Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Banksy in New York


Banksy, the clever British graffiti vandal chose a beautiful October to race around spray painting his frequently clever designs on walls throughout the five boroughs. Due to the general scale of his designs (often life sized figures doing body-stretching things) and the stark black-on-white color scheme, his labors stand out against the raged old posters and other graffiti vandalism that dominate the two dimensional sidewalk-level canvas that is the New York City street.



Banksy’s reputation is built on two things: his prized secrecy (he has yet to reveal his real identity in many years of practice) and his politics. His art in itself is generally forgettable because it is always crude spray-painted stencils. What can be said is that it is grounded in safe ridicule of the powerful and loving tribute to the foibles of man and animal.  In other words, it’s safe and it’s charming, like an old rock poster from the 60s touting the virtues of illegal drugs. The medium and the message  are a little obnoxious, but oh those guys were weird.

My only complaint about Banksy is that he won’t go away the way bad, silly artists are supposed to. Indeed, it looks like we may be putting up with him for a while; evidently people are willing to pay real money to own what is basically free. Why captivate what is there to be had at anytime, by anyone? Is it some perverse need like keeping a bird in a cage?