Banksy, the Struggle to Find his Art, the Force behind Its Removal, and is It Art?

     Two Saturdays ago, I went on a search to find a piece of graffiti done by Banksy in the city and it presented a greater struggle than I first conceived. I looked online to see if there were exact streets where Banksy once did graffiti using Google Maps and I found a piece of graffiti he did that I liked because its message (the piece said I “Heart” New York”) and because it was on 116 Cedar Street, which wasn’t too far from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal.  When I arrived at the site of the piece of graffiti, the graffiti had a poster bolted over it, with chances of the piece being erased as well. Ironically, while I was on the ferry, I spoke to a man about Banksy and he mentioned the elusiveness of him and his graffiti, which I inevitably experienced after hearing he did a piece in Staten Island while I was on my ferry ride to Manhattan.

Although I wasn’t able to see it first hand, I was still able to see the piece on the Internet. However, as I searched on the Internet, I was surprised by the short-wall life his pieces graffiti and his other urban art is given before it’s eventually defaced, erased, or forgotten. As I was searching for the street to find his artwork, I also researched the active removal of his artwork and Mayor Bloomberg’s dissatisfaction with it in New York City. Bloomberg dissents with the idea of Banksy’s graffiti being art, saying “it does ruin people’s property and it’s a sign of decay and loss of control,” and continues with “And you running up to somebody’s property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art. Or it may be art, but it should not be permitted. And I think that’s exactly what the law says.”

Personally, I think Banksy’s graffiti is art, which shows his political and social commentary of the world we live in without the boundaries of museums or galleries, and is direct with his connection between art and his audience. However, I can understand where Mayor Bloomberg comes from. Bloomberg, being born in 1942, grew up around the time when what was considered art was found in galleries and museums for public observation, not on urban walls (though graffiti still existed on a small scale during those times). There’s also the legal aspect of graffiti to acknowledge. There’s no surprise why Bloomberg, being Mayor, wouldn’t support graffiti, because it, in its truest sense, is the defacement of public property, defacements that our tax dollars are used to clean up.

New York City in general has come a long way from the massive amounts of graffiti (most likely erased or painted over) that were scrawled on the walls during the late 1970s and early 1980s.  During that time, graffiti was considered a full-fledged art form which many people involved themselves in. Jean-Michel Basquiat, a renown artist whose work can be observed in many museums, rose to fame because of it, and Banksy would probably be more famous then than he is now if he did graffiti during that period. But to revert back to that time would be unspeakable and against the grain, which is apparently what Banksy is doing. Maybe it’s his way of reminding New York of its root in pop culture.