This image is the work of famous (or perhaps infamous) graffiti artist Banksy. I enjoy Banksy’s work in general (I have his 2005 compilation Wall and Piece and my desktop wallpaper for over the past year has been one Banksy piece or another), but the Banksy I’ve posted here is the first one I ever saw. As such, this piece was not only my first exposure to Banksy but also the major impetus in my continual interest in his work.
My affinity for Banksy stems primarily from his unique style—no small feat for someone who works in a medium known for its uniqueness. His work certainly embodies many of the elements associated with standard graffiti art, but he’s also, as anyone who likes his work can attest, distinct. The poignant social and political commentary inherent in his work as well as the way he utilizes stencils (more on that later) and the space in which he creates his work set him apart from most of his contemporaries.
Perhaps most interesting about Banksy, however, is Banksy—the enigmatic persona, not the actual artist behind the pseudonym. At this point, Banksy’s work is so well known and received that a good number of people would be honored if he were to use their structure (house, building, etc.) for his work. But Banksy would never do that: part of his appeal is the very persona his art works to construct. He embraces fully the graffiti artist as outlaw mentality; as evinced in the Banksy I’ve posted, that mentality is often the inspiration behind his work. The maid in this piece is symbolic of those opposed to graffiti, the ones trying to hide it from the masses. Banksy is thus subverting the “graffiti equals criminality” argument through graffiti; he uses the medium to lampoon those opposed to the medium.
What’s perhaps more impressive is the lengths he’s gone to secure and maintain his persona. In order to conceal his identity and work amongst the shadows (heh: that makes him sound like Batman), he’s adopted stenciling; that is, he creates his stencils ahead of time so that the actual “painting” portion of his work is highly efficient, allowing him to create large pieces in a short amount of time. In a Bitzerian sense, it’s an extraordinary adaptation to the constraints in the rhetorical situation that constitutes his work.
Now: some questions. First, how much of a role does his persona—that is, his status and reputation as a graffiti artist—play in the way his audience understands and perceives his work? I brought up a similar point with the Lange photo: in other words, if we see a Banksy piece and are privy to Banksy the artist, then we most likely come to see his work through a different lens than if, say, we randomly stumbled upon his work and were oblivious to his prior work. In saying that, I’m not simply trying to claim that context matters—it obviously does. Rather, how much of a role does context play when the visual artifact is well known? I’m willing to buy the argument that we construct the context and thus the way we interpret and understand visuals we encounter for the first time, particularly visuals with no major cultural traction. However, doesn’t the context generated by fame, because it is so pervasive, trump our individual contexts?
Secondly, what role does the audience play in a Banksy piece? Or here’s another way of looking at it: is there an intended audience for his work? The perpetually public status of graffiti necessitates that he cannot control who sees his work. Does this limit him in any way or is this something he uses to his advantage?
Lastly, what is the extent to which location influences his work? I’ve never seen an actual Bansky piece, just pictures of his work. These two—the original and a picture of the original—engender a different viewing experience. That doesn’t mean I can’t still appreciate Banksy’s work through a removed viewing of it; rather, the viewing is just different. My question, then, is to what extent is it different? Moreover, with the original, where does the visual artifact end? Is it the stenciled image, the building as a whole, the block that contains the building? There’s also a context contained in the location that one isn’t privy to when looking at a still photo of the art; how much does that matter?
So, I'm going to pick up on Rory's final grouping of questions. I see Bansky's subversiveness functioning on two levels:
ReplyDelete1) Bansky's work may be reviving what Berger refers to as the "dying social function of subjectivity." This intersects with Helmers and Hill's introduction when they discuss Benjamin Barber who suggests that visual symbols emerge to form an "expressive syntax for American 'monoculture,' 'a template,' and 'style' that exemplifies a certain lifestyle." Banksy's work, in its original location, resists the overdetermination of symbols in that its meaning is forcing the individual to engage it subjectively. I can only imagine that walking up on a Bansky piece is an individual and subjective experience, one of which we are not intended to be prepared for in our reading of it. Located as it is, Bansky's work forces us to be taken by surprise, to be confronted as an individual -- with no determined symbolism to fall back on in our reading of the image. While images may affirm "the thereness of the world" and thus "our sense of Being," images such as Banksy's can also in a similar way call into question our belonging. As we question his belonging, so too do we question our belonging in the spaces that he has subverted, the spaces that are no longer safe for us and the ideologies of belonging that these space facilitate. His work is intentionally crafted as that which enables the outside to make the insider uncomfortable in his own space, on his "home turf."
2) This occurs because of Banksy's refusal to create in a medium that lends itself to mechanical reproduction (Think: Walter Benjamin). It seems that Bansky and graffitti in general are casting a critical eye on spaces that are constructed as reminders of and defenders of "familiar" spaces (Ask: familiar to who?). Banksy prevents this familiarity, this safety, as he forces unfamiliarity. Although his work can be reproduced on Rory's laptop, it can never be reproduced with the aura of its original location. Such reproductions, in the words of Benjamin, "depreciate" and "wither" the original meaning (or perhaps aura) of Banksy's work. Even once it is covered up with white space by authorities the subversion of his images remain -- perhaps even more potently -- as these white spaces remain as a reminder of where tags once were. Here, I think that it is ironic that in his efforts of "criminal" subversion, Banksy and other graffiti artists are also falling, to some degree, in line with someone who could be read as a defender of high culture: Walter Benjamin.