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A hero or a hooligan
Well, that part’s never clear. — The Mighty Mighty Bossstones
Earlier this week world-renowned street artist Banksy crept to a dark corner in Port Talbot, Wales, U.K. and painted another stunning mural on two walls of a garage owned by a local steelworker.
The location was fitting due to the fact that Port Talbot is a steel town and the mural depicted the industrial past of the South Wales town. On one wall is a dumpster on fire with thick black smoke and snowy grey ash rising into the air.
On the other wall is a child, in black and white, playing in what appears to be snow, until you get around to the other wall and see that it’s the ash falling to the ground.
Banksy is the elusive English street artist that some love, some hate, and others? Well, they just love to hate. So who is Banksy?
No one knows for sure but rumors have circulated with several names, none which could be substantiated. What is known is that he did a bit of jail time for petty crimes and that’s part of the reason for flying under the radar. That and the fact that graffiti is illegal.
For the most part, Banksy does his art, called stencil art because he realized at a younger age that he needed to use stencils to get in and out faster so as to not get caught painting on buildings, bridges, and other publicly visible surfaces. Occasionally he will put up his own wall, but not often.
Banksy has gone from a guy who spray painted pictures on the side of buildings in the early 1990s to someone with a cult-like following. How cult-like? He isn’t on Twitter, but on Instagram, he has 5.1 million followers and when he puts up a new piece, Banksy makes headlines around the world.
Though he has the fan support, there are also haters who see him as simply a guy with cans of spray paint defacing property, much like he did twenty-five years ago. They don’t care that the majority of his pieces have sold for between 50,000-100,000 pounds each or that in October of this year he had a painting sell for over a million pounds.
Incidentally, moments after being sold for over a million pounds, Balloon Girl, suddenly went through a shredder that Banksy hid in the frame, destroying half the picture and making the incident the biggest prank in art history. FYI, art experts estimate the shredded Balloon Girl to now be worth 1.5-2 million pounds.
Actually, the prank part might help the haters cause.
Let me be clear on this. I’m not talking about someone who paints initials or gang signs; I’m talking about a person truly creating something artistic.
That being said, the question I have for you is this. At what point does someone go from the person who gets locked up for tagging a building to the person the world wants to identify and celebrate?
Does having countless art exhibits, becoming an icon in the art world and having the admiration of the masses suddenly make it OK to paint murals, however beautiful, on other people’s property?
I ask this question seriously because I’m a little conflicted on this one. Writing is an art form and I’ve been at it long enough to call myself an artist. It feels weird to call myself one, but it is what it is.
From one artist to another I reach out my fist to Banksy, give his a bump and pronounce my utmost respect for his artistic talent and all that he’s accomplished in his life.
But peel away all the layers of art, culture, fame and notoriety and what do you have? Graffiti art on someone else’s property.
But how do you get to be an artist with the talent of Banksy? You practice. And how do you practice street art? By painting buildings, walls and bridges. Duh.
It’s close to midnight central time as I write this, which means that pretty much anywhere in the country the next Banksy could be honing their craft on a wall at this very moment. And they might be getting arrested right now because they’re breaking the law.
I say, “they,” because the next great street artist could very well be a woman. We know from interviews that Banksy is a male, but who knows what the future holds.
I’ll admit that I’m a fan of the art and I kinda dig the whole elusive, middle of the night thing he has going, but then there’s that whole, “illegal tagging thing” going on as well.
In my mind, the best answer is for cities to take properties that are waiting to be demolished and turn them over to the graffiti artists as canvases to work on? What if more building owners gave budding artists a chance to showcase their work in their neighborhood with a small section of wall?
Give our budding artists a chance to hone their craft and see what happens. I doubt anything like I just mentioned will ever come to pass, but it would be nice to give this type of artist opportunities just like those in other mediums have.
That still leaves us with an unanswered question. Where do you stand on Banksy? Is he a hero? A hooligan? An artist? A vandal?
How about a hooligan-esque hero vandal artist?
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Photo credit: Photo courtesy Pixabay