Banksy: Raising public consciousness
Banksy, a British street artist and provocateur who no one has actually seen, held his first official art show on US soil this weekend in a downtown Los Angeles warehouse. I’ve posted a number of the photos I took at the show.
I felt that the show, and Banksy’s work in general, do a lot to make us think — about our lifestyles, our desires, and our contributions to the world. Specifically, Banksy focused his energies on forcing us to ponder the purpose of art; he made the argument that the aesthetic value of art (and, really, the aesthetics of anything) should be a big fat zero and that instead art (and the rest of life’s daily activities) should only be worth anything if it causes someone to take action on an issue.
I’ve added short comments or intepretations of each piece of art into the Flickr titles/comments on of each photo I took. I’d love for you to take a look at them and add your interpretation as well.
Great controversy surrounded Banksy’s inclusion of a live elephant in the middle of the warehouse. Knowing that the elephant would create a stir among animal rights activists, Banksy literally spelled out his metaphor in postcard form to the throngs of onlookers:
"There’s an elephant in the room.
There’s a problem that we never talk about.The fact is that life isn’t getting any fairer.
1.7 Billion people have no access to clean drinking water.
20 Billion people live below the poverty line.
Every day hundreds of people are made to feel physically sick by morons
at art shows telling them how bad the world is but never actually doing
something about it.Anybody want a free glass of wine?"
I personally feel that the animal rights controversy created exactly the type
of energy that Banksy is telling us we should redirect onto more severe
issues. It also created quite a buzz, which had people lining up to get in. Let’s just hope that it made them think, too…
6. January 2007 at 17:54
And what did you do to help end poverty?
6. January 2007 at 21:37
Well, I blogged about the show and tried to help him raise public awareness of the issue (rather than just saying “wow, his mixed media work was, like, so cool.”)
How about you?
-c
1. April 2007 at 19:05
I think Banksy raises some fair points and i think that his work will slowly make more people aware of the situations people face everyda and are to scared to talk about.
5. March 2008 at 10:52
I think Banksy’s work creates controversy because many of us are so enfatuated with our lifestyles that we dont care a bit about whats going on elsewhere. We are quick to point out something like animal rights..(pink elephant, when we find reality shows, $9 dollar drinks, and Ipods, more important than education, poverty, and third world issues. Regardless of wether he is trying to shift our thoughts into more important things, we continue to ignore the problems which are created by our capitalistic worlds.
and what am i doing to solve this problem?
Im a teacher in South Los Angeles and i do what i can.
eternal