It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Banksy!
How can a single unknown artist captivate a city known as the arts capital of the world? Is it through the expression of intricate ideals via an archaic medium in a public setting? What makes people flock so rapidly to a new piece of work, as if it were the discovered birthplace of Jesus Christ? While a vast array of classical pieces remain stagnant within the city’s many museums, Banksy’s short appearance in New York City managed to keep everyone around the world on the edge of their seat.
Every global news company eagerly published article after article about a man who rarely conducts interviews, whose main goal is not aesthetic beauty but instead radical protest, and whose only public persona is his publicist. How did the visit of a single individual spraying graffiti spark so much interest, when just a couple decades ago the equivalent form of art was considered vandalism? Perspective is the key to understanding graffiti’s growth as an art form. The entire world continually watches as Banksy’s works are viewed, defaced and confiscated by police for evidence; the public waits for the return of what many call the “world’s most famous spray-paint satirist.”
The beginnings of Banksy’s career could not have occurred at a better point in history. His works revolutionized the developing art of graffiti by establishing simplistic beauty and political controversy. For the first time, the distinction between graffiti as a crime and an art was truly blurred. Banksy was able to further the progression of graffiti towards a form of expression that was not illegal and crude. Although the origins of graffiti go back to the beginnings of human societies, preserved on the walls of walls in Pompeii or found on ancient Egyptian monuments, the real origin of graffiti as art occurred in the late 1960s. This is because not all forms of graffiti are considered art. The “I was here” on the side of a park bench possesses no aesthetic value and delivers no important implication to the viewer.
Creativity is required for graffiti to make the jump to art, and often this involves the use of a spray can for added development of size and color. After the rise of tagging one’s name and street number on New York City subway cars in the 1960s, spray paint became a way for people to differentiate themselves. Modern graffiti art relied on doing something different, and evolved from scribbling your name everywhere to creating pieces that held substance. By the 1970s, subway cars became a canvas for many developing artists to share their work. Subway cars were unique both in the way that they allowed for mass viewership, and in the way they were covered in large amounts of work from people all over the city, all who aspired to be most recognized. As indicated by an essay on the rise of graffiti, “the goal was and is to create burners which are pieces that stand out because of creativity, color, vibrancy… and overall artistic appeal.”
The essay indicates that, to the surprise of most people, a large portion of graffitists come from Caucasian middle class families. Graffiti was not a product of the urban poor trying to vandalize and deface a city. By the 1980s, the art form had undergone a metamorphosis from lowly tags on every uncovered surface to intricate pieces involving a base sketch and a crew to complete the job. This was the point when Banksy stepped in. He came at a time when graffiti was becoming recognized for its artistic and political potential. In addition, his rise came at a time when graffiti art was so flooded with contributors that recognition required the ability to push the bar and create something that would leave viewers in awe. Banksy did just this.
From 1990-1994, Banksy began the process that would lead him to becoming the most recognizable graffiti artist on this planet. Even though he started with freehand graffiti, he slowly built his techniques and by the turn of the century he was displaying his works at exhibitions around the world. He was able to combine important content with interesting and innovative aesthetics, and this is what allowed him to rise past the taggers of the New York City subway system.
Over the last decade, Banksy has established himself as a world-renowned artist capable of depicting anything on public property, and flaunting his ability to get away with it, too. He climbed into a penguin enclosure in the London Zoo and painted, “We’re bored of fish” in seven-foot high letters. He also created images of athletes throwing missiles instead of Javelins just before the London 2012 Olympic games. His satirical works are genius, and he combines elements of humor and protest into pieces that display magnificence. Whether it be the location of his piece or the manner in which it was designed, Banksy’s artwork deserves all of the recognition it gets; he is one of the few Graffiti artists whose work is rarely deemed an eyesore and he possesses a characteristic that almost no modern artist can claim to have: all that is seen is his works.
On October 1st, 2013, Banksy began a one-month tour called ‘Better Out Than In’ that consisted of placing unique works all over New York City. He created at least one new piece each day, and documented these pieces on both his website and Instagram account. Already, dozens of his works have encountered interaction with the people that live among them and all the while, everything about his work is being captured and published. Whether it is someone looking to remove the art or charge a viewing fee for their personal gain, or simply the police cleaning out the work of someone they consider a vandal, the Internet stays ever vigilant. Because of this, Banksy’s tour became the art sensation of New York City and overshadowed all the other great feats of artistic creativity that existed within the month of October.
He has had documentaries written about him. The most popular documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop, was nominated for the 2010 Oscar for Best Documentary Film, and all the while the identity of the artist remained unknown. In our age of technology, Banksy has gained a unique ability to thrive. Often, his works only enjoy a brief shelf life before they are defaced or taken down, and in almost every case people are not seeing Banksy’s work face to face. However, the widespread distribution of media has allowed for Banksy to become a worldwide sensation, whose every disguised footstep is broadcast for everyone to see. He can maintain his hidden identity while sharing his ideas and works. Banksy blossoms, at the crossroads between the culmination of graffiti as art and the widespread availability of information. Banksy is the product of a unique situation, and it has allowed him to use his specialized talents to rise to the top. This is why he draws larger crowds than any developed or classical artist could ever hope; Banksy exists as an almost supernatural force whose pieces seem to magically appear as the city awakes each morning.
Twelve days into his show, an old man put up a pop-up boutique that consisted of about 25 spray-art canvases. The table outside central park sold original autographed canvases for $60 each, and the BBC estimated that the pieces could be worth as much as $31,000. Even though the elderly boutique owner spent his day yawning and waited hours before a sale, it brings up the controversy that is Banksy. Is it just for a man who claims to bash the wrongs of capitalism to also benefit off of the institution? The majority of his works allude to either political or social themes, and often he is protesting the very thing he is engaged in. While he cites centralized authority and capitalism for causing many of the wrongs in modern society, he can spray over a stencil, sign it and rake in tens of thousands of dollars. In his book, Wall and Piece, Banksy says, “We can’t do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.”
Works Cited
Banksy. Wall and Piece. London: Century, 2006. Print.
Ellsworth-Jones, Will. “The Story Behind Banksy.” Smithsonianmag.com. The Smithsonian, Feb. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Goodman, David J., and Cara Buckley. “Police Confiscate Banksy Balloons and Say They’re Not Art.” Nytimes.com. New York Times, 5 Nov. 2013. Web. 20 Nov. 2013.
Guardian. “Banksy Captivates New York with Guerrilla Graffiti Art Blitz.” Theguardian.com. The Guadian, 19 Oct. 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Stowers, George C. “Graffiti Art: An Essay Concerning The Recognition of Some Forms of Graffiti As Art.” Graffiti.org. Art Crimes, 17 Oct. 1997. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
