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Breaking Banksy: Painting New York City Red… with a Balloon

The great street artist Banksy is in New York City for the month of October and he is leaving his mark tagging the urban core.  We have celebrated the enigmatic work of Banksy and we have always appreciated his mocking of vulgar American institutions.

The arrival of Banksy in New York City has set expectation of Art and commerce in whole new, confrontational, context that confounds the commonplace understanding of what we want to last in society and what was created to simply disappear or be defaced.

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Chris Brown’s Urban Semiotic Problem

I’m not a big fan of singer Chris Brown.  I don’t like how he treated his girlfriend, Rihanna, but I do appreciate the pressure he’s feeling from his neighbors over an invented Urban Semiotic problem that he’s deeply invested in on a career angle.  No, I’m not talking about his Graffiti album, I’m talking about his driveway.

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Jersey City Covers Its BigBelly Graffiti

On August 15, 2011, I wrote — Is Graffiti Art or Degenerative Hatred? — because I was concerned with the defacing of some brand new BigBelly solar trash cans in Jersey City:

A week ago, in our Panopticonic blog, I wrote an article — BigBelly Solar Recycling in Jersey City — and less than a week later, those divine BigBelly landmarks in our urban core have become geographic eyesores as red graffiti pocks the new surface of the metal bins.

Here’s how one BigBelly was defaced by some noxious red graffiti:

Here’s what that same Big Belly looked like a mere two days after I wrote my article:

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Is Graffiti Art or Degenerative Hatred?

A week ago, in our Panopticonic blog, I wrote an article — BigBelly Solar Recycling in Jersey City — and less than a week later, those divine BigBelly landmarks in our urban core have become geographic eyesores as red graffiti pocks the new surface of the metal bins.  Here’s how one BigBelly looked after its aesthetic destruction at the hands of some Jersey City Heights hooligan:

Here’s how that same BigBelly looked less than a week ago:

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When Banksy Graffiti is Attacked by Graffiti

When a vandal sneaks his or her vicious activity into a museum or art space, we are saddened. A painting may have its surface damaged, or a statue may be chipped or even outright broken. When this happens to an older piece of art it is especially upsetting — it’s not as though we can bring back Leonardo Da Vinci back to properly restore The Last Supper and so other people have to step in when it sustains considerable damage as it did during the second World War.

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Banksy Beats Down the Simpsons

We love Banksy.  He’s an Enigma Artist.  This week, he took on — The Simpsons — to make a political point that the television cartoon is a profiteering entity made rich on the backs of foreign, slave, labor.

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Iconic Political Urban Graffiti

There is a Universal Human Context that can be tapped and empowered by the proper execution of iconic political urban graffiti. Here’s one stunning example that says it all without saying a single word: America is now more about bombing people than lighting the way to lead them to freedom.

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