Banksy + 5: October 3rd

Banksy at 24th Street and 6th Avenue. Photo by Luna Park.
Banksy at 24th Street and 6th Avenue. Photo by Luna Park.

Once again, I’m much more a fan of the audio description of this latest Banksy piece than the work itself, which may be the point or maybe I’m just taking Banksy too seriously (as the audio description for this piece suggests). Luna Park came across this piece on Wednesday before it was announced on the Better Out Than In site this morning. It was confirmed last night when a description of it became available on the Better Out Than In audio guide 800-number (1-800-656-4271-2#). Hat tip to Ryan Oakes for alerting me to the audio description. Now, you can listen to it over the phone or on Banksy’s website.

And now for our +5, five other photos of street art by artists other than Banksy that were uploaded to Flickr yesterday. Today there’s work by Poster Boy, DabsMyla, Troy Lovegates, Tomo and one unknown artist:

Unknown artist in Benicàssim, Spain. Photo by mejuan.
Unknown artist in Benicàssim, Spain. Photo by mejuan.
Troy Lovegates
Troy Lovegates in Berlin. Photo by Bernard Oh.
Poster Boy. Photo by Poster Boy.
Poster Boy in NYC. Photo by Poster Boy.
Tomo in Liverpool. Photo by Beverley Goodwin.
Tomo in Liverpool. Photo by Beverley Goodwin.
DabsMyla in Norway. Photo by Marie Guillaumet.
DabsMyla in Norway. Photo by Marie Guillaumet.

Photos by Luna Park, mejuan, Bernard Oh, Poster Boy, Beverley Goodwin and Marie Guillaumet

Banksy + 5: October 2nd

Banksy on 25th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. Photo by Luna Park. Click to view large.
Banksy on 25th Street between 10th and 11th Avenue. Photo by Luna Park. Click to view large.

So I know that late last night I said that I didn’t expect we would be covering all of Banksy’s new NYC work on this blog (also, did you somehow miss that he’s doing a bunch of work in NYC in October for his Better Out Than In project?). I said that we’d probably just be sending out links on Facebook or that I’d be tweeting about it. But then Jonathan Lynn from Anewspace in Dublin tweeted an idea at me: “you should do a column called ‘this is the new banksy & here is 5 more artists who painted today'”.

Banksy + 5 is a slight twist on Jonathan’s idea. Every time a new Banksy work for Better Out Than In is discovered, I’m going to post a photo of that work, as well as 5 photos of street art by other artists. The photos will be photos are sent to me or were uploaded to Flickr the day before the latest Banksy piece. So, for example, today’s Banksy + 5 includes the latest Banksy (the “New York Accent” stencil shown above) and 5 photos that were uploaded to Flickr on October 1st.

For today’s +5 we have NiceOne, Kid Acne, El Mac, Loretto and a collaborative piece by Shuby, Rowdy and Sweet Toof next to a piece by Eine:

NiceOne. Photo by Christmas Junkie.
NiceOne. Photo by Christmas Junkie.
Kid Acne. Photo by Kyla Borg.
Kid Acne. Photo by Kyla Borg.
El Mac. Photo by bernardoh.
El Mac. Photo by bernardoh.
Loretto. Photo by Sarflondondunc.
Loretto. Photo by Sarflondondunc.
Shuby, Rowdy and Sweet Toof next to Eine. Photo by Delete.
Shuby, Rowdy and Sweet Toof next to Eine. Photo by Delete.

Want to digitally side-bust Banksy and get some attention by being featured in a Banksy + 5 post? Get up, take some photos, and send them my way (rj a-t vandalog dot com).

Photos by Luna Park, Christmas Junkie, Kyla Borg, bernardoh, Sarflondondunc and Delete

Banksy comes to New York City, first piece damaged within hours

Banksy in NYC. Photo by carnagenyc.
Banksy in NYC. Photo by carnagenyc.

Update (October 2nd, 11am): AnimalNY is reporting that Smart Crew temporarily replaced the sign with one of their own making, but that sign is now gone too and the entire piece has been buffed.

We now have some idea of what Banksy‘s Better Out Than In project is, the project that was hinted at on his website last month. It seems Banksy is putting up work around New York City (not LA as rumors initially suggested) throughout October. The work above is the first piece of Better Out Than In and is located on Allen Street around Chinatown/the Lower East Side. Pretty much everything that’s known about the project is on a new site, Banksyny.com. There’s also an Instagram handle (@banksyny). Looks like we will be getting regular updates from those two sources as to when new pieces go up. The site currently says, “For the next month Banksy will be attempting to host an entire show on the streets of New York.” To make this like (scare quotes) “a real show,” there’s an audio guide of sorts. Note the little stenciled numbers to the right of the piece in the above image. That’s a phone number (1-800-656-4271) that you can call to hear the audio guide (the item number of this piece is, naturally #1). You can also listen to the audio description (at least of this first piece) on banksyny.com.

As Bucky Turco at AnimalNY says, “So to recap: Banksy, a street artist who puts up work in the street–as other street and graffiti artists are wont to do–will be putting up work in the street. Got it.” But that seems to be missing the point, at least the point of where I suspect Banksy may be going with this. Just like The Street Museum of Art is absurd, there is a level of absurdity in Better Out Than In, but I think it’s probably useful absurdity making a point.

It may be the case that Banksy is trying to comment on street artists’ desires to get into museums or paint legal murals rather than work on the street in a guerrilla fashion. Are Banksy’s stencils good? Yes. Are they usually mind-blowingly brilliant? Nah. As Melrose&Fairfax points out, the concept of first stencil of this “show” is similar to work that went up earlier this year in LA last year by Plastic Jesus. If Better Out Than In continues in this vein of the kinds of stencils and public interventions that we have come to expect from Banksy, then I think Better Out Than In may be using those “typical” works to make a larger commentary about Banksy’s work and street art in general. So it’s not really the individual works that will matter but the show as a cohesive whole. Could Better Out Than In be the street art equivalent of institutional critique, really only using the works of street art as props? If so, Banksy may once again outdo himself, a commendable feat when the question among his fans always seems to be “What can Banksy do next? How can he top that last thing?”. Like I say, it’s too early to say with any confidence if this is what Better Out Than In is really about. So far we’ve only seen one piece and gotten a hint at the larger project, so I’m just speculating out loud and tomorrow it could become apparent that I’m completely wrong and have just my head too far up my own ass to see that yet. Maybe Banksy just wanted to make some jokes that didn’t work as stencils or he’s upset that MoMA hasn’t given him a show yet. I guess we’ll find out soon, although with Banksy it seems that hardly anything is ever completely clear.

One of the questions that people seem to be asking about these works is how long they are going to last, given the recent spike in the number of Banksy street pieces that people have sold or are trying to sell. Well, if this first piece is any indication, the works won’t last very long. This first piece has already been damaged. The sign has been removed and some tags have been added. My partners in The L.I.S.A. Project stopped by the wall late Tuesday night and took this photo:

Photo courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project
Photo courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project

Or, for the gif-lovers out there, I’ve made this:

Photo courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project
Photos courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project

The point is, if you really want to see one of these pieces, it’s probably best to keep a close eye on the project website, the project’s Instagram and other social media channels where the location might be revealed (since it appears Banksy’s sites will only be giving an approximate location) so that you can get to the new work before thieves or people bent on destroying it do.

Speaking of other social media channels. I tweeted a bit this evening that perhaps Banksy had joined Twitter for this project as @banksyny, but pretty soon after that I realized that the account is almost definitely a hoax. Obviously there’s no way to no for sure, but the general rule-of-thumb for confirming anything Banksy-related is to see if it appears on his website. While the @banksyny Instagram account is linked to from banksyny.com (which his official site, banksy.co.uk, currently redirects to), the Twitter account is not. So, I think it’s safe to say that the Twitter account can be assumed to be a hoax. Ironically, right after tweeting about the @banksyny Twitter account and believing that it could be real, I tweeted this about how people shouldn’t report Banksy rumors as fact. So, I screwed up on that one…

My guess it that we won’t be posting updates about every new piece in Better Out Than In or news about the project to this blog. Instead, you’re probably better following Vandalog on Twitter or Facebook for those updates (or of course following Banksy’s own site).

Photos courtesy of The L.I.S.A. Project and by carnagenyc

Sunday link-o-rama

Jaz, drawing entirely with charcoal.
Jaz, drawing entirely with charcoal in Buenos Aires.

Had a quick holiday in New York City combined with a nasty cold to delay posting this link-o-rama, but I’m back so here we go…

  • Dave aka nolionsinengland has been a friend and also one of my favorite street art/graffiti photographers for many years now. I’m very excited to see that he’s now offering street art tours of London in addition to his street art photography workshops. There aren’t too many people who can take me on a graffiti or street art tour of London, but Dave has shown me around before and he still schools me every time we meet up. This guy knows his stuff, and regular reads of this site have seen his photos on here for years. I haven’t taken this tour of course, but from every experience I’ve had with Dave over the past 5 or so years, I cannot recommend him highly enough.
  • Another longtime friend whose work I’ve admired is Know Hope, so I’m overjoyed to see him getting some serious recognition in the UK with a solo show coming up at Lazarides Gallery’s Rathbone Place location. Like Os Gemeos, Know Hope make work that grabs me and sucks me in to his world, and that’s a rare and beautiful experience. The show opens August 2nd.
  • Banksy’s No Ball Games street piece in London has been removed from the wall and is due to be sold next year. The profits from the sale will be going to charity, but I’m curious if that means the profits for person who owns the wall, or if the group organizing the removal and sale are also forgoing any profits. The company that removed this wall is the same one that managed the sale of Banksy’s Slave Labour street piece earlier this year.
  • Very nice NSA-theme ad takeover.
  • Gold Peg and Malarky are showing together in Stoke on Trent in the UK on August 3rd. It’s not often that Gold Peg shows her work indoors, so this is a really special treat.
  • Faile are on the cover of the latest issue of Very Nearly Almost, so there will be launch events in both NYC and London. The NYC launch is July 31st at Reed Projects and the London launch will be 8th August at Lazarides.
  • This year’s Living Walls conference/festival line up has been announced. The festival (my personal favorite in the USA) will be August 14th-18th in Atlanta. Caroline and I will be there, as well Steve and Jaime of Brooklyn Street Art. I highly encourage you to make the trip out if at all possible. Artist painting this year include Jaz, Inti, Know Hope, Freddy Sam, Trek Matthews and many more. More info about the conference (including all the things planned besides the murals) here. Also, you can donate to the conference here.
  • Remi/Rough recently put together a book of sketches that you can read online. Most artists who have met me know that I’m always carrying around a blackbook, and that I love to collect sketches, so this project of Remi’s was a real joy for me. It’s really fascinating to see what’s going on behind the scenes with this work.
  • Caroline and I went to this show in Brooklyn on Saturday night. I was really impressed with EKG’s drawings. A few of them definitely reminded me of Rammellzee. Col’s screenprints on wood were also interesting as a change of pace for someone who I’ve always known as a master with spray can.
  • Have I missed something? These new Titifreak works for his upcoming show at Black Book Gallery look very different from the Titifreak I remember. Still great though. I hope I get a chance to see this show while I’m in Denver next month.
  • Surreal awesomeness from Dome.

Photo by Jaz

Parasites and magnets: a story about street art and photography

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I am bored. In fact, I am not that bored, I am more disillusioned. But why?

Firstly I am slightly fed up of seeing a lack of creativity in much of the street art I am currently viewing in London, hence these photos of interesting pieces by Monkey and the ATG Crew in Hvar, Croatia I snapped whilst on holiday a couple of months ago. It may just be that I am looking in the wrong places, and don’t get me wrong, there are a huge amount of artists living and working in London that I admire, but it seems I keep seeing the same dull work from many others.

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But that is not quite why I am writing. It is a second point that has caused me to become even more disillusioned. Money makes the world go around and money always seeps into everything eventually, street art included. This is not necessarily a bad thing, artists need money to keep doing what they are doing in addition to feeding and clothing themselves, but at the same time money brings parasites.

These parasites, as I like to call them, come in various forms and varieties. You have flippers, forgers, and reclaimers, who just steal street art off the street to sell. Then there are others, such as agents, who I will never understand really. An agent, really?

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But there seems to be a final parasite that is increasing in numbers, and that’s the photographer. Actually photographer is a bad term to use, but they call themselves that so, so be it. A photographer to me is someone that is creative, an artist with a camera. Someone who sees a shot, frames it, and shoots it. Taking light, composition, angle and various other important aspects into account. A good photographer (at this point note Mark Rigney, Sandra Butterfly, NoLionsinEngland, RomanyWG, HowAboutNo, Martha Cooper, Ian Cox et al), makes an image come to life in a photo. They add something to a picture.

I see photographers as important for a couple of reasons, firstly as I have previously alluded to, they are artists in their own right and I am all for creative people who have something interesting to exhibit. But secondly, and more importantly to an extent, is their ability to document. Martha Cooper is the prime example and others have followed suit. My pictures in this post are a documentation of street art in Croatia and this blog is a documentation of street art from around the world. In essence it becomes a window to history and that’s why I have a penchant for photography.

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Yet over the last two weeks in particular, and over the last few weeks, months and years in general, I have become disillusioned. In no small part because of the increasing numbers of people printing Banksy images onto canvas and selling them at every market in London, but more recently by photographers tapping into the same practice.

Over the last two weekends I have attended two outdoor art events. One in Brixton, and one near Old Street. Both these events have included some fantastic, talented artists, and in particular, Brixton had a few great photographers who’s work I really admired. But both have also had those types of photographers who steal others’ creativity.

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Poor photos are one thing, but couple that with a market stall, price labels, and in one case fridge magnets and Oyster card holders and you have a recipe for disaster. Gone is the creativity and the innovation of a good photographer or even if the documentation that the mediocre photographer can provide. All you are left with is poor photos, bad cropping and product.

There has been a recent breakthrough on this subject with regard to Wooster Collective working their magic to ensure than Art.com offers commission to artists and show artists the photos they are hoping to use before they start selling them. This really is a massive step in ensuring that companies who deal in wall art act in a moral manner, but as RJ mentioned in his post on the subject, this is far from a complete problem solver.

In one of the cases I came across, I asked if the photographer had got permission from the artists. He said yes of course, the majority had agreed and that they are extremely grateful for their work getting promoted.

I would have loved to have been there when the guy asked Banksy, Eine, Phlegm, Mr. Brainwash, Os Gemeos and others if he could use their images to make money for himself. I hardly believe they are happy that others are making financial gains without paying any dues, in this case commission.

At a time when there are so many good artists releasing high quality affordable screen prints and even originals, it annoys me that some members of the general public are paying out sums of money for awful images. The stall at the street party near Old Street always had a large crowd around it with people paying good money for pictures they could have taken themselves and printed at home.

The moral of this story is that if you are reading this thinking about lining the pockets of one of these so called photographers, then I urge you to invest that money in your own camera, get outside and take some photos yourself. And if you need a bit of training then get yourself along to one of NoLions photography workshops if he organises a few more soon, fingers crossed he does, as they were very well received. Be creative, don’t let others steal what in essence is meant to be free art for all to enjoy.

This problem is not going to disappear completely, but you can all do your bit by not handing your money over to these parasitic photographers, and don’t let your mates do it either. In fact, I believe this is where street art tours come into their own as they get the general public into places where they can take their own documentary images. It is summer, so get yourself outside, walk around, see what turns your head, and just be creative.

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Photos all by Shower. Not purchased in any way. Taken himself whilst on holiday in Hvar, Croatia. And they will not be printed onto magnets any time soon!

Banksy interviewed by Adult Swim, well actually no

Last week you may have seen it reported around the web that Banksy had been interviewed on video by Adult Swim. Or, at least that he might have been interviewed by Adult Swim. While kinda funny (especially the last question), the interview is pretty obviously a fake. That’s fine. I’m not saying we should all go boycott Adult Swim for posting a fake Banksy interview. It’s parody. But just in case people were being fooled by the video, I just wanted to clear up that it’s a parody and not a genuine interview.

First of all, Adult Swim’s Banksy sounds nothing like how Banksy sounds in Exit Through the Gift Shop. Voice modulation can disguise someone’s voice, but in this case it’s pretty clear that it’s two different people’s voices being disguised.

And in Exit, Banksy’s face is properly hidden. I went to Netflix and took a screenshot of Banksy being interviewed in Exit Through the Gift Shop. When I put that image in Preview and turned up the exposure to a ridiculous level, as shown below, everything gets brighter except for Banky’s face. His face was subtly covered with a dark black splotch in the editing room so that people couldn’t try to trick to figure out what Banksy looks like.

Banksy in Exit Through the Gift Shop, with the exposure turned way up
Banksy in Exit Through the Gift Shop, with the exposure turned way up

Adult Swim didn’t do that with their interview (thanks to commenter mgk1 on Complex.com for picking up on this). Their Banksy’s face can be seen from time to time even without turning up the exposure. But, just to make it more clear, I’ve brightened a few images from Adult Swim’s video. Here they are:

adult 1

adult 2

adult 3

Okay, you don’t get a great shot of the actor, but his face definitely isn’t completely blacked out. Do you really think that Banksy would give his first interview in at least a year, the first video interview I can ever recall him giving (or did he give one to a British newspaper a while back?) and not properly conceal his identity?

So there you have it. Adult Swim’s interview with Banksy might make you laugh, but it’s not the real deal. Honestly though, Adult Swim’s version isn’t as funny as most Banksy interviews, so maybe that should have been a dead giveaway right there.

Edited stills originally from Exit Through the Gift Shop and Think Talk: Banksy

Weekend link-o-rama

Trustocorp
Trustocorp

Today I’m finishing my exams and packing up my dorm. Sunday, it’s off to London. Can’t wait. Here’s what I’ve been distracting myself with this week:

Photo courtesy of Trustocorp

Banksy’s “Slave Labour” street piece is back at auction

The piece in question. Photo courtesy of Banksy.
The piece in question

Banksy‘s Slave Labour mural is back at auction. It and another piece (Wet Dog) were up for sale at an art auction in Miami back in February, but both pieces were withdrawn at the last minute after intense media attention, outcries from the local community where the piece used to be located, and speculation as to the legality of the wall’s removal. For more background on the original sale, read this post from February.

This time, Business Insider (your news site for all things Banksy) is reporting that the Slave Labour wall is being sold at a private event scheduled for June 2nd at the London Film Museum. While Business Insider claims that the piece could sell for as much as £450,000, I think that’s a bit high. Yes, street pieces might one day be valuable, but so far Banksy’s street pieces have failed to reach anywhere near the price that his gallery work has sold for, presumably at least in part because Pest Control refuses to authenticate street pieces. For £450,000, you could get a really iconic and authenticated Banksy painting.

Alan Strickland, a local politician representing the area where the piece was originally located, credits his efforts and the efforts of his community for the piece being withdrawn back in February and hopes to stop the sale of the piece this time as well.

It’s still not clear who owns the wall at the moment, but my money is on the owners of the building where it was painted. Otherwise, would they run to the police and report the wall as stolen property?

Also, isn’t this whole business of naming Banksy’s street pieces a bit funny? These aren’t names that Banksy came up with. They are just names that the media and us fans use to identify the works, but we treat them like official titles.

Photo courtesy of Banksy, aka lifted from his website

Competent and unoriginal street art by July

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July is a technically competent artist, creating stencils using 2 to 4 colors that generally include some sort of social or political commentary. For the same reason people are amused by Dolk, Icy & Sot, Blek le Rat and so on and so forth, people might have similar reactions to July as they do with those other artists. For more works by Banksy July check out their facebook page. For some more direct similarities to other artists, see here and here.

Wouldn’t it be great if artists moved beyond being technically competent and actually came up with interesting ideas too?

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Photos by July

Banksy street piece auction update (also, Banksy not arrested)

The piece in question. Photo courtesy of Banksy.
The piece in question

Update 1: Wet Dog, another Banksy street piece which was up sale in the same auction as Slave Labour, was also withdrawn at the last minute. Wet Dog was recently shown in the controversial Banksy: Out of Context show in Miami last December, where it was reported that the piece was not for sale.

Update 2: Wow. Slave Labour wasn’t just withdrawn from the auction, it was withdrawn in the middle of the auction after there were already 3 bids for it! (Thanks to Wooster Collective for this tip)

Update 3: Here’s a statement from the auction house, Fine Art Auction Miami: “Although there are no legal issues whatsoever regarding the sale of lots 6 and 7 by Banksy, Fine Art Auctions Miami convinced its consignors to withdraw these lots from the auction and take back the power of authority of these works.” and a statement from the owner of Wet Dog, Stephan Keszler (who will not say whether he also owns or represents the owner of Slave Labour) “We pulled it because of the hype. We did not feel comfortable in this environment. But I think we are very happy that an auction has tried to get Banksy’s street works into auction. It’s a breakthrough.” (via)

The Banksy street piece shown above (named Slave Labour (Bunting Boy) by the auction house which was trying to sell it), which a few days ago we mentioned was up for sale at an auction house in Miami, did not end up selling at the auction yesterday as had been the plan. Instead, the piece was withdrawn from auction, there has been a public outcry to return the piece to its original site, and investigations by British police have begun into how the piece was removed from London and put up at auction in the first place.

The local outcry about the piece’s removal reached a particularly hilarious point when a member of the local government arranged a protest requesting that the piece, which presumably was painted illegally, be withdrawn from auction and returned to its original location. Sounds like they might be successful in that effort, but I expect that the piece would be quickly destroyed by haters and/or street art/graffiti purists if it were returned to the street at this point.

Even the FBI got involved, asking the British police to investigate the origins of the piece. It’s still not 100% clear whether or not the piece was removed from the street with the permission of the property owner, but the owner has so far refused to comment, so at this point I’m guessing that they saw a chance to make a few bucks and organized the removal themselves.

While we’re on the topic of Banksy, I’d like to discuss dispel two Banksy-related rumors that popped up elsewhere on the web last week as a result of a lack of fact-checking by journalists and bloggers.

The Haringey Independent has published two stories about what they call “a new ‘Banksy'” on the same street where the Slave Labour piece once was. The piece is a stenciled image of a rat holding a placard with the question “Why?” on it. The only hint in either article that the new stencil might not be by Banksy are the quotes, but there’s no real discussion and it’s basically assumed that the piece is legit. After even just a quick glance at the piece, I’m 99% certain that it was not done by Banksy, but was just an homage and comment on the removal of the real Banksy piece. The rat stencil is poorly cut, poorly sprayed, the font on the placard isn’t one of Banksy’s standard fonts, I don’t believe Banksy has done a 1-layer rat stencil since 2009, and (save for the Banksy versus Robbo events) I can’t think of any instances of Banksy doing a street piece which directly addresses a specific controversy of his career. Of course, the funny thing is that the property owners where this new rat is seem to think it’s a real Banksy, since the second article reports that the non-Banksy is now covered in a protective layer of plexiglass.

And then there’s the hoax story that Banksy was supposedly arrested in London last week. A press release posted to prlog.org claimed that Banksy had been arrested. The news quickly spread on Reddit and Twitter. Although the press release was quickly removed from the site, UK Street Art has the full text available. Give the press release a read. Think about it for a second. Does it sound legit? Blogs such as Jezebel and Death and Taxes, and Clutter Magazine reported the story as fact. At least Complex.com made clear that the release was basically an unconfirmed rumor. If those blogs wanted some hits, posting that press release without actually thinking about it was probably a good move. But it wasn’t too difficult to determine that the press release was a very likely hoax, even before it was removed from prlog.org. And the press release was a hoax. Betabeat has a good brief summary of how the hoax happened, some reasons why it was a hoax, and who was behind it (it seems that site was). Reddit and The Banksy Forum have more detailed discussions as to why the press release was clearly a hoax.

With Banksy, things are rarely 100% clear, which opens up the door for hoaxes (I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but I’m sure I’ve fallen for one or two before), but if we exercised a bit more caution, perhaps these kinds of hoaxes and misattributions wouldn’t be quite so common.

Photo courtesy of Banksy, aka lifted from his website