Although I like the works of fellow writer? street artist? Provocateur? Banksy, I am some what puzzled about the hype surrounding him so I went to his NYC opening, which was or wasnt sanctioned by him. Since I would like to believe that he is still renegade I will assume this is the clever workings of opportunists who are banksying on the sudden rise of his valued art. The works were what they were, slick commentary illustrated sarcastically by low tech means. The show is small and not well laid out and is not cohesive, it was random which leads me to believe this was as sold to the public- acquired work being resold. His wit is by far is his greatest asset only matched by his daring to do shit others wont. I would like to think that if he did have a real show in NYC he would have come here undercover and really put some public work out there to provoke us. The show is nothing more than works we have seen already, I wasnt even sure what to expect considering his track record is mainly on the streets not in galleries. I was turned off by the fact that the gallery had a pile of his shirts on the floor and made people get on their knees to look at them and only to be told that they were $50 bucks!!!! I ran into my man who nicked 2 of them out of spite! I wont mention who else made off with one. Back in the day artist gave shit away like candy, it served to support the show and hype up the artist, but these Chimps aint havin it, this is strictly business folks. I aint mad but I aint no fool. Or maybe this is all a part of the sick joke, that I am not aware of.
Posted by Mare 139 on December 01, 2007 at 11:39 PM
