Banksy, commonly believed to be Robin Gunningham of
Bristol, in the west of England, is the most political of artists. He started
out as a graffiti artist so he wanted to keep his identity secret to avoid
prosecution but he soon moved on to making clever political commentary with his
paintings. They are usually painted onto the sides of buildings which has led
to a debate of who actually owns them and sometimes whole walls have been sold
for extremely large sums. His work is really about where it's made and what it’s
saying rather than being ‘fine art’. That’s OK with me! Here are some of my favourites of his work for you to enjoy... or not!
Robin Gunningham
aka Banksy...or is he?
I'm listening to Bob Dylan's "You Ain't Going Nowhere" from The Basement Tapes. Listen here!
9 comments:
I kmow I labelled the final picture as being by Bansky; that was during his Russian Period! ☺
An artist needs to teach, sell his art or work for newspapers and journals. Otherwise how would he make enough of a living to survive in art? So although I think his stencils are wonderful, does he make money by visitors paying to see his wall art? Nope. His signed prints, on the other hand, seem to be both collectable and valuable financially.
The reason he may have stayed anonymous was because people found some of his images controversial and far too political eg Love is in the Air. I simply thought he was a risk taker.
Hels: The prices paid for works of art don't always relate to their value (they don't have any intrinsic value anyway). One can hardly blame artists for trying to earn whatever they can from their work. It's hard to say if Banksy's rise was a carefully planned campaign to get recognition or not.
I remember going to see Eddie Izzard on stage at a time when he was building a cult following but was not really well-known. At that time he refused to work on TV thus eventually creating a buzz about who he was!
WOW! What an amazing artist. His 'take' on life moments is fantastic. I love that people have bought whole sides of buildings to 'own' his work.
I hope you have a wonderful day. Diana
Thanks Bazza - he's such an enigmatic artist ... and has produced some brilliantly evocative works of art and I love the selection of his works you've given us. Cheers Hilary
Diana: There have been some complicated legal cases over who actually owns the artwork. Some of it has been made on public buildings. When a piece of his art was sold for an enormous sum recently, it was instantly mechanically shredded!
Hilary: Thanks, he is a lot of fun!
Hello Bazza, Of course serious art often provides political commentary, but sometimes I wonder if Banksy is mainly a provider of such commentary cleverly wedded to visual images. His notoriety is currently sending prices skyrocketing; it will be up to the future to decide his merit as an artist.
--Jim
Jim: Hello again! It seems to me that there are plenty of modern artists whose work fetches unfathomable amounts; even if they are still living. I struggle to see the merit of Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst & Jeff Koons but only time will tell their true merit. I would suppose that the same applies to Banksy!
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