Tag: banksy

This is not an easy piece to summarize fully – the bare bones is that it’s about Banksy, an anonymous street artist struggling to reconcile the paradox that good art about people not being able to make it in this world often allows the artist to make it in this world* – but the conclusion is of interest in its own right:

…the language of resistance — of the vanguard on the streets leading the way — is the language of the elite. Banky’s adolescent messages reflect the adolescence of his audience. His audience likes the images they believe he paints of them:  as childlike idealists fighting against villains, but how do they fight? All they do is scramble from museum piece to museum piece, hoping to see it before guards or rival street artists arrive. It is a game for children, like those in Banky’s art, a treasure hunt for the idle rich.

The old game between workers, artists, and institutions is over, and the institutions have won. Continue reading Street Art Watch: we have met the enemy, and it is… pulling out a checkbook?