There was a bittersweet piece of genius in this morning's papers - the infamous and excellent London graffiti artist Banksy has just got back from the middle east, where he tagged the wall that the Israelis have erected to, well, fuck over the Palestinians and steal their land (is there another interpretation?!).
Of course he did more than tag it - he produced some of the coolest images I've seen and without a word made a more eloquent statement on Israeli policies than a whole raft of Panoramas, Dispatches and newspaper articles. We all know what's going on, we all think it's wrong (don't we?), what's to talk about? If they won't listen, tag 'em!
The google news link above has some pictures here and there, but you can see all of them over on the Wooster Collective site, which is the online motherlode for all things spraypainted as far as I can tell.
My favourite one is above - I'm a sucker for a good stencil - but some of the others are technically more superior. Some paper this morning was suggesting he should be entered for the Turner Prize, and apart from the fact it'd go against his entire ethic, he'd surely win. Better than video loops or installations of rubbish. And funnier too.
His site is extremely cool, this or this for example. I'm not a big fan of simple tagging, but then if it wasn't for the penalties imposed for graffiti people would have more time to hang around and be creative. There's enough state-sponsored visual pollution already after all.
Mod out.
1 comment:
There was a deliciously ironic twist to ths story.
Apparently a Palestinian man cam up to him after he'd finished the palm tree scene and said, "You are making it look beautiful."
Banksy replied, "Thank you."
To which the Palestinian man replied, "Please stop and go away, we don't want it to look beautiful, we don't want it there at all."
(this isn't a verbatim quote, but the general idea...its on Banksy's site)
The sadness that hung in the air as I read that made me want find an Israeli soldier carrying a gun and slap him.
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