Truth be told, I like this version better, drawn six weeks ago by Malcolm Mayes.
That illustrates one of the reasons why I’m not particularly taken with Banksy. I don’t think I’ve seen anything of his that made me think or see the world in a different way.
As shown by the panel above the trope of health workers as superheroes has been doing the rounds for ages and by the time he gets round to doing something I just think “yeah, yeah…seen it all before”
He is held up as bold, original and insightful and yet…it just seems empty and derivative to me, no substance.
Banksy should be arrested. Jim Davis never engaged in vandalism.
Spider-Man, sure. Batman… maybe? I mean, sure, his movies have done better recently than Superman’s, but then, Wonder Woman’s done better than either.
It’s awfully hard to prosecute when the “victims” are happy with the artwork. And I’m not sure if Bansky is even active in graffiti any more, or if he’s just using the notoriety from his graffiti days to sell non-graffiti art.
They’re happy with it because they’re despondent and it’s going to auction. Had it been a panel of Garfield thinking “I hate mondays and COVID-19” or “I love lasagna and healthcare professionals” it would hang in a nurses station to be seen and mildly enjoyed until the heat death of the universe.
Let’s face it: Banksy is pure unadulterated kitsch. The kind you’d send on a feel good card. Doesn’t diminish his gift, which I take as a honest gesture, but great art it ain’t.
I take it you haven’t read the article.
Let’s admit it - a lot of what does or doesn’t make an artist successful past a certain minimal level of skill is marketing these days. Banksy managed to get good PR and marketing, therefore, he’s successful.
This has been true at least since Marcel Duchamp’s “The Fountain”, if not earlier.
Even great artists like Duchamp and van Gogh need marketing and patronage in order to be commercially successful, sure, but even that will not get an otherwise mediocre artist too far, nor is one likely to attract that kind of attention in the first place.
Well, he torched this place once, for reasons that remain unclear.
Subtle posters or graffiti are unseen posters or graffiti. Their purpose is to grab eyeballs. Failing that, they bomb. Banksy succeeds and inspires imitation, such as I’ve seen over the past two decades.
The medium is the message.
The purpose of art – one of them anyway – is to make you feel. This art made me feel. Kincaid, on the other hand…
Kinkade made me feel.
Just not in a good way.
I’d agree that this particular piece is kitschy, but then the intention is to make you feel good (and raise money for the hospital.) But a lot of Banksy’s works are parodies of kitsch, like The Banality of the Banality of Evil. And whatever this is, I wouldn’t call it kitsch.
I am bemused by people criticizing a graffiti artist for lack of subtly or for not being fine art. I don’t think that Banksy has had the intention of producing great art, and of course in his recent prank of having one of his paintings self-destruct after being auctioned he thumbed his nose at that idea. As for subtle, his works are a good deal more subtle than some by Marcel Duchamp,Andy Warhol, or Jeff Koons. Of course all those ideas are so obvious that anyone could have come up with them.
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Banksy produces arresting, striking images with often ironic juxtapositions. They may make you laugh, or snort, or roll your eyes, but that’s really all they are intended to do.
what does that mean?
Are you not familiar with Marshall McLuhan? Or do you just want to know what it means in this specific instance?
What, you didn’t see the McLuhan cameo in ANNIE HALL? :smack: “The medium is the message” means that HOW a message is conveyed may have more impact that WHAT is conveyed. In grafitti’s case, the placement in public says as much or more than the raw image itself. A caricature on a wall by City Hall evokes more responses than the same for sale in a gallery. I’ll let you dig into details of “hot” media vs “cold” media.
terribly sorry, I’ve never heard of that person and nor have I ever seen Annie Hall.
OK, so how is that relevant in this case? seeing as it is a fairly standard painting of pretty traditional form.
I like Banksy. I don’t know about much of the controversy that seems to surround Banksy’s art, though. I saw “Exit Through the Gift Shop” awhile ago and thought it was pretty interesting.
My medium is photography. I’m an amateur and once in awhile, I’ll show someone a photo I took and they say it belongs on a calendar etc. This is the old problem, isn’t it? If the masses like it, it can’t be high art. If it sells, it can’t be carving out new ground. You’re supposed to be Vincent Van Gogh, dying for a vision nobody else sees in your time (but somehow you sustain yourself, eating and so on).
Now let’s talk about vandalism. If you tag a building that doesn’t belong to you… OTOH here in the US some natives disapprove of Mt. Rushmore.
IMO art asks us to reimagine our world. I think the art referenced by the OP will make some people reassess what a hero is. I like the fact that Banksy honored the medical workers. If he’s Andy Warhol painting Campbell’s soup cans, so be it. Someone posted on Facebook that when it all shuts down, people start bingeing on TV programs etc. When it all goes to hell, we turn to art. Maybe they’ll turn to this and re-think what’s important.
But it’s especially interesting to me that Banksy is a guerilla. Sometimes people in foreign countries risk their lives to vote in an election (or so I’ve read). Banksy isn’t willing to assume an art gallery will display the work…lots of people will see it because it’s graffiti. IDK, it’s ephemeral and topical and modern. It may not speak to anybody tomorrow but there will be more coming by then. You can look back at older art and see similar themes to fit into today’s vernacular I guess, but this is in real time.
The more I read, the more I don’t know.