An article in the Telegraph that starts “The race is on to discover the next Banksy.” makes us cringe. Let’s find the new street artist so we can all make some dosh, why don’t we? Banksy and the street art movement his work fueled seems to belong to a certain time – the first five or six years of this decade up until the Wooster Collective Spring Street event. Or was that a wake? Yes, we still love Bansky’s new work but looking back on the whole movement, it feels that the energy that was street art has died, or at least hibernated, and contemporary art has moved on and so have the artists.
An extract to to make you wonder what the street art movement has really become:
News of a new talent can spread rapidly. “Someone came in and as soon as he had bought a painting he was on his mobile. Suddenly I was inundated with buyers for the same artist,” says Jones. During my hour-long visit to the gallery on Saturday he sold five works, including two by Miami artist José Parlá. “Two years ago, they would have cost one or two thousand pounds,” says Jones. “Now they are up to £35,000 each.”
The number of galleries showing street art is also expanding. Last week the Black Rat Press opened under a railway arch in Rivington Street, east London, and sold £120,000 worth of prints by American street artist Swoon.
Art sales: Graffiti draws a new crowd – Telegraph
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I’m ok with a moratorium on banksy commentary altogether… but I still love surprising street art.
slokeone
austin street art
urban observer flickr
October 31st, 2007 at 12:08 pm
I’m with you on this Piers.
The issue I have with the artisits that followed in the wake of Banksy is they don’t stand for anything.
I love the work of Faile, Bast and occassionally a bit of Neck Face but essentially, it’s all about their egos. SEEN did that decades ago and with more aplomb.
As Banksy said himself, “Be famous for something not just your name” (or something along those lines).
I’d like to see the whole street thing move in the direction of the wonderful Caroline Woolard(www.carolinewoolard.blogspot.com), or those folks which put small plant pots onto parking signs.
Useful Graffiti, Guerrilla Gardening erm, Utilandalism?
October 31st, 2007 at 2:00 pm
This week London’s Islington Gazzette front page explains how council graffiti teams have been instructed to preserve Banksys, even to the point of restoring any that are tagged over. After spending hundreds of thousands on graff removal with zero tolerance toward street art, now the politicians have come round to the view it is art because of the value of the works and the mainstreaming of his name. Calling all street artists – sign your work “Banksy”…
November 1st, 2007 at 7:03 am