Guest Post For Vandalog

RJ of Vandalog asked me to weigh in on a recent Banksy piece in Notting Hill that treads a thin line between advertising and art. We have mixed feelings about Banksy, and thought the whole thing had more to do with how we use our public space than the infamous street artist.

You can read my full response [HERE]

New Year, Same Problems, Similar Solutions.

As we begin this new year, let us remember why we are compelled to take over, destroy, and otherwise manipulate advertising messages brought to us in our shared public spaces. Let us continue through this year undeterred by obstacles which seem improbably large and pursue a vision of a public space rendered from our own imaginations. Let us rejoice in our communities, the dialogues, and conversations which keep us actively engaged in the lives we live and the spaces we occupy.

"Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, re-arrange, and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head." -Banksy, street artist (b. 1974)

Banksy Colossal Media Hit

Turns out the Banksy murals were advertisements after all. They did preempt his new show called The Village Pet Store And Grill.

Update: Banksy's team passed on this quote to us, regarding the billboards: "I wanted to play the corporations at their own game, at the same scale and in the same locations. The advantage of billboard companies is that they’ll let you write anything for money, even if what you write is questioning the ethics of letting someone write anything because they have money."

This is simply not true. Billboard companies will not let you write anything you want as long as you pay them. A good example of this is Susan Opton's Soldier Billboard Project which came up against massive barriers until it finally found a home in Syracuse among others. The fact of the matter is Banksy isn't really putting anything all that challenging out there and that is why there was no problem contracting an outdoor advertising company to do his bidding. Again the use of the I ♥ NY campaign is a nod to the cities use of cultural economics to repaint a vision of the city to its own liking (in direct opposition to the Graffit and Street Art movements use of the city) and not a scathing indictment of our cultural politics. Nor do I believe his work is "...

questioning the ethics of letting someone write anything because they have money." Did he not pay to put those billboards up? In what way does that question the ethics of who gets to promote their visual messages in our public environment. Destroy a fucking billboard and then we can talk about challenging the usage of public space.

On another note. I have been posting about the reinvigoration of Banksy's work with some sort of political credibility by forcing its removal as a way to shine a light on the growing illegal billboard problem in the city. Sadly I will be unable to do this because it turns out everything him and colossal have done was legal. Provided there are no commercial messages in the work and permission has been granted by the landlord, you may paint anything on the side of a building provided it agrees wth the zoning regulations in the area. So much for converting this into a potent piece of art which could help illuminate important city issues. So contact your local landlord, grab a paint brush and get to work.

Banksy - Colossal Media Hit

My last post on the Banksy/Colossal Media hit drew some interesting responses and I feel I need to clarify a few things.

For one, I am in no way supportive of a Street Art in which artists pay for their work to be put up by someone else. This takes the entire artistic act and renders it politically impotent. By breaking the law and taking your vision of the public environment into your own hands you are directly challenging the way our public space is used. Every Graffiti Artist and Street Artist understands this as a part of their process and one of the materials they use to create their work. Often the removal of the artwork, like the putting up of the artwork, is the most interesting part of its life. It is at these points that the piece exerts its message the loudest, demanding the recognition of a system which supports a singular commercial vision of the city over a publicly negotiated environment.



Photo not taken by Jake Dobkin

If then the Banksy mural is not true Street Art, but some botched attempt by a once street artist, is there a way to create artwork out of this failed attempt? The answer is yes.

By failing to properly permit the sign, the landlord and Colossal Media unknowingly committed the same crime Street Artists and Graffiti artists commit at will. This failure to obtain a permit requires that this mural be taken down just like every piece of Street Art is removed. The mural may not have had the potency Street Art has when it went up, but I would argue it can have that same potency when it comes down.

This work, unlike other Street Art or Graffiti pieces has been publicly acknowledged and supported up to this point. Sadly, this puts it into a more interesting place politically than most other Street Art because people all know about it and like it. If the removal of this mural was to happen before the illegal billboards in the surrounding area and it was made public, an important public space issue would become crystal clear. Obviously the city cares more about the advertising companies than the wishes of the public and thus the city itself.

Good Street Art brings public space issues to the forefront of people minds. Maybe the mural will be a true piece of Street Art when we as a public take the creation of the artwork into our own hands and use the materials Banksy has given us to make art, whether he intended to do so or not.

Banksy - Colossal Media Hit

Notice the "!!!DAMN RATS" graffiti which has peen put up over the Banksy only days after it was finished.

photo by Jake Dobkin

I have a gathered a few interesting facts about the Banksy/Colossal Media Street Art collaborative mural that happened this week

1-Banksy paid Colossal Media to paint these murals
2-Colossal Media did contact the landlord to approve the work
3-Colossal Media is renting the space through the landlord at an undisclosed monthly fee
4-59 Grand Street Equities Inc. did not get the proper permits from the DOB to put up a sign here

So I'd call this illegal Street Art, albeit art more heavily financed than most individuals have the resources for; nonetheless Street Art with all its connotations, challenging who gets to use the streets and for what. Despite this, no one seems to be getting all that worked up about it, even though it may be one of the largest illegal projects ever done in this city. It even surpasses large Super Soaker graffiti hits, and giant wheat pastes like the current JR piece at the corner of Houston and Bowery. (Pictured)


And maybe that's a good thing. Certainly it shows people are not averse to Street Art. In fact, I spent half an hour watching people take pictures and then talking to them about the fact that this mural was an illegal artwork and that it could be removed. The responses I got were overwhelmingly upset over the fact that it might be taken down.

So what would happen if this illegal artwork was removed? Other than decoration, what purpose can the work serve for the public in the way that good street art often does?

A few blocks away at 380 Canal street, there is a large illegal advertising billboard for the new movie "Body of Lies." Over a year ago,

outraged residents filed complaints to The Department of Buildings against the advertisement. Soon after, the Special Sign Enforcement Unit condemned this illegal advertisement and demanded that the landlord remove it. Today, this illegal advertisement still reaps significant profits for the owners of that property, without public oversight.

The public's reaction to this illegal advertising billboard is not nearly as affectionate as it is towards the illegal Banksy mural. Reactions to the illegal advertisement range from passive acceptance to outright rage over the fact that we are being forced consume this commercial message illegally.

This illegal Banksy mural, along with the public's help, can turn this situation into an overtly political message to the city. This message would assert the public's right to decide what is left on the city's walls, and thus what it wants to see on the city's walls in the future. With no complaints about the illegal Banksy mural having been filed, and several complaints having been filed against the illegal advertisement, it is imperative that the city remove the illegal advertising billboard and leave this artwork up.

By bringing its own illegality to the forefront, the Banksy piece, along with public support, forces the city to choose sides in the debate over the appropriate use of public space. If the city does not carry out its duty to remove the illegal advertisement first, it will be sending a strong message about who's interests the city serves - those of the commercial forces or those of the public interest. Public protest of the removal of this artwork, if it comes to it, would imbue this piece with a purpose it never had, thereby giving it the authenticity we associate with true Street Art.

Banksy and Colossal Media

At the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, I have some things to say about the Banksy/Colossal Media "collaboration" which went up a few days ago on Wooster and Grand streets in NYC. Street Art and Graffiti have always been not only artistic acts, but political ones as well: challenging popular conceptions of how, and by whom, the public environment is utilized. The criminalization of these practices over the past 30+ years speaks to the top down control of public space, which seeks to define the terms on which our public spaces are used. The privatization of our public environment, including the walls of our buildings, has placed our shared environment out of reach of many in an effort to diffuse competitive uses of those spaces. Graffiti and Street Art should be understood as just such a competitive force against the determined efforts of public advertising to prevent all other unsanctioned visual uses of the public realm. To say that a collaboration like this between Street Art and the public advertising world "takes the air out of this works impact" is an understatement.

On top of this general complaint, Banksy ironically uses the I ♥ NY campaign created by Milton Glaser and promoted by the Association For A Better New York (ABNY) which was in many ways interested in removing the stigma which Graffiti had attached to the city in some of our darker economic times; Though things just might get worse now than they did back in the late 70's. Maybe we can let this one go since Banksy's not from around here, but New York street artists should be aware of the fact that the criminalization of Street Art and Graffiti was promoted by those agencies like the ABNY who were responsible for this benign slogan which tried to clean up, and helped to cover the true images of New York that many young Graffiti artists were trying to reveal.

See Taking the Train by Joe Austin and Branding NY by Miriam Greenberg.

I must add that Colossal Media is one of the less intrusive outdoor media companies, often painting their murals as opposed to using the more profitable vinyl signage, as well as working directly with street artists as pictured.