18th march 2024, by Patrick DENNY, art advisor & art dealer
A new twist in Street-Art on Monday 18 March 2024!
Banksy has confirmed on his Instagram account that he is the author of the green drips sprayed on the wall of a building near Finsbury Park (London).
This time it’s an optical illusion, and you have to step back and choose the right axis to understand that the green paint is intended to replace the non-existent foliage of the tree in the foreground of the image.
Once again, to avoid having his works stolen or auctioned off, Banksy has interwoven the work into its environment, making it inseparable from it.
And as usual, the visual impact is powerful, giving us food for thought about how little space is given to nature in our cities. The representation of the young girl sends a message to the new generation, who have the power and the duty to save our planet!
🚀🌟GENIUS ARTIST OR MARKETING GENIUS?
The posture of the “most famous of the anonymous” is ambiguous. While he may appear to be a committed creative protestor, he is paradoxically at the pinnacle of the speculative art market he claims to denounce.
Banksy is first and foremost a graffiti artist, and expresses his art in the street, usually using stencils. Banksy conveys simple codes, reduced to very few colors. The location is predetermined and deliberate. Anyone can understand the meaning and appreciate it.
But talent alone does not guarantee notoriety! And fame is nothing without visibility!
Banksy understands this very well, and is perfectly familiar with the media and the mechanical, predictable way they work. In less than 24 hours, the photo of his latest work posted on Instagram has already racked up over 1.5 million “likes”. He is a master of viral marketing, and his successful campaigns are paradoxically a denunciation of the media buzz to which he is subjected. By taking on the codes and mechanics of “classic” marketing, Banksy delights in hijacking them to make his point, and has become a major player in the media sphere.
🎯💡A MARKETING GENIUS...
Using classic and effective techniques such as :
1. The secrecy surrounding his identity
“Invisibility is a superpower”, Banksy once said.
He adds, in his book Guerre et Spray (2005): “No one ever listened to me, until no one knew who I was”.
Anonymity plays a central role in Banksy’s approach; the Briton knows how to play with the grey areas surrounding his identity, and multiplies false leads. From famous people (Robert del Naja, Jamie Hewlett, etc.) to a collective of activist artists, the rumours surrounding Banksy continue to spread… and contribute to the global buzz.
So is he an individual in his own right? Or a collective? It doesn’t really matter, as long as he continues to thrill us!
2. Scandal, as in this work in which British politicians become chimpanzees
“Devolved Parliament” is an oil on canvas created in 2009 by Banksy, replacing British politicians debating in the House of Commons with chimpanzees. In 2019, the artwork became Banksy’s most expensive to date, selling for around €12 million at Sotheby’s in London.
The work measures 2.5m × 4.2m. It was entitled “Question Time” when it was first shown at the 2009 Banksy exhibition at the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. It was sold to a private collector in 2011. A reworked and renamed version of the painting was exhibited in Bristol in March 2019, with changes to details such as a banana and some lamps. Banksy commented, “Laugh now, but one day no one will be in charge”.
The depiction of chimpanzees echoes Banksy’s 2002 work “Laugh Now”, an almost 2 metre long stencil work showing a row of monkeys wearing aprons with the inscription “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge”.
Chimpanzees are a recurring theme in Banksy’s work, as a satirical device in the monkey tradition that depicts apes imitating human behaviour. Examples include his Self-Portrait (2000} which shows a person holding aerosol cans but with a chimpanzee head, and Monkey Queen (2003) based on a portrait of Elizabeth II with a chimpanzee face.
3. Or the novelty: where for the first time a work was created live from an auction.
The work “Girl With Balloon” renamed “Love is in the Bin” is an artistic intervention by Banksy created in 2018 at Sotheby’s London. According to Sotheby’s, it is “the first work of art in history to be created live at auction”. His 2006 painting, Girl with a Balloon, unexpectedly self-destructed immediately after being sold at auction. The damaged painting was subsequently renamed Love is in the Bin. It has been on permanent loan to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart since March 2019. In October 2021, it sold at auction for £18,582,000, a new record for the artist.
In fact, it’s even pleasing to note that not everyone appreciates the same things, as it saves us from fighting relentlessly to acquire them. Diversity is a beautiful thing!
This work is an adaptation of Banksy’s 2002 mural “Girl With Balloon”, a series of prints limited to 600 copies. Today, this single copy of the series has become a unique work of art! It was a gift from Banksy to a friend shortly after the “Barely Legal” exhibition in 2006. Banksy said he had prepared the self-destruct mechanism at the time, in case the work ever came up for auction.
🎨💡... AND AT THE SAME TIME, AN ARTIST OF GENIUS
Banksy, the ambassador of a movement now recognized!
Since the 90s, Banksy’s work has spread to every continent, and he has succeeded in breaking traditional art codes by introducing subversive and socially committed elements into public space. His work has made a significant contribution to the democratization of urban art, shifting the public gaze from institutional art to the street, where art becomes accessible to all, without social barriers.
The cultural impact of street art, as represented by Banksy, is profound and diverse. By democratizing urban art and creating conversations about social and political issues, Banksy has shaped a new era in which art is no longer confined to galleries, but becomes an integral part of the urban fabric and collective consciousness. And, paradoxically, more and more galleries are offering street art, which is a far cry from the early underprivileged tagging of the 70s and 80s.
👍👌📝 CONCLUSION
As always with Banksy, the answers are less important than the questions.
One thing’s for sure: with each new intervention, he moves the whole planet, and single-handedly helps to promote urban art, which in less than 10 years has gone from “vandal” to “saleable” status.
The End
