Banksy’s well known canvas of the Girl with balloon(2006) was the final item on auction at Sotheby’s in London. As soon as the painting was sold for £1,O4 million, the painting began to pass through a shredder installed into the gold frame. The artist shared this stunt on his website and on Instagram with Picasso's quote ”The urge to destroy is also a creative urge”. Banksy built the shredder into the painting's frame in case the piece was put up for auction. The purchaser bought the piece anyway.
At the moment more than one hundred of the most celebrated graffiti and street artists are showing works at BEYOND THE STREETS in Los Angeles' Venice Pavillion.
Site-specific installations, photography, sculptures and paintings are shown in- and outdoors as a tribute to Los Angeles.
The exhibition includes artworks of Faile, Shepard Fairey, Lady Aiko, Dan Witz, Banksy, Martha Cooper, Invader, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Swoon and VHILS.
Art collector Roger Gastman( Art in the Streets) curated the show. Gastman is also known as co- founder of Fairey's Swindle magazine and co- producer of Banksy's documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. Other curators are Evan Pricco( editor of Juxtapoz magazine), David Villorente and author Caleb Neelon.
The must see installations include Faile's temple, a playful, interactive sacred structure, banners of the feminist collective Guerrilla Girls and a playable handball court with artwork by Lee Quiñones.
Opposite the French embassy, Banksy recently depicted a crying Cosette of Les Misérables with tears in her eyes, caused by a cannister of CS gas, to criticize the French police's use of tear gas against refugees in Calais. His previous Dismaland project, a parody on Disneyland, was composed of refugeeboats, paparazzi surrounding Cinderella's corpse, dodgems with skelettons and personnel wearing depressed Mickey ears and a dismal t-shirt. Meanwhile Brendan O'Neill is spreading his disapproval of Banksy's work. He claims the street artist despises the ordinary man with his "puberal criticism on consumption society". O'Neill seems to think street art is about taking risks. The essence of street art never was as superficial: the content of the work is crucial! Why should one refer to anonymous people sharing art as being snobby?
October was a busy month for Banksy who was touring the streets of New York while mass producing. Each day another outdoor piece was shared on the artist's website.
His Better Out Than In project is illustrated by a quote of Cézanne: "All pictures painted inside, in the studio, will never be as good as those done outside."
The artist used different media such as installations, stencils, videos, sculptures and performances.
He converted a delivery truck into a mobile garden with butterflies, a waterfall and a rainbow. One of the traveling installations was entitled Sirens of the Lambs and featured a traveling slaughterhouse delivery truck filled with stuffed animals. A real boy was shining the shoes of a fiberglass Ronald McDonald in the South Bronx, a sculpture of a Sphinx was placed in Queens and a video of ants evolving into a vulva was shown in Staten Island.
Banksy set up a stall to sell original artworks for sixty dollars each and put a jpeg on his website which can be used to make one's own Banksy New York residency souvenir T shirt.
He said goodbye to New York with a balloon throw-up on the Long Island Expressway and asked the public to save 5pointz, an outdoor urban art exhibit space in Long Island City.
Truly: at first the project seemed to be a massive media stunt but one might agree that the concept, the creativity and the used techniques show the artistic abilities of this street artist who criticizes consumerism.
LA based street artist Shepard Fairey (1970) graduated from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design. Frequenting the skateboarding scene as a youngster, he used his professional stenciling skills on clothing and skateboards designs.
The contemporary artist relates to the authentic aspects of hip hop culture and freedom of speech.
This man's clearly driven by street art imagery in all its forms( posters, stencil art, collage, screen printing, wheat pasting, ...), using his talent to criticize socio political situations such as war, materialism or propaganda in a witty, emotive and slightly commercial way.
His Andre the Giant (Has a Posse) stencils and stickers started out as an inside joke. The wrestler's unique and goofy face was transformed to a simple black and white image which was distributed in cities all over the US. Later on he added the word OBEY to the popular image with the purpose of making people question authority. "Andre the Giant has a Posse" is also the title of a documentary made by Helen Stickler .
Guerrilla artists Fairey, Robbie Conal and Mear One collaborated on the Be the Revolution(2004, anti-Bush) street art campaign. In the same year Roger Gastman and Fairey founded pop culture and lifestyle Swindle magazine.
Furthermore the illustrator founded Studio number one, a creative agency which designs album covers, clothing and movie posters, a reliable income for Fairey's family.
The graphic designer gained fame when he created the iconic style Obama Hope poster (2008) and stickers during the US presidential campaign. The red and blue Andy Warhol 's style resembling piece was based on a photograph by Mannie Garcia(Associated Press), leading to copyright infringement claims. Recurring subjects under discussion concerning art in public spaces are illegitimacy, fair use and derivatives.
Thanks to this massive exposure and the caused commotion, Fairey's work has already been shown in solo gallery exhibitions and at the LACMA, MOMA NY, ICA Boston, MCA San Diego, National Portrait Gallery Washington DC and at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Remaining loyal to urban culture, Fairey performs on stage as DJ Diabetic and MC Insulin. He even collaborated with DJ Shadow. Banksy's film Exit Through the Gift shop, an inside story of street art, contains footage of Fairey, Ron English, Space Invader, Swoon among others.
Despite long- winded art critic disputes about the originality and value of his versatile creations, this reporter of peace has become a street art symbol as well as an asset in contemporary art. Two of a trade never agree.
Street art is a worldwide cultural phenomenon of revolutionary art which questions the existing environment. Street artists use urban settings as a platform to reach everyday people in order to influence the collective behaviour. Their pieces have their own language to communicate activist and social themes.
A large variety in street art media and techniques can be perceived, going from murals, installations, video projections, wheat pasting, flash mobbing, over stencil graffiti, LED art, poster art and sticker art to large graffiti master pieces made with aerosol paints or marker pens. Graffiti is an initially unconventional art style which is associated with hip hop music. Hip hop, a subculture of our times, consists of several elements such as DJ-ing and scratching records, rap and beat box , graffiti and break-dance. MC’s spread their messages by rapping to beats.
Hip hop graffiti originally emerged from the inequalities poor urban youth in New York city were facing. Many poor residents were confronted with racism, class struggle, violence and total chaos. Imprisoned in their social situation, disenfranchised youth used this urban art style as an artistic resistance to authority. In New York Julio 204 and Taki 183 tagged their names in public spaces to reject their poor environment during the 1970’s.
The first hip hoppers voiced the frustrations of urban minorities on vehicles such as subway trains, public buildings, roofs, billboards, ... Graffiti artists use their pieces as a means of expression of the subculture, sharing their views on political and social misconduct in a dysfunctional society. It is not merely used to utter criticism but also spreads positive messages to inspire youngsters.
Street art is booming. Street artists as Aérosol and Banksy have achieved commercial success and seized the opportunity to show their art in museums or galleries. Or how underground became mainstream.
