My New Love: Banksy

How cool is that?! I've seen his stuff online before — friends of mine directing me to find it — but I never really looked into anything about him or his art. After seeing Exit Through The Gift Shop last night, however, I'm hooked! Banksy is a street artist. And until now I never really knew anything about this amazing movement.


Street artists are AMAZING. And Banksy is like their king. haha Well, not really, but he seems to be the most famous one. One of the really cool — and also really frustrating as a fan — thing about Bansky and other street artists, is that the art isn't permanent!!


Many of these images are gone! Especially ones done in controversial places. On his website, he posts a notice from like the parks department over at Alcatraz asking that people not deface their parks with graffitti, saying they're not there "to argue about whether or not this is artwork." What I find interesting though, is them directing you to see the "historic graffitti from the Indian Occupation." Though if guys like them weren't around back then, there wouldn't be any to look at. In 100 years, maybe Banksy graffitti will be protected somewhere. Let's hope so.


I mean, personally, I'm not a fan of "tagging." To me, it's just ugly scribbles stupid kids feel the need to draw so people notice them. Political graffitti, or just plain artwork, can be fantastic, however. Obviously, someone might not want it on their houses, but some commercial walls are improved with stuff like this! :-) Part of me hates that it's often cleaned off or that I can't own a Banksy original (or even reproductios — he doesn't do 'em), but on the other hand, it really just adds to it's specialness (is that a word? ;-P).

I guess I can settle for just looking at these pictures...

Oh yeah, he's British. Did I mention that? ;-) heh Just adds to his appeal. I wonder if he's hot... In my imagination, he ABSOLUTELY is. ;-P

In any case, Exit Through the Gift Shop is actually NOT a movie ABOUT Banksy. As he tells you at the very start of the film, it's a documentary about a guy who was trying to make a documarty about Banksy, but Banksy thinks his story was way more interesting.

But there's plenty in it about these street artists which has sparked a new interest for me to obsess over. And it's pretty fucking funny too. Here's the trailer:



Oh and check this out? Recognise this?


It's the cover to Blur's album Think Tank!! I love Blur...and I never knew. Ugh. I actually I think I have some special version of this CD with a different cover. Booooo...

So now I'm going to be scouring every wall as I walk around. If I ever come across a Banksy original, I might just pee my pants from excitement!


The End.

PS One of the other artists mentioned in the movie is Space Invader, who I also love. And I SWEAR I've seen one of his little dudes on a building along the West Side Highway. Every time I saw it, it drove me nuts because I didn't know why it was there! I thought it was maybe part of a sign for a store that closed down. If it's his, it would make me SO happy. :-)