'The Simpsons' Explains Its Provocative Banksy Opening
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com
It's always nice to make a cameo appearance, even in extreme caricature. (Which is generally the only way one gets to make a cameo appearance on The Simpsons.)
I run the ssh on a general purpose server I have here at home, in a loop, using ssh-agent for passwordless logins, in a loop, and connecting to a screen session, so that things reconnect relatively seamlessly when the VPS provider terminates TCP connections, as it does at exactly 10am my time every morning. I'm also using the relevant TCPKeepAlive on the server and ServerAliveInterval on the client.
Fight the system yeah?
I'd venture it's not commerce but commercialisation he's opposed to.
There's always a tension between the purity of the message and how many people actually hear it. Banksy could stay totally anti-commercial, do no shows, publish no works... and just stay on the streets of London. Or, he could sell some works for 5 figures, do his art around the world, and have a larger number of people hear his message.
The hollywood machine will pay for the noose that hangs themselves, as long as they make money in the next 6 months.
In terms of the message, yes he gets a wider audience but he gets a wider audience for a weaker message. When you're wealthy and Brad Pitt is buying your stuff (I think I'm remembering that right) being counter-culture and anti-commercialism doesn't really ring true.
Not saying I disagree with the decisions he's made, just that inevitably success will undermine his artistic position.
Making money and making your work available for mass consumption is not orthogonal to loving your work.
http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/1151381/d293ebcd/simpsons_ba...
oops, hit reply instead of paste - didn't mean for that to look like snark
Not mentioned in many of the articles - most of which breathlessly informed viewers that animation of The Simpsons is done in South Korea, in case they had never bothered to read the credits - is the fact that animation is one of North Korea's few successful exports (legal ones, anyway). Although The Simpsons isn't prepared under the watchful eye of the Dear Leader, the head of the SK studio that produces it is the prime mover behind NK's animation industry, which I understand was set up during a less frosty period of north-south economic cooperation.
Less well-known again is the fact that North Korea also exports development services, and Fox parent News Corporation recently came under scrutiny for its ownership (following a takeover) of a firm that has developed mobile game spinoffs of a few Fox movies using NK labor.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IC14Dg03.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/kim-jong-il-bowls-f...
You would have to be pretty humorless not to see the whole thing as a joke. And presumably the Simpsons writers stopped listening to the humorless people twenty seasons ago.
The real message is "think about where your consumer goods come from". Which of course isn't the most original or controversial statement in the world, but the context makes you pay attention, much more so than if it had been direct, like a documentary. I thought it was a clever, self-deprecating way to bring up the subject, and a great use of context.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED" "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/video/item/mark-zuckerberg-on-t...
I recommend seeing 'Exit Through the Gift Shop' to anyone who is even slightly interested in Banksy, street art, art in general, or documentaries.
great movie btw.
I realize that seems really ambiguous, but seriously go see the film if this subject interests you.
Most successful artists have hired help. Banksy didn't print the Diana banknotes, and he probably doesn't construct his installation pieces. He's not the one painting the elephants or putting the chicken nuggets in cages. He might be standing nearby with a can of lager and laughing, but it's safe to assume a lot of his work is around conceptualising the ideas that end up with his name on them.
Ooooh! Conceptual art!
(And that's not to diminish his work - I utterly love Banksy. I bought a print and some other bits and pieces of his at the first show he ever did. In ROI terms it's probably the best investment i'll ever make. And, no: i'm not willing to sell any of it.)
Someone can correct me if i'm wrong, but I don't think the Chapman Brothers consturcted Hell, or Damien Hurst glued the diamonds to the skull, etc., etc.
Even the masters had studios of apprentices doing the grunt work, right?
But more importantly this is a big win for Fox. They get the cred for getting Banksy (whatever that is worth), and more importantly loads of talk & coverage for their show.
Whatever downside there is (which I think is pretty insignificant) is easily outweighed by the upside.
Source: http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/10/11/tv-ratings-against-sund...
I'm not saying it's super effective but it's positive attention and that's worth something.
Moaning about a Banksy piece on the side of your building would be like moaning about someone coming up and sticking gold to it.
That said, I was under the impression that he asked permission first, at least recently?
Kind of gives the lie to his whole counter culture personality, though I think that status has been questionable for some time now.
I'm still impressed he managed to do stuff like his Bristol exhibition with the knowledge of only three staff members at the Museum http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bristol/hi/people_and_places/art...
If he gets permission before each and every one of his "artworks" then he should come out and be explicit about it so that copycats don't get inspired. And if he doesn't, he should be thrown in prison, and the various city governments and other property owners who have been "blessed" by his work should subpoena (or whatever) the Simpsons producers in order to find out who exactly this asshole is.
edit: I wonder how many of the people who defend this guy are not property-owners themselves.
"Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours…You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head…They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs." - Banksy in Wall And Piece
He certainly doesn't ask for permission. Look at his "One nation under CCTV" piece: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-559547/Graffiti-arti...
No, I think that just serves to make it worse.
Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours…You can do whatever you like with it.
That's a ridiculous position to hold. By that logic, if I see your face in a public place then I have the right to rearrange your face as I see fit.
I think you're wilfully missing the point, so I'm picking straw man.
Anyway, I agree with your sentiments about those who disrespect private property, but only to a point. The endless messy 'tagging' on small businesses in urban areas is egotistical, mindless, territorial pissing. I agree.
My beef with your previous comments is that you're throwing Banksy into that category, when any basic investigation of his activities clearly demonstrates he's a subversive with a very deliberate set of social and political messages.
That quote is extreme (and not the full quote - sorry), but Banksy clearly makes the point that we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded by banal, manipulative, consumerist messaging, and he feels that individuals with messages should not be given any lesser right to societal messaging, even if it means currently breaking the law to do this.
Sure there's fertile ground to do a "By that logic, if everyone...". Boring.
Living in East London I'd say the urban culture was massively enhanced by Banksy pieces lurking everywhere, and felt far more intelligent than a Singaporean, Truman-show, world of perfect polished billboards making everyone feel inadequate if they don't buy that product. meh.
http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/banksy/banksy_another_crap_ad...
It's easy to say that the law should not be enforced against Banksy because he is engaged in worthy social/political messaging, but consider: what if the government can't be trusted to decide what is politically legitimate and artistically worthy? I know, I know, crazy talk, but it's an interesting thought experiment, right?
You and I might think Banksy is great and different, but it's a legitimate point that "some guy who sprays crap on other people's property" doesn't recognize that he is, in fact, different from Banksy. He thinks he's Banksy, just like every gay-bashing, church-bombing white power thug thinks he's Batman, cleaning up scum off the streets. And who are we to say they're wrong? Even worse, who are the cops that we trust them to make the distinction? The difference between Batman and a white power vigilante is politics; the difference between Banksy and a paint-huffing teenage dipshit is political and artistic understanding, as well as aesthetics. Tolerating Banksy means selective law enforcement based on someone's political and artistic sensibility. In the United States we have a long history of the cops being on the wrong side of these kinds of distinctions, and I hope every other country recognizes the same thing in their history.
Personally, I hope Banksy stays ahead of the cops, but I also hope they're trying in earnest to bust him when he does something illegal.
You make some good points. The artistic / social / political value of an act is subjective - yes. However I never actually said the law shouldn't be enforced against Banksy. Like you I'd expect the police to take on people wilfully damaging private property.
It's a filter that ensures only the very committed will produce works as bold as Banksy, and whether I like or loathe their messages, I expect they're worthy of a pause for thought by society. Which is what Banksy is trying to achieve.
Keep in mind graffiti has been a problem since forever (didn't Herodotus record some citizen outrage in Athens?), and is mostly banal. So admitting that in our times there is a very interesting character who is engaged in something a little more high-minded than tagging or 'spraying crap' isn't a cause for too much philosophical hand-wringing.