Posts Tagged ‘Banksy’
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”*…
Readers will know that (R)D delights in the works of Banksy. So it will come as no surprise that your correspondent has a warm spot in his heart for Jeff Friesen. An award-winning photographer, Friesen is also a dedicated dad who makes LEGO dioramas with his daughter June. Their latest project: a series of meticulously-constructed homages to the great street artists himself… a series that Friesen and June call “Bricksy.”
See them all at “Bricksy: LEGO Banksy.”
[TotH to My Modern Met]
* Banksy
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As we resolve, with Banksy, to “speak softly, but carry a big can of paint,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1892 that Australia’s first real film production house, The Limelight Department, was set up by the Salvation Army in Melbourne. In its 19 years of operation, the Limelight Department produced both evangelistic material (from the simplest lantern slides to Christian epics of redemption) and secular documentaries commissioned by private and government contract. In all, the operation created about 300 films of various lengths (making it one of largest film producers of its time) until it was summarily closed by a new Commander, a puritanical Scot who “protected” Salvationists from films for many decades. Sadly, the Limelight films were destroyed in the 1950s.
Taking it to the streets…
Hanksy is a street artist who puts Tom Hanks’ face on copies of Banksy’s art. His first show, which just closed at the Krause Gallery on the Lower East Side, and where the menu offered boxes of chocolates and Dr. Pepper, nearly sold out completely, according to the dealer. “I think what made it such a success is the genuine honesty in it,” gallery owner Ben Krause told me. “Hanksy really is a huge Tom Hanks fan and a huge Banksy fan.”
Read an interview with Hansky at The Awl. (And for readers interested in revisiting Banksy’s appearance here, try “The Quest for Verisimilitude,” “Bank(sy) Shot,” “There’s a reason it’s ‘a cliche”,” and/or “Prometheus Unmasked.”
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As we strip our stencils, we might send bawdy birthday greetings to Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade; he was born on this date in 1740. The French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, author, and libertine spent much of his adult life in prison. In 1778, de Sade was imprisoned by order of the king; ostensibly his offense was licentious behavior, but historians note that his mother-in-law, at whose urging the king acted, believed that the young Marquis was spending her daughter’s money too quickly. (There were also accusations of an affair with his wife’s sister… and it may have further motivated the mother-in-law that her daughter was rumored to be complicit in de Sade’s sexual escapades.) While in the Bastille, he battled boredom by writing– among other things, The 120 Days of Sodom. He was freed from prison in 1790, and ingratiated himself with the new Republic (calling himself “Citizen Sade”). de Sade began writing again, anonymously publishing works including Justine and Juliette… until, in 1801, Napoleon ordered his arrest (again for indecency and blasphemy). de Sade spent two years in prison, until his family had him declared insane, and moved him to the asylum at Charenton (the scene of Peter Weiss’s remarkable play Marat/Sade), where he died in 1814.
Signs of the Times, Part 666…
Earlier missives have covered the ironic antics of Bansky (e.g., here). Now, in the spirit of his faux Paris Hilton CD covers, TrustoCorp and their “Tabloid Magazine Interventions“…
As Arrested Motion reports:
… they’ve gone into magazine stands, bookstores and pharmacies throughout Hollywood, Manhattan, Williamsburg, LAX and JFK to drop copies of these little artistic interventions for the unsuspecting public.
No details were spared as headlines blasted celebrities and public figures like Lindsey Lohan, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump in hypothetical features of entertaining variants for ever popular gossip magazines such as US, People and OK. What’s more is that each page of the tabloid have an embedded alphanumeric code that leads to a secret website for people that can figure it out. So keep your eyes peeled as you pass by your local newsstands as you may be lucky enough to find that TrustoCorp made a special delivery in your neighborhood.
See the rest of the covers at Arrested Motion.
And visit the TrustoCorp site for an interactive map revealing the locations of the signs that the collective has helpfully distributed around Manhattan, signs like…
Lexington and 24th
Greenwich and Morton
As we celebrate semiotic significance, we might recall that it was on this date in 1833 that the first successful “penny newspaper,” the New York Sun, was first published. While it is probably best remembered for its 1897 editorial “Is There a Santa Claus?” (commonly referred to as “Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus”), it also published “The Great Moon Hoax” (featured here recently), and Edgar Allan Poe’s “Balloon Hoax.”
We also have the Sun— more specifically, its managing editor from 1863-1890, John Bogart– to thank for that oft-quoted definition of the journalistic enterprise: “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.”
The Quest for Verisimilitude…
Brandalism: Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It’s yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.”
— Banksy (Wall and Piece)
The good folks at Behance pondered the ways that familiar logos might be revised better to reflect their subject’s essence…
More at “Honest Logos.”
As we wonder if it can be printed on a tee shirt, we might recall that it was on this date in 1864 that the first instance of mass unsolicited electronic commercial communication occurred. As The Economist recounts: “several British politicians were disturbed by a knock at the door and the delivery of a telegram—a most unusual occurrence at such a late hour. Had war broken out? Had the queen been taken ill? They ripped open the envelopes and were surprised to find a message relating not to some national calamity, but to dentistry. Messrs Gabriel, of 27 Harley Street, advised that their dental practice would be open from 10am to 5pm until October. Infuriated, some of the recipients of this unsolicited message wrote to the Times. ‘I have never had any dealings with Messrs Gabriel,’ thundered one of them, ‘and beg to know by what right do they disturb me by a telegram which is simply the medium of advertisement?’ The Times helpfully reprinted the offending telegram, providing its senders with further free publicity. This was, notes Matthew Sweet, a historian, the first example of what is known today as ‘spam’.”
Bank(sy) shot…
Readers will know that here at (R)D we have an affection for The Simpsons (c.f., here and here) , and that we check in regularly on the progress of artist and provocateur Banksy (e.g., here and here), so when the two collide…
Banksy’s storyboard for a Simpsons‘ opening segment, from beginning…
…to end…
See the entire tale of outsourcing at Banksy’s site.
As we slap our foreheads and say “d’oh!”, we might recall that it was on this date in 1736 that Voltaire’s tragedy Alzire, ou Les Américains premiered to great acclaim in Paris. As Lytton Strachey observed…
Though Voltaire’s reputation now rests mainly on his achievements as a precursor of the Revolution, to the eighteenth century he was as much a poet as a reformer. The whole of Europe beheld at Ferney the oracle, not only of philosophy, but of good taste; for thirty years every scribbler, every rising genius, and every crowned head, submitted his verses to the censure of Voltaire; Voltaire’s plays were performed before crowded houses; his epic was pronounced superior to Homer’s, Virgil’s, and Milton’s; his epigrams were transcribed by every letter-writer, and got by heart by every wit…
But what a difference a bit a perspective can make. Writing in 1905 (but with a sensibility that, your correspondent suspects, is still widely felt), Strachey continues…
Voltaire, unfortunately, was neither a poet nor a psychologist; and, when he took up the mantle of Racine, he put it, not upon a human being, but upon a tailor’s block… His heroines go mad in epigrams, while his villains commit murder in inversions. Amid the hurly-burly of artificiality, it was all his cleverness could do to keep its head to the wind; and he was only able to remain afloat at all by throwing overboard his humour. The Classical tradition has to answer for many sins; perhaps its most infamous achievement was that it prevented Molière from being a great tragedian. But there can be no doubt that its most astonishing one was to have taken—if only for some scattered moments—the sense of the ridiculous from Voltaire.
Mais oui.
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