some sort of Banksy retrospective
Banksy confirmed yet another piece from the Animal Kingdom on his Instagram around 1 p.m. on Tuesday. The exact address is 10 Edith Terrace in Chelsea, a few hundred meters east of Stamford Bridge. Could the elephants be the second piece in a series that started yesterday?
Banksy’s first elephant in the room at Barely Legal in Los Angeles, September 2006:
Team Banksy is back to work with a stencilled mountain gazelle on a wall in Richmond, just a stone’s throw from the River Thames and Kew Bridge. There is a subtle message: the mountain gazelle is the national animal of Palestine, and it is also an endangered species. The CCTV was there before Banksy arrived, but it has obviously been redirected towards the gazelle.
It’s definitely one of his best pieces in many years: site-specific, back-to-basics, and with a political message.
Banksy’s first street art piece in 2024 went up on Hornsey Road in Finsbury Park, northern London. Pictures of the work surfaced in different forums on Sunday, 17 March. It’s a brilliant piece, life-size and site-specific, depicting a woman spraying foliage with a pressure washer on a wall behind a pruned tree.
Photos: @banksy
The new mural has some similarities with an illegal street art piece by Russian artist 0331c ( www.0331c.ru ), painted with a fire extinguisher in 2013 in Moscow:
Bad artists copy, great artists steal?
Banksy is back with a simple yet powerful anti-war message. A bittersweet reminder that Christmas is not a celebration of peace, joy, and overeating for everyone, especially not for the people of Gaza and Ukraine.
Photo: @banksy
As reported by The Guardian on 22 December:
Piece showing three aircraft on stop sign in Peckham was confirmed as genuine by the artist on Instagram.
Two men have been filmed taking an artwork created by Banksy from a south London street less than an hour after it was confirmed as a genuine installation. The artist confirmed the piece – a traffic stop sign covered with three aircraft said to resemble military drones – was his in a social media post shortly after midday on Friday.
In a video shared on social media, onlookers watch as two men are seen taking down the sign at the intersection of Southampton Way and Commercial Way in Peckham at about 12.30pm. Witnesses can be heard saying “oh my god” on the soundtrack of the video as one of men takes the stop sign and runs off, with one woman saying: “It makes me so annoyed.”
The deputy leader of Southwark council, Jasmine Ali, said the artwork “should not have been removed”, adding: “We’d like it back so everyone in the community can enjoy Banksy’s brilliant work.” She said the theft had been reported to the police “to help get it back”.
The aircraft on the stop sign resembled those from Banksy’s 2017 artwork Civilian Drone Strike, which depicted a trio of drones bombing a childlike drawing of a house. It was auctioned at Art The Arms Fair and raised £205,000 for Reprieve and Campaign Against Arms Trade.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/dec/22/banksy-artwork-stolen-south-london-peckham
The artwork appeared on the side of a derelict farmhouse in the seaside town of Herne Bay, only 20 km from Margate, where he did Valentine’s Day mascara a month ago. The demolition of the house, including the mural, can be interpreted in many ways.
Photos: @banksy
The Valentine’s Day mascara mural appeared in Margate, 100 km east of London, on Tuesday morning, 14 February. The Guardian reported on the dismantling of the artwork the same day:
“A Banksy artwork that was dismantled by a council in Kent “on the grounds of safety” just hours after its unveiling has had its chest freezer returned. The mural, titled Valentine’s Day Mascara, appeared to highlight the issue of domestic violence. It incorporated a freezer, a broken garden chair, a blue crate and an empty beer bottle, which were all removed from the site on Tuesday.”
Why a domestic violence motive on Valentine’s Day? It could have something to do with the big street art exhibition Beyond the Streets at the Saatchi Gallery in London, which opened on 17 February and featured more than 50 of Banksy’s colleagues, among them Shepard Fairey and 3D. As we all know, advertising tycoon Charles Saatchi is the founder and owner of Saatchi Gallery, and Banksy’s views on the advertising industry are well known through his artwork and writings. In 2013, writer Nigella Lawson broke up with Charles Saatchi amidst well-publicised accusations of domestic violence.
After a 15-month recess, Banksy is finally back to work with some high-class art in the area around Kyiv, Ukraine.
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The official video from the visit to Ukraine can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grC38EdcyMM
“We can confirm that the artwork at the end of The Outlaws was an original Banksy, and that Christopher Walken painted over that artwork during the filming of this scene, ultimately destroying it,” a spokesperson for the BBC said.
From BBC’s website:
“The Outlaws, written and directed by Stephen Merchant, stars Hollywood veteran Walken as one of a group of minor criminals refurbishing a building for their community service. The last episode sees his character uncover the Banksy rat and two spray cans behind some wooden boards, and ask his supervisor if he should paint over it. The probation officer is looking the other way so doesn’t realise it’s a Banksy and tells him all graffiti must be painted over, which he does.”
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59236187
After a five-month recess, Banksy is back at it with ten brilliant pieces in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, two adjacent towns on the eastern coast not far from Norwich. The pieces went up around 6 August but were confirmed a week later, on 13 August.
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The video of Spraycation:
The piece depicts Oscar Wilde escaping from Reading Gaol, his typewriter knotted to the sheets. Oscar Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading GAOL prison after being convicted of gross indecency in 1895. Wilde was sentenced to two years of forced labour.
The piece has not yet been confirmed by Banksy’s usual channels, but it appears to be authentic. Maybe Banksy’s next big project is a book?
Banksy unofficial 