The tabloid, degenerate, darling, Banksy has been at it again-courting controversy with one of his little stunts. Banksy of course is about as anti establishment as Saatchi exhibiting the Chapman Bros-in fact Banksy is probably the brainchild of Saatchi, but that's another story.
I've given enough column inches already to this philistine, and this would have been just another note of irrelevancy, except to say that his latest wag is on my old stomping ground-The Walker Art gallery in Liverpool.I daresay the Walker was in on it-good for them, it's a splendid gallery, that deserves national attention.
But what I also like about the work in this instance, is that it's casting a light on an issue that far outweighs any of Banksy's usual media whoring for attention, at a time of year when religious sugar coating is predominant. You can read the article here: Banksy unveils church abuse work
The Artistic "community" here seems besotted with a recent appearance of an alleged Banksy, on the wall of an Oceanside Taco shop. I've made my growing distaste for the artist known as Banksy here before, so ground covered (or wall), I've said all I want to in that regard.
I wasn't going to further add to the mire then, except what perturbs me most about about this whole thing, is the attention that's being expended in the question of it's authenticity. Is it a Banksy? Isn't it? Who the fuck cares..?
For all his supposed anonymity, the hype surrounding such shameless attention whoring ensures cultural ubiquity to the point of it's authenticity being moot. Indeed, even after Banksy's P.R office (a subversive street artist with an agent and PR dept-doesn't this strike anyone else as a glaring contradiction?) has dismissed the piece as a fake, the media here continues to flutter around the wearisome question of who the forger is, like flies around a fresh,shiny turd.
What we end up with then, is a poor duplicate of a puerile artistic degenerative, now holding the rapt media with column inches and some skewed perception of ingenuity.
Meanwhile, sales at the Taco shop have doubled, which says it all really.
For all its obscene excess and turgid backslappery, I rather enjoy Oscar night-it transports me back to watching Bob Hope on a Black and White telly, with my old man in the Seventies.
Tonight we were treated to a remarkable Oscar themed dinner at our friend Shawna's- hors d' oeuvres manicured to resemble crowns and pig faces in honor of 'The King Speech' and 'Toy Story', Irish Stew for 'The Fighter'.
Delicious. Some good contenders I believe, although so busy was I during the past year, I only caught two of the nominees- 'Inception' and 'Exit through the gift shop'. Am rather relieved that the latter didn't win, the last thing the insufferable Banksy needs is further legitimacy. That's the joke of that entire thing, the fake authenticity of street martyrdom attacking the establishment, applauded by a groundswell of sycophantic media,collectors and artist's. Which reminds me, I've been wanting to encourage anyone and everyone who is an artist to forget Banksy's droll wankfest, and watch Robert Hughes's exquisite diatribe about the contemporary art scene-'The Mona Lisa Curse.' As far as I know, It's only available on YouTube for the moment, and will probably be snagged for copyright in a month, but I implore you to watch it while you can, if only for the moment he eviscerates a collector for his expensive taste in bad art.
I finally got around to seeing 'Exit through the gift shop.'I've always felt like Banksy's work was a little too polished, a little too contrived as if it had been designed by some committee in a Canary Wharf agency boardroom. Anyway, The film is supposedly a clever, clever, mockumentary that turns the tables, in that as opposed to being about Banksy, it is instead a biopic about the French filmmaker who follows our eponymous hero from guerrilla graffitist, to contemporary cult.
Except the documentary maker is nothing more than a hobbyist, and though I shalln't reveal the gag, (oh how I laughed) at the eleventh hour, the whole thing tries to cack-handedly make some high brow statement about the nature of contemporary art.
That Modern art is a con and any charlatan can make it-really? What a revelation.I had no idea.
It's a sort of Spinal Tap for artists if you like.
I didn't.I mean, even as parody, is there anything more depressing than seeing a rich collector ebulliently talk about adding a Banksy to their Picasso's and Klee's?Some would argue the point-that the joke is on the collector, that it's holding up some sort of distorted mirror, but I believe in fact that the joke is on the artist, because ultimately what you get isn't smart, just the equivalent of a dumbed-down Twitter sound byte, about the sorry state of it all.
I rather hope the ghastly street scene returns to where it belongs, defacing the gutters as opposed to any legacy future artists can hope to aspire to.
