kottke.org posts about Banksy
The Ukrainian postal service has released a stamp featuring artwork by Banksy to mark the first anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. The artist painted the image on a wall in the town of Borodianka in November 2022 and has apparently given his permission for use on the stamp. From The Guardian:
The image draws inspiration from the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, known to be a black belt in judo, and depicts a young judoka representing Ukraine knocking down a grown man.
The phrase "FCK PTN" in Cyrillic has been added to the lower left part of the new stamp.
You can buy your own sheet of these stamps directly from the Ukraine postal service — they ship worldwide, in the midst of a war!
See also: you might remember that the postal service ran a contest to design a stamp that illustrated "Ukrainians' determination to defend their land" shortly after the invasion, which resulted in several eye-catching entries.
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Banksy took some Bob Ross narration from The Joy of Painting and dubbed it over video footage that shows the street artist painting an image of an escaping inmate on the wall of a former prison in the dead of night. Colossal has more info on why Banksy picked the wall of this particular prison to do:
The expansive and unblemished prison wall was a daring and perfect spot for a Banksy piece. It's best known for its most famous inmate: Oscar Wilde served two years in the prison from 1895-1897 for the charge of "gross indecency" for being gay. The work is clearly a tribute to the poet, as the escape mechanism appears to be a long strand of paper emerging from a typewriter in place of the usual bed sheets.
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GANksy is an AI program trained on Banksy's street art.
GANksy was born into the cloud in September 2020, then underwent a strenuous A.I. training regime using hundreds of street art photos for thousands of iterations to become the fully-formed artist we see today. All of GANksy's works are original creations derived from its understanding of shape, form and texture. GANksy wants to be put into a robot body so it can spraypaint the entire planet.
The results are cool but not super coherent — these look more like abstract NIN and Radiohead album covers than the sly & whimsical works Banksy stencils up around the world. With GANksy, you get the feel of Banksy's art and the surfaces he chooses to put it on but little of the meaning, which is about what you would expect from training using a neural network based on style.
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Meet the M.V. Louise Michel, a rescue boat operating in the Mediterranean Sea that answers emergency calls from "non-Europeans" seeking refuge in Europe from war, persecution, and authoritarian governments.
Here's the stated mission of the vessel's crew:
To uphold maritime law and rescue anyone in peril without prejudice. We onboard the Louise Michel believe we are all individuals, nationality should not make a difference to what rights one has and how we treat each other. We answer the SOS call of all those in distress, not just to save their souls — but our own.
According to the Guardian, the project came about when Banksy reached out to experienced activist and experienced rescue boat captain Pia Klemp via email:
Hello Pia, I've read about your story in the papers. You sound like a badass," he wrote. "I am an artist from the UK and I've made some work about the migrant crisis, obviously I can't keep the money. Could you use it to buy a new boat or something? Please let me know. Well done. Banksy.
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Artist Banksy has opened a storefront in the South London borough of Croydon called Gross Domestic Product. It's literally a storefront and not a store...you can't go in and buy anything. Here's a quick tour:
The impetus behind the store, aside from the artist's continuing discourse with capitalism, is to help settle a legal dispute with a greeting card company:
This post from Colossal has a bunch more information on the project.
The temporary installation, which will be on view for two weeks in the Croydon neighborhood, incorporates multiple window displays for a shop that is not in fact open to passersby. However, some of the items on display are available for purchase in GDP's associated online store including the welcome mats, which Banksy hired refugees in Greek detainment camps to stitch; all proceeds go back to the refugees. Revenue from sales of the doll sets will also support the purchase of a replacement boat for activist Pia Klemp, whose boat was confiscated by the Italian government. The product line is rounded out with such oddities as disco balls made from riot gear helmets, handbags made of bricks, and signed — and partially used — £10 spray paint cans.
No fooling, I would love to cop one of those used spray paint cans.
p.s. Does anyone remember Grot, the shop Reggie opens in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin? For some reason, Banksy's shop reminds me of that.
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A few years ago, the artist Banksy built a shredder into the frame of one of his paintings "in case it was ever put up for auction". On Friday, that painting came up for auction at Sotheby's and after selling for ~$1.4 million, the shredder in the frame activated and cut the painting into little strips. The video of the sale and subsequent shredding is amazing:
Fantastic. I imagine Banksy meant this as a commentary on the ridiculous prices people pay for art, but as this is the art world, the shredding will likely increase the value of the piece as well as the artist's other pieces. As @Limericking said:
A painting by Banksy was smart;
At auction, it shredded apart.
Now tattered, in pieces,
Its value increases,
For such is the market for art.
Update: The winning bidder for the shredded Banksy says she's going to keep it.
Update: Here's a longer video of the stunt from Banksy..."The Director's Cut".
The shredder malfunctioned at the auction...it was supposed to eat the entire print. On Instagram, Banksy says:
Some people think it didn't really shred. It did. Some people think the auction house were in on it, they weren't.
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Banksy has opened an apocalyptic theme park called Dismaland in an abandoned resort in an English coastal town, Weston-super-Mare.
Are you looking for an alternative to the sugar-coated tedium of the average family day out? Or just somewhere a lot cheaper? Then this is the place for you. Bring the whole family to come and enjoy the latest addition to our chronic leisure surplus...
The entrance fee is £3 and the park will be open for five weeks. Colossal has the scoop, including a list of artists who contributed art to the park, er, show.
A demented assortment of bizarre and macabre artworks from no less than 50 artists from around the world including Damien Hirst, Bill Barminski, Caitlin Cherry, Polly Morgan, Josh Keyes, Mike Ross, David Shrigley, Bäst, and Espo. In addition, Banksy is showing 10 artworks of his own.
Colossal's own Christopher Jobson curated the park's short film program. Congrats! (Also, super jealous!)
Update: For a closer look at the park, check out the trailer:
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Everyone knows graffiti artist extraordinaire Banksy is a man. What this post presupposes is, maybe she's a woman?
But what Banksy Does New York makes plain is that the artist known as Banksy is someone with a background in the art world. That someone is working with a committee of people to execute works that range in scale from simple stencil graffiti to elaborate theatrical conceits. The documentary shows that Banksy has a different understanding of the street than the artists, street-writers, and art dealers who steal Banksy's shine by "spot-jocking" or straight-up pilfering her work-swagger-jackers who are invariably men in Banksy Does New York.
All of which serves as evidence against the flimsy theory that Banksy is a man.
Or maybe Banksy's like the Dread Pirate Roberts?
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The Awl has an interview with a street artist named Hanksy, who takes images from Banksy and incorporates Tom Hanks into the mix. WIIIILLLSONNNN!!
I've come across comments or stories written about Hanksy saying I'm directly ripping off Banksy's style. Like, "Where does this guy get off, stealing Banksy's work?" They are completely missing the point. It's a satire. My goal was never to make a profit. It came about and there was a genuine excitement around the people at the gallery and the community in general.
I'm pretty sure the interviewer, EA Hanks, is Tom's daughter and she got her dad on the record about Hanksy:
Regarding your work, Tom Hanks sends the message, "I don't know who Hanksy is, but I enjoy his (her?) comments via the semi-chaos of artistic expression."
But the T.HANKS trash can remains my favorite Tom Hanks street art:
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This might be the best Halloween costume I've ever seen: a real-life version of Banksy's Flower Thrower stencil.
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Street artist Banksy gets the New Yorker treatment with a profile in this week's issue. "The graffitist's impulse is akin to a blogger's: write some stuff, quickly, which people may or may not read. Both mediums demand wit and nimbleness. They arouse many of the same fears about the lowering of the public discourse and the taking of undeserved liberties." Complex tracked down the alleged photos of Banksy mentioned in the article. Print magazine recently wrote a piece on Banksy as well.
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Gallery of work by guerilla artist Banksy from the West Bank barrier in the Palestinian territories. "An old Palestinian man said his painting made the wall look beautiful. Banksy thanked him, only to be told: 'We don't want it to be beautiful, we hate this wall. Go home.'"
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