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?