerrilla artist famed for his stencilled, anarchist graffiti works that can sell for up to £250,000.

When we told Miss Collins of the scam, she admitted she had been completely taken in.

Asked if she knew that the person she believed to be Banksy was, in fact, an actor, she said: ‘I didn’t. I thought it was [Banksy]. I certainly thought it was. Am I surprised? Well, I still think it might be him.’

The bizarre plot was dreamt up by former Tory adviser Ivan Massow, a colourful character who made and lost a fortune selling insurance to gay men, and a familiar face on the London social scene, who has known Miss Collins for 20 years.

He filmed the charade in the hope of hoodwinking a TV broadcaster into buying the footage, promoting it as the first time Banksy had revealed himself on camera.

All I can say is that I would really like to see this footage.

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What is Pest Control?

Recently the Pest Control website (the official organization for authenticating Banksy’s work) was updated and the below message was put on their “What is Pest Control?” page. Note the “sales” section:

What is Pest Control

So that’s new. Pest Control is now the only organization selling original Banksy work on the primary market. I guess Banksy has finally left Lazarides behind (and possibly POW as well, but that makes no sense). Rumors have been swirling for the longest time that Banksy would be leaving Lazarides, but they usually involved Banksy being picked up by larger contemporary galleries like Gagosian or Opera.

This show goes to show how powerful an individual can be in today’s society even without a large organization to back them up. We’ve seen this sort of self-management in music, with Nine Inch Nails ditching their record label and doing fine, and we’ve already seen it in art with Damien Hirst’s auction. Now Banksy’s giving it a try as well.

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Jonathan Jones’ Attack on Street Art

I’ve just read Jonathan Jones’ piece on why he considered nominating Banksy for the Turner Prize. In it Jones brushes street art aside as a lesser art form and nothing but “something that scares old people on estates.” This is not the first time Jones has been critical of street art or Banksy in particular, but it is odd, as just a few months ago, he suggested that state-funded graffiti murals could help discover the next Jackson Pollock.

So maybe Jones only likes graffiti and not street art. Fine. I’ll accept that, even though it raises the much larger issue of what is graffiti and what is street art (a topic for another day, not that anybody really knows a good answer to that question). Back to Jones’ original point.

The paragraph I take the most issue with is this one:

Anyway, I believe in education. The reason I don’t like street art is that it’s not aesthetic, it’s social. To celebrate it is to celebrate ignorance, aggression, all the things our society excels at. For middle class people to find artistic excitement in something that scares old people on estates is a bit sick.

How is street art not aesthetic? How can Jones look at the work done by artists like Adam Neate or Swoon and say “those artists clearly had no intention of creating a beautiful image, or if they did, they have failed miserably?” Maybe Jones is just not exposed to enough street art. The media tends to focus on street artists doing stencils (all good and well, just not usually, save for C215, primarily about creating a pretty picture), and Jones is in the media so he sees the street art that the rest of the media shows him.

And again, this whole bit about street art scaring old people. Has he ventured to look outside of Banksy, Nick Walker, and D*Face? Jose Parla is certainly not intending to scare old people with his work.

There is hope for you yet Mr. Jones. I would urge you to have a look at a few of these street and urban artists who might be more to your liking:

1. Adam Neate

2. Matt Small

3. Jose Parla

4. Judith Supine

5. Keith Haring

6. Dan Witz

7. Swoon

8. Doze Green

9. Faile

10. JR

Any other suggestions for Mr. Jones? I just did this list off the top of my head, so I’m sure I’m missing plenty of people.

Thanks to Caroline W1 sending me Jones’ article