stencil's are soooo 2002

Saw quite a bit of his stuff on my wanders around London. Bought the book for my friend.

Anyone know where I can order a copy of the Melbourne Graffiti book?

good stuff

Banksy at the West Bank barrier in Palestine

He's certainly got balls.

Banksy's latest hit:

http://www.stereogum.com/archives/003271.html

Sorry.. will make it easier:

try this

Love Banksy, loath his imitators

See also the Paris Hilton thread

banksy is a toy

From The Times

Parisian pierrot

8 September 2006
When Banksy slipped 500 copies of a doctored Paris Hilton album into the shops, was it sabotage, a prank or a sales gimmick? And who else should be given the same treatment?

Peter Saville, graphic designer
I haven’t seen the actual doctored CD myself but someone I know has, and they said they thought it looks a bit too clever to be a genuine anarchic intervention. They wondered whether Banksy had been paid to do it. Now that’s very tricky territory to get into, but what I thought was interesting is that we just don’t know any more what to believe in. Is it anarchic or is it a below-the-line marketing ploy? Not to cast aspersions on Banksy or to assume the truth of the matter, but isn’t it a shame that we just don't know what to believe any more? I’d probably do it to someone who’d done a cover version of something and replace it with the original. A boy band, an artificial band, puppets. But to be honest, I’m surprised Banksy’s wasted energy on it. A spurious celebrity album perfectly fits the times; it’s almost more real than Madonna, for example, who works very hard to stay relevant. Paris Hilton just stumbles in there and can’t help it.

Miranda Sawyer, columnist
I think Paris Hilton’s very lucky to get Banksy — and Dangermouse — doing something to her album. They’re both very talented, far more so than Miss Hilton. She’s the kind of celebrity that you can’t get away from even if you’re not interested in her.
Banksy’s work is precious and rare and therefore exciting and valuable. When you see it, you think: “Hurray, I’ve spotted it.” That he has done something on someone who is completely ubiquitous and therefore of no value at all is really interesting. And obviously, one of those doctored ones is going to be worth far more than one of Paris Hilton’s albums.
I’d like to do over people who are slightly po-faced, and these days that tends to be R&B and rap artists. They’re terribly serious about how they look. So Mariah Carey and Beyoncé, for example, I think I’d just like to make them a bit fat. They’re perfectly talented anyway, who cares if they’re a bit fat? Or I’d also like to do an older one that’s iconic. Maybe A Hard Day’s Night because it’s got good pictures of all of the Beatles and you could do really good moustaches and little things like that. I don’t think they ever took themselves that seriously but now other people tend to.

Phill Jupitus, DJ
In Paris Hilton, Banksy and Dangermouse have selected the perfect foil to their anarchic double act. The troubling thing for me is that I dare say the marketing people at Hilton’s label are rubbing their hands with glee. In these days of hype and spin they’ll have no trouble getting some cachet for their artist from what was intended as a subversive act. I dare say Robbie Williams’s people are kicking themselves that his latest stuff wasn’t the target. I could never bear the sleeve of the Beatles’ White Album. Too clever by far. Mind you, plenty of space for doodling.

Jonathan Margolis, novelist
The stunt is symptomatic of the death of the High Street music business, as well as being quite a clever idea. Banksy’s obviously taken a leaf from the Who fans who, after Keith Moon died, used to go into record shops and write little odes to Keith and insert them into LPs, though that was done in a nice way. These are really sought after now and are really valuable.
This could be the beginning of a similar thing. CD shops are going into their death throes now. Banksy is being clever in that he is creating a future market. In about five years people will think it quaint that you could buy music as a product, in a lump. People will put them into museums as apocrypha.

Mark Heap, comic
Maybe it’s an elaborate chat-up line. Maybe the result will be that they’ll go and get married and find a hut in the woods and live together. He loves her, if you ask me.
Rap music would be high on my list to deface. I’d replace it with Bach or maybe Monteverdi. Some sexy church music.

Rosie Millard, columnist
I’m sure Paris Hilton, when she gets over the shock, will realise that Banksy has huge street credibility and she doesn’t, so it'll probably be good for her.
This will show my age, but if I was Banksy, I would have targeted the Arctic Monkeys’ album, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. They have that horrible ashtray on the disc itself and someone smoking on the front. I’d put a nice tar-stained lung on the front.

Ed Harcourt, singer
Could this be a ploy by Paris’s people to make her more interesting? I’d be honoured to be the recipient of the attention of two bona-fide artists, not one who is an “icon” through the sheer effort of being born an heiress.

that prank he pulled on paris hilton was pretty cool

i reckon peter saville has really hit the mark there - as a prank it simply lacks purpose and bite. so, banksy has suggested that paris hilton lacks a basis for her celebrity. ring the alarm folks.

also, i like how banksy has a spokesperson who alerted the media to the stunt before it was noticed by the public. now that's guerilla.

I thought Banksy was one of Collingwood's most underrated players of the last 30 years

Latest...
Camp X-Ray prisoner placed in Disney ride.
Lasted 90' before being removed

ahaha i was on that website yesterday!

there is a reasonably good book Melbourne Street Art by some dude called Lunn. Not a bad read.

jeffspicoli said 3 days ago

I thought Banksy was one of Collingwood's most underrated players of the last 30 years

no he was one of the best goalkeepers of all time who made one the best saves of all time, denying Pele at the 1970 world cup

you're right nishiki, I'll just bump this one instead.

oh damn i did a search and didn't find anything, i think i spelled it wrong! sorreee kuro

pffft..just get him to send over the stencils and redo a few

it's a shame but they were never intended to be permanent pieces

Wank wank wank cultural icon yadda yadda

One of the main elements of street art is its temporary. We have not lost anything significant or iconic. Don't get me wrong I like Banksy's work but I'm in no way shocked or disappointed.

BUT IT WAS A RAT WITH A PARACHUTE!

Banksy is to art what Ed Hardy is to fashion. Emin, hirst, the Brits are shit and over hyped just like their soccer players

it's commerce masquerading as art, pretty smart really, but not in a noble sort of way.

I just think the Brits are very good at sensationalising rubbish

We probably get our inferiority complex and deeply ingrained class anxiety from the brits. We're always making a big deal out of our shit things, and playing down our good things.

well yeah, it was all about making money in the end, no coincidence saatchi owns one of the biggest advertising firms in the world and is a marketing genius. people will come around eventually and see it was all a big scam.

cafe owners didn't give a rats

lol, who cares.

Back when Banksy actually put up those pieces (7, 8, 9 years ago?) nobody knew who he was, I'd say there's dozens that have been unwittingly painted over by cafe owners who would now be outraged to read that article.

It looks, thankfully, like the entire movement will die an inglorious death with the unveiling of Anish Kapoor's Olympic statue this year.

I really want to paint over that Keith Haring mural in Collingwood, in the name of progress! (i'm serious). Anyone want to join me, I'm drafting a manifesto and shit.

It looks, thankfully, like the entire movement will die an inglorious death with the unveiling of Anish Kapoor's Olympic statue this year.

Answering my own point, but nope, they've just outdone themselves:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/may/15/anish-kapoor-olympic-park-public-art?newsfeed=true

I just looked that up, not really sure what to think of it. It's a very striking piece of design, and unlike anything i have ever seen before, so i mean for those two reasons alone i'm excited to see what it looks like in reality.

From the Herald Sun online: ''As one of Melbourne's last remaining pieces by the celebrated street artist is vandalised we take a look at his other works''

Stop vandals putting pipes in things!

haha journalists have no fucking back bone, at once they'll be talking about how graffiti is vandalism and shop owners have to pay, and then they'll be saying that shop owners are vandals for destroying street art.

it's a fuckin nonsense, why do they bother reporting at all, really?

Banksy is the single only graffiti person / street artist who is of value. Everyone else should be locked up for life. But all of Banksy's little three-inch parachuting rats have to be put under armed guard.

The armed guards can possibly gun down any other artists trying to put their work up in the vicinity for the crime of not being as good as Banksy's shitty little rat stencil.

Using the Anish Kapoor article from the Guardian and splicing it with the Banksy pipes:

Some of the greatest art in the world is public art, including Michelangelo's David, the fountains of Bernini and Rodin's Burghers of Calais. Those are lofty masterpieces. A few notches down in sublimity but beloved of locals and tourists alike are such icons as The Big Banana, or the Big Pineapple, or the Big Merino.

It is important to remember such triumphs as the debate over public art in Australia deepens. A few years ago, expensive public commissions seemed almost beyond criticism. Today they seem a sitting target for denunciation. It surely reflects a depressed economy: a depressed nation? Yet with the typical messy and inaccurate nature of artistic debate in Australia, where people sometimes seem to look with their mouths rather than their eyes, the sculpture that is taking the flak for years of excess in Australian public art is actually a fine example of the genre. Plumbers who defaced Banksy' work have made a piece that is a daring, imaginative and exhilarating work of art. It does not deserve to be pilloried – on the contrary, if all Australian public art were like this, it would be an age of glory.

Unfortunately it is not all like this. In the last decade the confidence of boom-time Australian expressed itself in public sculpture the length and breadth of the land. A lot of mediocre art was given prominence. Quality was subordinated to a checklist of perceived local needs and easy ideological meanings. Here's a celebration of plumbing energy. Here's a sentimental homage to pipes. Artistic excellence you say? What's that?

The real problem with commissioning good public art is that the best art is often contentious – even David was stoned in 1504 – and public commissioning bodies seek consensus. The best public art work of the last three decades was The Yellow Peril: attempts to make it permanent were crushed amid wild controversy. It was strange and provocative – and tremendous art. A similar controversy in America led to the destruction of Richard Serra's Tilted Arc. The message here is that good art often annoys, and great art sometimes annoys greatly. If those who commission public art seek consensus and universal popularity, this means ignoring the really original ideas, and preferring drab third-rate art such as the giants kissing at St Pancras station in London.

This is why the plumbers who defaced Banksy have emerged as embattled heroes of public art. Their piping is not consensual, or easy to make sense of. It is wild and unexpected. It is, I believe, the most exciting Australian public artwork since The Big Banana. Those who commissioned and created it deserve acclaim for choosing electricity over dull consensus.

Great public art always annoys someone. If we are at the end of the bloated years of popular sculpture, no loss. What we need are works that challenge, provoke, and make it new.

This is why the plumbers who defaced Banksy have emerged as embattled heroes of public art. Their piping is not consensual, or easy to make sense of. It is wild and unexpected. It is, I believe, the most exciting Australian public artwork since The Big Banana.

Your mission has been a success.

It looks, thankfully, like the entire movement will die an inglorious death with the unveiling of Anish Kapoor's Olympic statue this year.

The ArcelorMittal Orbit by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond was unveiled last week