{"id":3867,"date":"2013-10-28T09:53:23","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T13:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/arts.umich.edu\/ink\/?p=3867"},"modified":"2013-10-28T10:05:03","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T14:05:03","slug":"banksys-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/2013\/10\/28\/banksys-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"Banksy’s Blessing"},"content":{"rendered":"

By now, everyone knows who Banksy is. Well, everyone knows that nobody knows, at least. We’re familiar with his playful and sometimes sharply poignant street art, ranging from simple stencils to elaborate installation; we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve probably heard of his critically debated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop<\/em>. And if we keep up with the Times, we may be aware of his current stay in the Big Apple, described in his own words as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an artist\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s residency on the streets of New York\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (banksyny.com). It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s titled Better Out Than In<\/em>, and he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s promised to procure one piece of street art for every day of the month this October. That leaves us 28 artworks in, having witnessed the true variety of Banksy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s creative language. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen his classic layered stencils, plain stencils, stencils that span across cars and walls, stencils for sale in Central Park; a garden growing in the back of a truck, sad stuffed animals trapped in the back of a different truck driving around the meatpacking district, and a 1\/36th<\/sup> scale model of the great Sphinx of Giza made from smashed cinderblocks. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even published an article in the New York Times as a replacement for an op-ed column. In essence, the city has been Banksy’s for the past four weeks \u00e2\u20ac\u201c as a temporary shelter, hideout, workspace, and playground all at once.<\/p>\n

I could talk all day about Banksy. Everything he does challenges the very function of art in today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s society, as well as the role of the artist. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an outcast and likes it that way; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly not in it for the fame or money (neither of which are honest representations of creative success anyway), and he lets the work speak for itself. This is evident in the way he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153practicing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d art in his own distinct, playfully intelligent manner, as well as how he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s acted upon and publicized this self-imposed exhibition. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the exact opposite of a traditional \u00e2\u20ac\u0153residency\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, wherein the artist applies for a position in a studio or university and is either accepted or rejected based on whatever criteria are set by the institution. In this case, the artist is in control of his own fate, avoiding every formality that has come to follow an academic approach to creative work. The only price he has to pay is that of the law, which is easy to forget when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about street art these days.<\/p>\n

Amidst all of the creative bounds that Banksy has leapt throughout his career as a vandal, it seems as though he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on the verge of a new transformation. While the majority of Better Out Than In<\/em> has still been expressed in his native tongue, the weight of the exhibition rests on the sculptural and performance-based installations like the trucks and mock gallery spaces. In fact, more than one of his posted stencils had me wondering if they were really his work \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they seemed as afterthoughts, sentences left hanging in bits across town. They feel like the filler for these larger \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happenings\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, in a sense, which one would assume require a larger amount of planning and preparation. What can we expect next from the most famous tagger to date? A spectacular finale on the 31st<\/sup>? The grand unveiling of his (or her, just so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re clear) identity? One thing is for certain: the city will miss the attention when (s)he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone, if (s)he was ever really there in the first place\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

\"A
"A New York delivery truck converted into a mobile garden (includes rainbow, waterfall and butterflies)."<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
"Yesterday I set up a stall in the park selling 100% authentic original signed Banksy canvases. For $60 each."<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"People
"People ask why I want to have an exhibition in the streets, but have you been to an art gallery recently? They're full."<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By now, everyone knows who Banksy is. Well, everyone knows that nobody knows, at least. We’re familiar with his playful and sometimes sharply poignant street art, ranging from simple stencils to elaborate installation; we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve probably heard of his critically debated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. And if we keep up with the Times, we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3867"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3873,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3867\/revisions\/3873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsatmichigan.umich.edu\/ink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}