Originally published at: "Why would you do that?" Masked vandal defaces Banksy's rhino mural in broad daylight (video) - Boing Boing
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I would hope that Banksy themselves would not care. Graffiti is at its essence a transient, temporary thing. People being overly precious about it seems to miss the point, though i am glad people are inspired by his work. Also the tagger is a douche
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If he was just a random street artist, the tagger is doing something intrinsic to tagging itself by making a statement (intentional or not) about how the darling of the street art space has become a cheesy commodity. Like, that car and skip were purchased and placed there with the sole purpose of having A Banksy Piece™ put there. An actual tagger came by and did the biggest diss you can do --spraying over someone else’s work-- and thus making a point that Banksy’s shit has become corny (without even actually ruining the work). It took me some back-and-forth but I think that rules.
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The tagged graffiti on the rhino appears to be a dollar sign and a V
sounds pretty intentional to me…
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Oh, totally, I just didn’t want to overspeculate about the specific characters. It could just be the bloke’s established tag, and he could be trying to either simply increase his visibility or just give Banksy a middle finger. No way to know.
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I think there is some respect among street artists to not tag stuff right on top of new work. But I honestly don’t know the whole scene (even though some of it I find extremely cool).
I figure people can’t get too upset with street art getting tagged over.
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Banksy’s not averse to painting over others’ work himself. He’s had an ongoing rivalry with King Robbo since Banksy partially painted over one of Robbo’s early pieces.
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Graffiti artists are getting fed up of the circus around Banksy’s work. The recent pices are fairly poor even by Banksy’s standard and getting daily media attention for about a week. Most are either immediately removed from the street or covered with plexiglass. Which isn’t really in the spirit of street art or graffiti but good for Banksy’s marketing.
The last piece he did in London with the pollarded tree also quickly decended into farce when it was shoddily protected with plexiglass and a hoarding put up to keep people out.
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Sounds like Banksy needs a new shtick.
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Banksy paints over Banksy?
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The tagger might be a douche or a confederate. It’s impossible to say. Either way, you’re right. Banksy is unlikely to care.
My favorite class in college was my guerilla art class. It was a summer course so the campus was kind of empty, and we got up to all kinds of shenanigans I’m sure our professor’s employer would have frowned upon. But the most important thing was that once we put something out into the world, it wasn’t ours, anymore. I spent hours crafting a miniature news box with arms, eyes, and teeth, and left it on top of its larger inspiration. It was gone in an hour. I still hope it made someone laugh.
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I get that people might be inclined to want to preserve interesting art, but i feel like in Banksy’s case a lot of it is motivated by the monetary value of the artwork rather than what it actually says. I do think people like Banksy’s social commentary, but when suddenly a useless section of wall is worth a few thousand or more people’s relationship to the art really changes.
Also i would be totally delighted if i found a mini news box like that.
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