Banksy + 5: October 22nd

Banksy in Queens. Photo (which I've cropped) by carnagenyc.
Banksy in Queens. Photo (which I’ve cropped) by carnagenyc.

Great piece for Better Out Than In today, although as I imagine Banksy expected, the piece is already in the hands of someone else. According to my source who got up close to the piece, Banksy’s Sphinx sculpture is not entirely made of cinderblocks, but the main bust and possibly more of it is made of some sort of foam and then coated with a thin layer of concrete dust.

I was going to write all about how this piece is a fantastic continuation of Banksy fascination with crowd response, and how this piece is really not about how the piece looks, but whether or not people would steal chunks of it or the whole thing, paralleling the history of theft and preservation that plagues real Egyptian monuments. But then Hyperallergic did that really well. So please, do read their article on this piece.

And of course, the piece has already been removed from the site, although it’s unclear who these people are removing it.

Anyway, great piece.

Today’s + 5 includes Aiko, Harlequinade, Paul Richard, Spud and one unknown artist:

Aiko in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.
Aiko in Berlin. Photo by duncan c.
Harlequinade in San Francisco. Photo by DangerRanger.
Harlequinade in San Francisco. Photo by DangerRanger.
Paul Richard in NYC. Photo by Chris Christian.
Paul Richard in NYC. Photo by Chris Christian.
Spud at 5 Pointz in NYC. Photo by David, Bergin, Emmett and Elliott.
Spud at 5 Pointz in NYC. Photo by David, Bergin, Emmett and Elliott.
Unknown artist in Toronto. Photo by Mary Crandall.
Unknown artist in Toronto. Photo by Mary Crandall.

Photos by carnagenyc, duncan c, DangerRanger, Chris Christian, “David, Bergin, Emmett and Elliott” and Mary Crandall

Paul Richard and mobstr

£1,000 by mobstr, part of The Commodity Series. Photo by mobstr

Because the humor in these pieces is similar, I’m throwing them together in one post.

First, mobstr‘s new series of paintings is called The Commodity Series. I’m a fan. Sort of like On Kawara, but funny. So far it’s four paintings: £1, £10, £1,000 and £10,000. And yes, I know that blogs like Vandalog are probably part of the butt of this joke, as they should be.

And then there’s Paul Richard’s latest piece. Paul is one of those hidden gems that not nearly enough people know about. He’s always on the mark. Here’s what he has to say about graffiti:

Photo by Lois Stavsky

Photos by mobstr and Lois Stavsky

Weekend link-o-rama

Photo by Luna Park

I’m racing through my computer science homework right now and also throwing this post together before it gets to be too late. I have to be up early tomorrow to get to Washington D.C. for The Daily Show’s Rally To Restore Sanity. I probably shouldn’t been spending my entire day on my way to and from that rally, but it’s going to be an insane day. So between planning getting 50 students to the rally and teaching a course on street art at my university (not an official course, there’s no homework or exams and I don’t get paid), things had to slip through my fingers this week:

Photo by Luna Park