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Banksy comes to Toronto?!
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| DJ Mach X |
| quote: | Banksy makes his Canadian debut
Sarah Boesveld
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Published on Monday, May. 10, 2010 11:06PM EDT
Last updated on Tuesday, May. 11, 2010 4:35AM EDT
Banksy’s identity is a mystery, yet his work is unmistakable.
Several bold and graphic statements popped up in Toronto over the weekend, indicating that the British shock artist has made his Canadian debut. (A publicist confirmed that Banksy has indeed been at work here.)
But not everyone is happy about Banksy’s trot through town: one of the creations attributed to him – as many as seven have been spotted throughout downtown Toronto – has already been painted over.
His secretive swoop through the city, just a week after his film Exit Through the Gift Shop opened there, has also reignited a fierce debate about the cultural value of graffiti. Is Banksy an artist or is he a vandal?
It’s art
“It’s most certainly vandalism, but it’s also art,” said Simon Cole, director of Show & Tell Gallery on Dundas Street West.
A friend in New York who is close to Banksy alerted Mr. Cole to the Toronto work on Sunday morning. He quickly snapped photos and posted them on his gallery’s website.
“I think it creates an interesting social commentary in urban life,” Mr. Cole said of street art. “I like that people who normally wouldn’t go into an art gallery will stop and look at something on the street, or that people who normally frequent art galleries would completely ignore it.”
Mr. Cole has been a fan of Banksy for about 10 years, admiring his brash, politically charged stencil art. He was saddened to hear that one Toronto building owner had quickly covered up the piece Banksy left there. “It would have increased the value of the building financially, and culturally as well,” he said, adding that entire buildings have been sold for jacked-up prices because of the Banksy touch.
Graffiti art has made inroads in Canadian galleries (it’s appeared at the Art Gallery of Ontario, among other respected institutions), but has yet to earn the respect it has garnered in Britain and elsewhere.
“Quite a few of my artists have a background in graffiti and street art and do gallery work as well. They’re really quite successful at it,” Mr. Cole said. He added that he doesn’t subscribe to the “broken windows theory,” which suggests that where there’s graffiti, there’s crime.
“I understand graffiti has that element of being illegal that makes it a little bit of a harder pill to swallow for some people,” he said. “But when it’s done well, it can really benefit society.”
It’s vandalism
“If it’s going up without the owner’s permission, to me that’s a problem,” said Neal Carley of the City of Vancouver’s engineering department.
“I wouldn’t want someone to come and spray-paint and put something on my house that I didn’t want there, that I didn’t ask for and that’s going to cost me money to address.”
While he’s never heard of Banksy, Mr. Carley has seen his fair share of persistent graffiti. And though cuts to the city budget have scaled back the graffiti removal program, the department has been deluged with calls from people hoping to remove tags and other graffiti from their property.
“They know that if they phone that in, police will come,” he said. “They realize it is a crime.”
A lot of graffiti is tagging, he added, “which is not terribly interesting.”
It makes the area feel less welcoming and also less secure, he said. “In an area that has a lot of graffiti, I would suggest that many pedestrians or people would not feel as safe [as] they would if there was no graffiti.”
The city encourages citizens to organize community “paint-outs,” in which groups of people collectively paint over graffiti in their neighbourhoods. The city also has programs to bring ex-graffiti artists, who have been convicted and no longer paint illegally, to share their artistic skills with young people. Together, they create legally painted murals.
While the main program that helps subsidize these murals has been cut back, private property owners are still encouraged to paint murals on their property, Mr. Carley said.
Those murals, he said, help to discourage graffiti.
Banksy: both embraced and maligned
- The town council in Brighton, England, has preserved several Banksys, including one showing two policemen kissing, by covering them in protective plastic.
- In 2009, the council in Banksy’s hometown of Bristol, England, helped the artist pull off his biggest installation ever, called Banksy v Bristol Museum. The artist completely restocked the City Museum and Art Gallery with more than 100 political commentary pieces, including a massive burned-out ice cream truck.
- The city of Melbourne mistakenly painted over an elaborate elephant mural created by Banksy in 2003. It later apologized.
- Banksy has no fans in Disneyland, where, in 2006, he sneaked a Guantanamo Bay detainee wearing a hood and shackles into the site of the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride.
SOURCE GLOBE & MAIL |
PICS FROM - http://torontoist.com/2010/05/banks..._to_toronto.php
And what sucks is...
Toronto is covering it up :( :whip:
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| DJ Mach X |
I know this is probably going to cause a art vs. vandalism debate, and i'm pretty sure we know the usual suspects who will participate...
But IMO, it is art, and it does classify as vandalism, but it's not like he is going into the middle of Younge St and painting on H&M, or taggin the side of the CN Tower... |
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| Adamo |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ Mach X
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I like proper graffiti and banksy is a street art pioneer. This one made me laugh more because across the street is the entrance of where i used to work. I hope more pieces pop up around the city. |
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| Endlesswave |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ Mach X
I know this is probably going to cause a art vs. vandalism debate, and i'm pretty sure we know the usual suspects who will participate...
But IMO, it is art, and it does classify as vandalism, but it's not like he is going into the middle of Younge St and painting on H&M, or taggin the side of the CN Tower... |
Yep.
It is art more so than vandalism IMO and the museum is the side of the building. Anyone who disagrees should read about more into art and take advantage of what it could do to their business. Especially if it's on the side of their building. ;) |
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| polkovnik86 |
| in b4 ban on spray paint, or grafiti, or some other outrageous ban thanks to Miller. |
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| cammaxwell |
Yeah I like Banksy's stuff, they just accidently painted over some of his art in Australia the other week too. Apparently the cleaning crew did it by mistake, cause the art piece was supposed to protected by the city.
Pretty cool to have him here, do we know where the art is? |
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| DJ Mach X |
| quote: | Originally posted by cammaxwell
Yeah I like Banksy's stuff, they just accidently painted over some of his art in Australia the other week too. Apparently the cleaning crew did it by mistake, cause the art piece was supposed to protected by the city.
Pretty cool to have him here, do we know where the art is? |
The Torontist article goes into a bit more detail on the locations... nothing too specific tho |
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| EricB. |
| theres way better grafiti artists. who have more skill, more creativity and say alot more things. alot of hype behind this guy and his political messages for no real reason. |
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| Dior Homme |
| quote: | Originally posted by EricB.
theres way better grafiti artists. who have more skill, more creativity and say alot more things. alot of hype behind this guy and his political messages for no real reason. |
tons of people have graf skills but his work is more political stencil work. hes out to get quick humorous messages across, not so much do a work of art. part of what makes his work so interesting is how he does it over night and no one sees him do it. (yes i know people have caught him and his conspirators in the act) but his work jabs @ cultural and current affairs. not so much, someones name a a mural piece graffed up. |
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| ChemEnhanced |
| Sure its art....but if I spray painted a picture of a fetus being aborted on the side of a building all hell would break out. |
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| ChemEnhanced |
| quote: | Originally posted by DJ Mach X
I know this is probably going to cause a art vs. vandalism debate, and i'm pretty sure we know the usual suspects who will participate...
But IMO, it is art, and it does classify as vandalism, but it's not like he is going into the middle of Younge St and painting on H&M, or taggin the side of the CN Tower... |
He is spray painting property that's not his without permission....that is vandalism. If I woke up one morning and found the side of my house spray painted with some picture on it...no matter how great the art is...I would still be pissed and if I found out who did it I would sue the out of them. |
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| gummybear |
i like his stuff....
what i find more interesting is people that get their panties in a bunch over such things..:D |
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