“It’s mindless vandalism,” thunders the Evening Cancer. A view apparently supported by an odd coalition of Bristol Indymedia readers, the BBC, the local PR industry, the Lib Dems and the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft.
Appropriate Media daubing Banksy’s ‘Mild, Mild West’ on Stokes Croft in red paint might well be vandalism of this piece of, er vandalism. But is it mindless?
For starters Appropriate Media seem to have effortlessly gained acres of media coverage while outraging the bourgeoise – never a bad thing.
Meanwhile a look at their website suggests they’ve not only had a think about things rather than just conforming to a liberal consensus media view but they’ve also managed to write something far more witty and entertaining than anything you’re likely to find in the local paper:
Here’s a mystery for you. Renegade urban graffiti artist Banksy is clearly a guffhead of massive proportions, yet he’s often feted as a genius straddling the bleeding edge of now. Why? Because his work looks dazzlingly clever to idiots.
Doesn’t sound mindless to me. Reads more like something Charlie Brooker might write in the famously brainy Guardian in fact.
And they do politics too. Try this:
Take Banksy’s political stuff. One featured that Vietnamese girl who had her clothes napalmed off. Ho-hum, a familiar image, you think. I’ll just be on my way to my 9 to 5 desk job, mindless drone that I am. Then, with an astonished lurch, you notice sly, subversive genius Banksy has stencilled Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald either side of her.
Wham! The message hits you like a lead bus: America … um … war … er … Disney … and stuff. Wow. In an instant, your worldview changes forever. Your eyes are opened. Staggering away, mind blown, you flick v-signs at a Burger King on the way home. Nice one Banksy! You’ve shown us the truth, yeah?
See? They’re not letting the media do their thinking for them are they?
As for charges of ‘vandalism’, well that’s Banksy’s big new thing they gleefully point out:
“I’m using the word vandalism a lot with the show. You know what hip-hop has done with the word ‘nigger’ – I’m trying to do that with the word vandalism, bring it back,” says Banksy
Eh? Bring it back where? Are you campaigning on behalf of a 5th century Germanic tribe? Or are you making parallels between the struggle of black people with centuries of racism and the struggle of poor little middle class white boys with the need to deface private property?
He, he. It’s almost like this lot are trying to do their own criticism of street art on the streets isn’t it? Brilliantly original aren’t they?
It was always going to happen. It was on its way to being framed inside some office blocks.
Has anyone seen the amazing image of DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER on Stapleton Road?
Now that is fabulous.
To be fair to PRSC, they’re describing it as an artistic intervention, and deliberately not calling it vandalism.
Still though, copying and pasting a Charlie Brooker article as your main reason for throwing paint at something seems a bit lame really.
The original piece wasn’t technically vandalism either, it was done with as much permission as could have been gained at the time, and has never been removed by subsequent building owners.
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I did like the bit in the Beeb report about “street drinkers and local businesses working together” to clean it all up.
Wasn’t sure who this ‘Oli Wells’ is, though, or what ‘Coexist’ is.
Apparently Coexist is “behind the area’s refurbishment”.
News to me; but then, I’m a mere resident.
Classic indymedia post. Comments tick all the boxes for indymedia nuttitude – even Luther Blisset got a word in!
Shame about the mural getting trashed though. I really like Banky’s work.
My favourite from BIMC is “a manifesto so poorly written and riddled with cliches and woolly generalisation that it might as well have been written by Rik from the Young Ones.”
I was really impressed with the manifesto. Thought it was a top bit of work until I realised it was Brooker.
(Nearly made a right arse of myself with this post too).
“To see negative comments about Banksy from Bristolians is worrying for me, because if the city itself doesn’t support it’s artists / creatives / innovators / entrepreneurs, they will go elsewhere to work/create industry as is happening all the time right now.” Chris.
Oh get stuffed Chris. This wailing sounds hideously familiar. Exactly what we hear from the financial creatives who strangely also think they are God’s gift. If they don’t like it they can sod off at least.
“Bristol is known for churning out originality” LOL.
Banksy is no Diego Rivera, but I’d rather have his stuff on walls than “tagging ” etc…
Funny isn’t it the way that the whole middle-classes are getting so excited about a bit of graffiti… this one’s even managed to unite the Evening Post and Indymedia. I especially like the way which some of the commenters in the Evening Post think that Banksy’s graffiting on the wall is good, but not this other horrible stuff by inferior artists – hang on a mo, are these fuckers calling for one law for Banksy, and another for everyone else? Are these dirtwads for real? I couldn’t give a toss about the scribblings of a public school boy – or of anyone else for that matter. If they wrote all over public or private property without permission, then cut their fucking hands off; that’ll teach ’em!
It is all so revealing though – the middle class creatives with their fake radicalism are bang at it all over the place. Fucking Wanksy with his fucking exhibitions in poncy London galleries, fucking George Ferguson with his Obama sweet fucking potato pie just like his grandmother used to bake, twats poncing about in fucking art studios across the city, making vile messes that I wouldn’t hang on my mother-in-law’s wall, fucking middle-class radicals. Only yesterday I discovered from an unimpeachable source that one of Bristol’s mouthiest anarcho types is the offspring of a bank manager – not that it surprises me Not so long back, I discovered that another one received a monthly allowance from his parents. Rich, middle-class radical wankers; I wouldn’t piss on ’em if they were on fire.
Fucking tossers.
If the whole thing were an inks spoof on the luvvies of indymedia-la-la-land it couldn’t have done better. They obviously haven’t been practising their fashionable eastern non-attachment enough. It’s just maya maaan …
All makes ya fink dunnit.
“I couldn’t give a toss about the scribblings of a public school boy.”
Lucky Banksy’s not from a public school then.
However “Bristol’s mouthiest anarcho” add an s on the end of that sentence and you’d be even more right. I was horrified to learn how many of them went to actual public schools. Not even private. PUBLIC. Bad, bad times. However, apparently growing dreadlocks and not washing your clothes is what makes one working class these days.
It’s been like that for a while, Ella. They finish “uni” and knock around in squats for a while so they can say they’ve “been there” when it eventually gets to be their turn to give the orders. Nothing like a bit of wadical cwed when it comes to pushing the lower orders around.
That said, I like graffiti. It does provide an outlet for people who are normally ignored; there used to be a fantastic space under the M32 that was like an art gallery, da kidz, artists, and anyone with a spray can had really brightened up a grey, empty space. And then the council came and painted it grey again.
Sure, it’s fashionable for upper middle class wankers to appropriate urban culture, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to destroy genuine works of public art and post spittle-flecked, foul mouthed rants about the sanctity of private property. If you want to live in Milton Keynes, Wanksy or whoever you are, I’m sure we’ll be happy to have a whip round for your bus fare, you miserable sod.
Crikey, I appear to be in accordance!
I especially like the way which some of the commenters in the Evening Post think that Banksy’s graffiting on the wall is good, but not this other horrible stuff by inferior artists – hang on a mo, are these fuckers calling for one law for Banksy, and another for everyone else?
Yeh, imagine what the world would be like if preservation of the public realm was judged on how well rated the buildings and things were instead of all having the same rules applied. Imagine what it would be like if churches and beautiful buildings and historic monuments and popular icons had more protection than sheds and identikit warehouses and grotty 60’s concrete. Imagine if it was more difficult to bulldoze a cathedral than a greenhouse!
Oh, wait… that’s exactly how the planning system works because it’s the bloody obvious thing to do! Moron.
Sorry – I’m confused now – is it the middle class doing the defacing or the middle class complaining about it? What’s it with you lot and the middle class anyway – little bit of a hang up? All that’s happened is a piece of art by someone with a bit of talent was vandalised by someone without. But now its been repaired.
So he didn’t he go to the Cathedral School Ella? If not, he certainly displays the simplistic radical politics of the middle-classes; all black and white with no shades of grey. Unfortunately, I hear this simplistic crap more and more as the number of middle-class colonisers moves in to gentrify the place where I live. The posh cafes open up, the greasy spoons close down, and the politics get oh so radical. The truth is that people like Banksy really are the vanguard of gentrification. Badnews says that “They finish “uni” and knock around in squats for a while so they can say they’ve “been there” when it eventually gets to be their turn to give the orders. Nothing like a bit of wadical cwed when it comes to pushing the lower orders around…” well he’s right there, thing is though that it’s been like that since long before he arrived in Bristol!
No thanks Badnewswade, I don’t want to live in Milton Keynes – though that you think people like me should be shipped off there says something about your attitudes doesn’t it? You think that graffiti is supposed to be a great permanent statement? It’s ephemeral – that’s its nature. It’s only sad bastards that turn it into an art house fetish. Personally, I don’t really want someone else’s infantile politics shoved in my fucking face when I walk down the street – I get enough of that from BCC without cretins like Banksy adding to it. As he himself is reported to have said “People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish… but that’s only if it’s done properly.” Well, there you have it from the horses mouth; when anarcho-lefty types worship those who advocate that people behave in an ugly, irresponsible and childish way, is it any wonder that things aren‘t getting any better?
Now, as for your ad hominem attack on me (and I don’t usually hurl shit at other people online, politicians excepted of course) you really are having a laugh accusing anyone else of being foul mouthed, or, of being a miserable sod. Do me a favour and fuck off back to your Spanish cave or your dump in St. Werburghs, or wherever it is that you smoke too much dope these days, wrap your hand around your cock and get on with your hero worship!
Why are some people getting so excited? So someone took a bit of direct action against a piece of street art long past its sell-by date, big deal, i’d have thought you’d be into direct action, you? And the action was pretty harmless – it’s already been cleaned off, so why the hysteria? When other graffiti artists, who aren’t famous, get their work destroyed by the council all the time.
So have you fallen for the rebel sell? Or is banksy now so fashionable, so rich … so sacred that he and his works must not be blasphemed by infidels? Seems the art produced from these latest events is concept art, revealing in the reactions to it.
i understand what people are talking about with these middle class radical types being mugs. most are but not all. if you’re judging someone by their birth and upbringing which they can’t choose then that makes you no better than a racist as far as i’m concerned. if we took that to it’s logical conclusion then tons of anarchists and socialists who’ve made great contributions to the movement would be removed. start with the writers. PRINCE kropotkin, bakunin, marx, proudhon, tolstoy, orwell, godwin and many more. most from backgrounds far richer than what we know as middle class. then take others who do direct action etc. even a small protest like march 28th. the black bloc would be reduced a fair bit in size if you did some fascist removal of people from certain backgrounds.
get over it there are radicals from middle and upper class backgrounds who are quality. yea obviously there will always be more from working class backgrounds thats abit obvious though. similarly there are people from working class backgrounds who end up in high paid fat cat city jobs and happily support capitalism. i know one who became HUGE in business and slags off people who he grew up around as lazy wasters who couldn’t ‘make it’ like he did. CUNT.
you see my point? It’s not where someone grew up and their birth/accent/whatever that they can’t choose that matters. it’s what they are doing and really believe in as an adult that counts. sure alot of studenty middle class ‘radicals’ are insincere. but that doesn’t mean they all are. the ones who are join the SWP anyway so don’t worry about it. ian bone said in the class war conference that class war would accept prince charles if he renounced his position and joined the movement as an equal believing and fighting in the cause. good point you can’t argue with that. don’t come in with this ”all people from middle class backgrounds are cunts” attitude or you’ll alienate people who could otherwise contribute alot.
“So he didn’t he go to the Cathedral School Ella?”
If there’s a Cathedral School in Yate, maybe he did.
Actually, since you’re moderating these, you can bin that last one if you want. Will write one without threataning language in it next….
Maybe I should take some “direct action” by punching someone in the face. In fact one could get away with all kinds of antisocial and nasty behaviour simply by rebranding it “direct action”.
Wanksy, people like you are the reason that (psuedo) radical politics are and always will be a ghetto for pathetic failures who enjoy bossing people around and getting nasty when they don’t get their way. Whichever of those sad litte wankers it is that you are – Piss off. Nobody wants to listen to your reactionary drivel and nobody cares about your prolier-than-thou, radical pose as you jockey for position as the gwoovietht wadical finker in town.
Also, intimating that you know me personally without identifying yourself makes you come across like a stalker. So why don’t you stalk off and get yourself a girlfriend / boyfriend / obliging sheep you sad loser.
So Get Out – you seem to be under the impression that ‘beauty’ is a material planning consideration – it ain’t. If it were, the city of Bristol would be a joy to behold by now – it ain’t. If you’re going to make comments about planning criteria, I suggest you spend some time going to planning group meetings to find out exactly what those criteria are. You clearly haven’t done so, so, I’ll raise you a cretin, and I’ll see your moron.
Umm. I agree with your general premise that people from many backgrounds have been involved in politics. I especially agree that many of the radical thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries have been from the upper and middle classes. That this is so, is well illustrated by the way in which their ideas have often disproportionately benefited the middle-classes frequently at the expenses of the working classes. I would suggest that many working class people have been blagged into putting themselves into the firing line for these oh so radical and well off monkeys. I could go through the list of radicals you named one by one – they all have a lot of dirty laundry that isn‘t talked about too much nowadays, but there’s probably not much point.
I certainly agree with you that not all middle class people are cunts – the thing is though, the ones who aren’t are usually the ones who are happy with themselves and with what they are, and who get on with their own lives, rather than trying to ‘improve’ mine all the time. The good intentions of the well meaning are something I can live without. There is an old Chinese saying that goes “Better that a town be cursed with a thousand hooligans than blessed with the good intentions of one idealist.” It’s a saying that deserves a lot of careful thought.
Interesting Emma – Bansky himself seems to have been very careful not to deny this one, but then again when one wishes to retain the mystique of anonymous celebrity that‘s probably not a bad move. As you seem to have some personal knowledge, maybe you could put everyone right on the donations to the Labour party story?
Ah Badnews!
“Maybe I should take some “direct action” by punching someone in the face. In fact one could get away with all kinds of antisocial and nasty behaviour simply by rebranding it “direct action”.
That is precisely my fucking point you dickhead. It has also the point of many others over the years who’ve got pissed off with someone choosing to appropriate public space for their private purposes. Yes, if someone writes their slogans on a public wall, then they have effectively appropriated that wall for their private ends – philosophically this is privatisation. I would use this same argument is used against those who ’liberate’ library books or council property. I’ve seen so many things excused as direct action – most of it was self indulgent bollocks. I like your use of the “punching someone in the face” line though – would I be right to take it that you’re implying in a not so subtle way that you’d like to punch me? If so, then we are feeling fucking hard today aren’t we. If you really want to take a pop, then just say so and I’ll happily oblige!
“Wanksy, people like you are the reason that (psuedo) radical politics are and always will be a ghetto for pathetic failures who enjoy bossing people around and getting nasty when they don’t get their way. Whichever of those sad litte wankers it is that you are – Piss off. Nobody wants to listen to your reactionary drivel and nobody cares about your prolier-than-thou, radical pose as you jockey for position as the gwoovietht wadical finker in town.”
Badnews, read this paragraph again in the cold light of day and you’ll see it doesn’t make much sense. You really are getting hysterical here. I suspect that you’ve been taking too much Benzedrine – overuse can cause psychosis you know. You certainly seem to have an obsession with speech impediments.
“Also, intimating that you know me personally without identifying yourself makes you come across like a stalker.”
Well Badnews, it’s hardly a matter of being a fucking stalker is it? You’ve gone to great lengths over the years to identify yourself to as many people you can. Many of us are a little less keen to run around promoting our identity than you; privacy being a concept understood by Bristol Blogger, Snafu, Emma, Umm, Get Out and of course Banksy himself. You however choose to come onto a widely read blog using your second name as your handle, link to photos of yourself, and then get mouthy with other commenters. It is after all not the first time that this has happened to you on this site is it? I recall it happened not long ago with someone else. Maybe you should think about the way you:
a) promote your identity online quite so much, and
b) piss quite so many people off in daily life
and then maybe these sort of things wouldn’t happen.
What am I supposed to do – pretend that I don’t know who you are? Should I pretend that I don’t know that you have a blog – even though you link to it from your name? Should I pretend that I haven’t bothered to read some of the stuff you write and broadcast to the world too? Or maybe you think that because you choose to broadcast your identity everywhere, that anyone who wishes to make statement with which you disagree must identify themselves – Kerry McCarthy’s a bit like that too. Lets look at the facts. I made a statement with which you disagree, you hurl ad hominem abuse at me, so I get personal back. You then accuse me (because I happen to know you) of being like a stalker. The word ridiculous springs to mind. Might I suggest that you clearly have little understanding of the hurt and abuse that people who have been genuinely stalked feel?
“get yourself a girlfriend / boyfriend / obliging sheep you sad loser.”
Now for you to call anyone a loser really is funny – go and get yourself 2lb of liver and a hairnet – and make sure the liver comes from a sacred cow!
The only people who talk about class these days are the middle classes.
It’s SO century before last.
I’ve not been on this blog in a while but I’m quite glad I’ve dropped in on this one. ‘Wansky’, you’re fucking brilliant! And this: “Do me a favour and fuck off back to your Spanish cave or your dump in St. Werburghs, or wherever it is that you smoke too much dope these days, wrap your hand around your cock and get on with your hero worship!” – is the best retort I’ve read in ages and made me laugh out loud!
And well done ‘BB’ for not censoring! And by the way, I for one agree with a lot of what ‘Wansky’ is saying. More please!
TLDR, stalker-boy, nice to see you’re a keyboard hero and a bully to boot though.
I write. Cheesy science fiction mostly, the sort of thing I like to read. I’ve written a shedload of short stories and a pulp sci-fi novel, and the only way to get this material out is for me to have a web page.
That’s right – I actually create something that people have told me is worth reading. I wonder how much fiction you’ve written? Your job application probably.
So, unhappy to trash graphic artists with infinitely more talent than you, now you want to bully random people on the internet (whom you claim to know personally) into silence.
Get a life you pathetic little coward. And talk to me like that when you’ve got the balls to sign your posts, asswipe.
I just feel sorry for that poor teddy!
Thanks for the plug BB.
”I would suggest that many working class people have been blagged into putting themselves into the firing line for these oh so radical and well off monkeys”
What bout people from middle or upper backgrounds whov been on the front lines? i know an anarchist from a middle class background who’s done a fair bit of time cos of political activity but you make another sweeping statement. you just come out looking immature and thick. whilst you childishly bitch online, people from all backgrounds are out doing a fuck of a lot more but you only accept ones who happen to have been born in certain areas. now you are cool. LOL.
The more I think about it the more I do want to meet up with Wanksy, just to see which of the little sad-acts I’ve known he really is.
Is he the class warrior who changed sides? The kung-fu master who slobbers over women and sends abusive text messages? or is it Captain Wierdo Himself, Tzar of all the squatters and endowed with speshul powers over the Housing Corporation? Or perhaps it’s that douchebag who borrowed a tenner off me then decided to unfriend me (and not pay it back) because I don’t support fox hunting?
Maybe Wanksy is some other deranged whacko, they certainly know a lot about me to be able to tell me where I grew up, still at least they don’t have a fucking clue where I live now eh kids? (fingers crossed and all that).
What a miserable cowardly bully. Tell me who you are, scumbag, so you can look me in the face and talk to me like that. Better still – give me a time and a place. I’ll be there.
i think i have to agree. wanksy is boring the hell out of most i think.
I don’t understand these negative people who want to criticise Banksy and other wonderful artists who are doing so much to transform St Paul’s and similar dull inner city areas of Bristol into cool, vibrant places where people actually want to live and enjoy life. Places where everyone from students to businesses want to be and share our exciting creative future together. What right do they have to take the law into their own hands? Can’t they see that they just look angry and stupid? Why is this, when Banksy’s edgy, provocative work has attracted so much money and talent into the area? Of course not everyone can achieve as highly as Banksy, but seeing valuable works of art displayed locally helps everyone to aspire to better things.
I really hope that these critics will see that what they have done is wrong.
Luce xx
“What right do they have to take the law into their own hands?”
Presumably the same right as Banksy had to execute the work in the first place?
(((sockpuppets)))
Unwell!
You forgot the chisellers – they always want to wear your shirt.
Cap’n Wierdo! I’m glad you’re not the mystery person – always thought more of you than that.
i see ‘wanksy’ is yet to reply to anyone’s rebuttals of him. bristol blogger has retained his right to not accept my last comment which i respect. However, i hope this will pass- if wanksy cares to educate himself i suggest this following:
About my trial: Class Struggle or Class Hatred?
by Malatesta. Here is a link for free
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/malatesta/trial.html
and i will quote essential bits proving your irrational hatred of people from certain backgrounds and your wish to dictate who can and can’t think and act in certain ways as fallacious. First Malatesta described YOUR position in these terms
”There are the “worker-minded” people, who consider having callous hands as being divinely imbued with all merits and all virtues; they protest if you dare talking about people and mankind, failing to swear on the sacred name of proletariat.”
And then rebuking your entire outlook in a nutshell-
”If the bourgeoisie produces the likes of Giolitti and Graziani and all the long succession of mankind’s torturers, from the great conquerors to the avid and bloodsucking petty bosses, it also produces the likes of Cafiero, Reclus and Kropotkine, and the many people that in any epoch sacrificed their class privileges to an ideal. If the proletariat gave and gives so many heroes and martyrs of the cause of human redemption, it also gives off the white guards, the slaughterers, the traitors of their own brothers, without which the bourgeois tyranny could not last a single day.”
Nuff said.
Banksy Prints – Diana Ten Pound Note’s
Hi Everyone!
I am selling some of my Banksy collection they are Di-Faced Tenners prints.
They are in perfect condition (mint) and I have kept them in an acid free folder and my home is smoke free.
Please see the photos and video here:
http://www.banksytenners.blogspot.com/
Payment via Pay Pal of bank transfer.
Contact me – banksytenners (@) gmail (dot com)
I accept payment by PayPal or bank transfer to my UK bank.
Thanks !