I might as well qualify this right at the start by admitting that I've got a soft spot for Banksy. There, I've said it. It's interesting that an insidious inverse snobbery starts to operate alongside increasing success and mainstream visibility. Waldemar Januszczak's piece in the Sunday Times typifies the lazy sentiment that he was clever and subversive on the streets, but boring, dumb and repetitive now that his work is shown in a 'legitimate', 'establishment' context. For one thing, this fudges the artist's trajectory; following this logic, Banksy 'sold-out' at least seven years ago when books of his graffiti became available to bourgeois art school posers like me. Perhaps I just have juvenile taste, but I think it is possible to be both funny and clever. What is perhaps less clever is the way in which Bristol Museum has sought to market this exhibition, this viral advert could only have been made by a provincial museum, it's the same impulse that led Gordon Brown to pretend he likes the Arctic Monkeys. And the bit of mythologising about the director of the museum not having been informed about this exhibition was just not believable. However, what I think this exhibition will do is draw a huge and varied audience who will to some extent re-negotiate the museum's collection in order to discern the embedded (and sometimes subtle, yes, subtle!) interventions made by the artist. I can't wait to go and see it.
You're right about the Bristol Museum marketing Rebecca...it's probably been made by Boggle, Doggle & Woggle...(or some other Ad agency)...but I do find it interesting that 'Banksy' (is this a now more than a name?) has produced sculpture for the exhibition?...when did that happen? I admit I've not meticulously followed his (or her?...that would be a fantastic (airbrushed) identity shift!) activities, so maybe I've missed the move to 3-D (if one excludes the actually role that buildings play in a 'piece' of grafitti that is?)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think the exhibition at Bristol looks great..I'm reminded of Sensation though...but maybe that's Banksy's point...it's a kind of grafitti on contemporary art practice?
M
Boggle, Doggle & Woggle?! They must be so cutting edge that I've not heard of them.
ReplyDeleteThe naming and attribution is interesting, there's pretty much a consensus that Banksy is Robin Gunningham, but this tag is inseparable from the practice (if it is a practice). But 'signing' work with a stenciled alias might be seen as undermining the singularity of the signature and the trace of the hand, or maybe it's broadly continuous with the tradition of nicknaming, like El Greco for example. When local authorities started preserving these stencils, it led to others using this tag as a way to prevent the destruction of their graffiti. Like Hirst, Banksy does seem to be at once complicit and critical of a market that will accept and reinforce the cultural and monetary value of this kind of reproducible production.
Banksy has been using objects since at least 2004, when he began to insert them into museum collections. The rat that I included a picture of was stuck to the wall of the Natural History Museum for two hours, if we are to believe his documentation. Most of the larger pieces were shown in LA in 2006 and New York in 2008, so this show in Bristol almost represents a kind of basardised retrospective.
Ah...that reveals how much I actually know about Bansky....!....I'll post those 'weird taxidermy' things soon....knocks Banksy into a cocked-hat (now there's a phrase you don't here too often)...actually it's probably a Heritage phrase!
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I'm a yoof, I'm supposed to know about these things. Surprisingly (or not?) the Brotherton has two of Banksy's books, 'Cut it Out' (2004) and 'Wall and Piece' (2006), really worth a look. Every good coffee table should have one.
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