BigShinyThing

Following on from their much sneered at ‘graffiti advertisement’ earlier in the year, Time writes:

Takin’ It To The Streets. An ingenious art form is springing up in the unlikeliest city locales; galleries are noticing.

You don’t say. Broadsheets both sides of the Atlantic are picking up on this – just like in the 1980s when works by graffiti artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring sold for thousands (help along of course by Andy Warhol). Just a couple of weeks ago the Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak came over all emotional at Banksy’s latest show:

“A version of the famous Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper, features the late-night Manhattan melancholics huddled around their coffee as usual — but a British yob in Union Jack underpants has turned up on the street outside and chucked a brick through the window. It’s funny. And it’s sad. Both those qualities are surprising. I expected angry agitprop from Banksy, and cheek, but I did not expect a tear to be shed at the coarsening of Britain.”

It was also reported that Banksy had sold one painting for $40,000. Good for him. But you can’t get more establishment than the Sunday Times and photo essays in Time. Which throws up the classic question – what happens when the anti-establishment becomes the establishment? Things (hopefully) mutate.

Time story via Wooster. Picture of the completed Time graffiti billboard via Gothamist.