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