The similarities between these nocturnal residents and the graffiti artist are pronounced, both of which are clever, tough, unwanted-vermin of society. Below are a few of my favorite images from these books.The pioneer of stencil graffiti and Banksy’s predecessor, Blek le Rat, “began to spray rats in the streets of Paris because rats are the only wild living animals in cities and only rats will survive when the human race will have disappeared and died out” (Blek le Rat). I’m glad I could see some of Banksy’s stencils in more of a street context, but overall, this won’t be too exciting for those unfamiliar with Banksy. Of the two books, the second one has some of the lesser seen works. So now Robbo supporters (or those who are just jealous of Banksy’s success) have gone around defacing Banksy’s works. I was also unaware of the graffiti war with “Team Robbo” after Banksy painted over an old work by Robbo that had been around for many years. It was also interesting to read about the ongoing government whitewashing of graffiti, town debates on the subject, and how frequently the works disappears. After all, it’s street art, and sometimes other people imitate Banksy’s style. The auction houses have a difficult time proving the authenticity of the work. (The author repeatedly declares his opposition to tearing down work that was created for the street.) Sometimes the paintings sold for a lot of money, other times, they don’t sell at all. I had no idea how many people would tear down walls and doors, peel off plaster, or remove storage boxes if Banksy had painted on them and then attempt to sell them at auction houses or on eBay. But regardless, I did learn some interest tidbits. In these two books, the author’s commentary did became somewhat repetitive, partly because I suspect these were originally blog posts, and he didn’t do a good job editing them as a whole. The author of these two collections is a graffiti tour guide in London who documents street art via photography and then hosts tours of interesting work, mainly Banksy. His work is often straight up political but avoids being too didactic by leavening it with clever/biting/sarcastic humor. He occasionally does paintings or various installation/sculptural pieces, but primarily he cuts elaborate stencils then hits walls at night and spray paints the images using the stencils. Banksy is primarily a street stencil artist. I have seen most of the works featured here before but did spot a few that I had never seen before, so I’m glad I snagged these. If you are new to Banksy, you are better off picking up Wall and Piece. As is demonstrated by the fact that I made these:
These two collections are best for Banksy completists, a.k.a.
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