Topic: exit through the gift shop OT

[choppert]

Is anyone else watching this Banksy night on Channel 4?
Brilliant!

Catch it on C4OD if not

Chops

[Francois]

You can see some of his work and a ton more cool street art stuff at the Wooster Collective website
http://www.woostercollective.com/

And if you do a search for Roadsworth (Peter Gibson), you'll get a chance to meet a Montreal artist who transforms basic street painting (like pedestrian xings) into really fun things.
I met him once and he's great. Very nice and friendly.

[hookstrapped]

thoroughly enjoyable meta-prank

loved it

[choppert]

I've a feeling there's something I'm not getting.   The commentaries from Banksy are hilarious.

Seems to be a bit of a p*ss-take now the video guy is pulling together an exhibition.

Is he Banksy with a dodgey French accent?  It feels like Borat with wallpaper paste 

[sapata]

Just watched... it's another prank isn't it?

[choppert]

Just watched... it's another prank isn't it?

I think so.  Either a prank or a great way of making everyone look like tits.

The first half was good, and looked fairly genuine. Love the Space Invaders 

[sapata]

Just watched... it's another prank isn't it?

I think so.  Either a prank or a great way of making everyone look like tits.

The first half was good, and looked fairly genuine. Love the Space Invaders 

It's true, totally got me untill half way... It went down a bit when Thierry became a street artist himself.

[Abdul Hye]

I hate banksy and “artist” like him. I live in east London and now every idiot with a spray can thinks they are an artist. I think every art student has been down Brick Lane and stencilled some nonsense on the wall. So much of it you can hardly tell where one stops and the other one starts.
 

[moominsean]

i watched the movie on netflix, was interesting.

i have mixed feelings about graffiti art. i can appreciate it and enjoy quite a bit of it as art, but i also understand it as vandalism and would be pissed if much of it appeared on my property. random tagging is a big thing here and it looks like crap. it is rarely even attractive as a script, just ugly black words on signs and walls. but a lot of graffiti is quite nice to look at, as well.

[jojonas~]

rented that movie last month and was just dumbstruck on how it escalated. my favorite part is probably when they present a clip from the supposed video the frenchie made. hillarious stuff!

I'm kind of with sean on tagging/graffiti. just seing the same three letter tag over and over I feelcan be sickening, but then there's also the more artsy graffiti peeps that I can really apreciate how they lighten up the inner city.

[choppert]

Tagging is a bit naff, but some of the visual stuff was good - painting around the shadow the bench cast in the street light was great. Whether or not it was a spoof doesn't matter too much 

[Paul Mitchell]

I thoroughly enjoyed it but as choppert has already said the first half was better. Also loved some of the ads C4 aired during the film.

Tagging and graffiti is certainly not a new phenomenon http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/cave-paintings-are-graffiti-by-prehistoric-yobs-467773.html

Paul

[Late Developer]

Hi Chops.

Must watch this because I love spoofs (if, indeed, it is a spoof - there's a lot of stuff on Google that reckons it's the real thing - but, then again, a lot of our American cousins believed that Borat was real while it was being filmed).

For me, graffiti on private property is criminal damage and if anyone did that to any part of my house, I'd set his (or her) underpants on fire while they were still in them. On a derelict property or a designated wall, I can see it as art - much in the same way as some of Rolf Harris' less detailed work. Rembrandt or Monet, it will never be...

[harragan]

Graffiti can be very artistic but there is also a lot of crap sprayed on walls.  Banksy (whoever they may be) as a brand, is very good at promotion and this film is just that; excellent promotion. 

I struggle when street artists get annoyed when property owners remove their graffiti.  Surely it's all part of the game, isn't it?  What I also find difficult is seeing Banksy works on canvas in galleries.  It's the context that makes it work, at least for me, as without being public and on specific buildings his/her/their works are often just vaguely funny cartoons.  Did anyone get to the exhibition in Bristol a couple of years ago? It was more like a fairground sideshow.  Very amusing but not worthy of the fuss.  Each to their own, I suppose.

[Late Developer]

C'mon, graffiti vandals don't have "brands" do they? That would involve being identifiable and having the balls to stand up and say "I did that" in front of the building owner and then having to either (a) acknowledge that as part of the building, it belongs to the building owner to do with as they wish (include selling for profit if some mug is willing to pay for some crappy cartoon) or (b) clean it off and spend some time doing community service at the behest of a magistrate if the property owner brought criminal charges.

If some tosser with a can of paint wants to express themselves, let them do it on their own property.

The best a graffiti vandal can have is a certain amount of cheeky notoriety if they cultivate it in the same way as "Banksy" has. The rest are just pointless, talentless and probably jobless oiks with nothing better to do than try to bugger up other peoples' property.

[harragan]

I use the term "brand" instead of "artist" for the very reasons you identify.  Banksy as a person has no public identity but the images do.  Banksy could be anything.  Probably more than one person. 

[Francois]

I've actually heard he was a London guy names John Banks... I also know that Peter Gibson has been to one of his parties... where the infamous Banksy never showed-up...

[Nigel]

I don't know if it's a spoof, but it's the second time I've seen it and I think it's great! 

[Ed Wenn]

I recorded it last week and am hoping to watch it tonight. An acquaintance of mine, Steve Lazarides (http://www.lazinc.com/) is Banksy's former agent and he's a great bloke, so I'm inclined to look favourably on the whole deal. Funnily enough, Steve used to be a pro snapper until he dedicated himself full time to running his galleries.

Weirdly, I also found out yesterday that a drummer I play with a lot is the cousin of Charming Baker (http://charmingbaker.com/) another high profile 'urban' artist whose work currently sells for £50,000 upwards a pop.

[This-is-damion]

Yeah, it's a piss take.  It's basically just a film he wrote.  Entertaining one at that.

Im a fan of the whole "urban art" thing.  Agree that mindless tagging is something different and up in brum we don't get swamped with decent stuff or stencil work it so it's good to see when it appears.

[LT]

I love the whole banksy style.  I find it akin to the really good modern street photographers in the way it uses features and humour. There have been a few faux banksies (?) cropping up around Canterbury which I think really brighten the place up.

Shame this movie isn't on 4OD - I'd have liked to see it.
 

[sapata]

Wow...
Just heard that Shepard, the guy who created the iconic Obama poster (as featured in the film...) was attacked in Denmark!

Apparently, one of his works is causing too much controversy over there...