World Trade Center by Banksy, Tribeca, NYC Tuesday 5:42 pm by JONATHAN VALANIA
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RELATED: Meanwhile, the Twin Towers piece in TriBeca has been subject to more attention. Since Tuesday it’s become something of shrine, with flowers placed next to it, as well as a letter asking haters not to touch it. Eventually some plexiglass was placed over it in an effort to preserve it, but last night someone covered it all with black paint MORE
RELATED: For those you don’t follow the trends in street art, Banksy is the pseudonym for an England-based graffiti artist, painter, writer and film director, (Exit Through The Gift Shop and The Antics Roadshow). His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humor with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling and spray paint technique. Banksy’s works are often annotated, or readorned by other artists or defaced and ripped down for their high resale value. For instance the work on Staple Staple St. was quickly marked in hot pink with the words “It’s an Inside Job.” Banksy has managed to add to his considerable cachet by never being photographed or identified other than by his artistic moniker. Banksy is giving New Yorkers an al fresco serial art show that he is calling Better Out Than In and it features works in the Lower East Side, Red Hook, Brooklyn, drawings sold in Central Park and sites still to be revealed. MORE
RELATED: Mr. Bloomberg said that while he is a big supporter of the arts, he didn’t think Banksy’s works should be allowed. “You running up to somebody’s property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “Or it may be art, but it should not be permitted. And I think that’s exactly what the law says.” Let me explain why I am a fan of Banksy, the British street artist who has graced our fair city with a “residency” this month. Banksy is not only a graffiti writer, but also a social activist whose works highlight the deplorable conditions of the working poor, the despicable treatment of animals by food conglomerates, and the backwardness of global-warming deniers. Which brings me back to Mayor Bloomberg. Whether you believe that Bloomberg perpetuated or eased the social problems that are the grist in Banksy’s mill, it is undeniable that the two men share common ground. First, they’re both installation artists. I personally don’t enjoy the Albert Paley sculptures that Bloomberg plopped down on Park Avenue. Lumpy, earth-toned masses just aren’t my thing. But who ever asked me? Bloomberg also neglected to consult me (or anyone else) about his plan to face-lift midtown Manhattan, at great expense, to look more European — a plan almost no one liked. Let’s get one thing straight: Bloomberg and Banksy both impose their aesthetic preferences on the public. The difference is that one guy has a spray can and the other has, well, a lot more stuff. MORE
RELATED: Better Out Than In/BanksyNYC