Saturday 17 November 2007

Art or criminal damage?

Hello fellow bloggers firstly apologies for the lack of posts recently. I don't really have a reason just had nothing to say. However recently something or someone has come to my attention. Namely a graffiti 'artist' from Bristol by the name of 'Banksy'.

I don't know if any of you are already familiar with this persons work or not but lately I have seen his work at least Banksy inpired works appearing in my city.

Recently he has been auctioning his work off for tens of thousands:

On 7 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three Banksy works and reached the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction of over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimate prices.The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices. Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000 whilst Glory sold for £72,000 and Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600 - all three auctions sold way over expected estimates. To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website front home page with a new image of an auction house scene with people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."

Here is a selection of my favourites. More can be found here.

So is it art or criminal damage????




5 comments:

Annette said...

Personnally I think its criminal.
If he set himself up in an artist studio where people can can go and visit his work if you are interested in it, then yes that is art, but I don't particulary want to see it on the streets.
Nobody knows who he is do they?
But somebody must see him doing this art, mustn't they?

Anonymous said...

I think his work is brilliant, at least he shows a sense of humour instead of just aimlessly "tagging", if I saw some of these on the way to work it would def brighten up my day!! Further more... it brightens up the place without local councils paying thousands of pounds on "works of art" that actually resemble a giant rusty bean can! Carry on I say!

TotallyUn-Pc said...

I like it too.... what would I do if I cought him doing it? not sure yet... I hope I don't!!!

Mousie said...

The fella's a genius, I love it.

I think it makes art more accessible to those who wouldn't normally know anything about it.

And, hopefully, it shows the hoodies that, if they really must go round vandalising things, at least it can be done in an intelligent and thought-provoking way.

TWINING said...

Charlie Lima I like the picture on the right.