At least seven pieces in the UK in 2009, and the start of the King Robbo vs. Banksy feud.
King Robbo vs. Banksy
Of historical interest is the feud between Robbo and Banksy. The feud started in 2009 when Banksy painted over one of King Robbo’s tags in Camden. The initial tag was sprayed in 1985 underneath the British Transport Police quarters. The feud continued until King Robbo had a serious accident in 2011, leaving him in a vegetative state until he died in 2014. His real name was John Robertson. The following sequence is a tribute to Robbo, as it appeared on Banksy’s website in 2012:
Banksy opened his first exhibition in New York, The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, featuring mainly animatronics. Almost all of the content was used the following year in the Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition.
“New Yorkers don’t care about art, they care about pets. So I’m exhibiting them instead. I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming, but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing. I took all the money I made exploiting an animal in my last show and used it to fund a new show about the exploitation of animals. If its art and you can see it from the street, I guess it could still be considered street art.”
Photos: Getty images
Vernisage.tv published an amazing video of the exhibition on youtube:
Apart from the stencils in New Orleans, a few more pieces were documented across the US in 2008. At least two in the Los Angeles area and a few giant rats on billboards in New York before the Village Pet Store exhibition in October 2008.
As reported by Natalie Hanman in the Guardian on 1 September 2008:
Street artist Banksy has taken his trade to the streets of New Orleans, as the city remembers those whose lives were destroyed by hurricane Katrina three years ago – and the country braves itself for another storm in hurricane Gustav, which hit the US Gulf coast this morning.
The graffiti artist’s latest creations of more than a dozen murals – which include depictions of a young boy flying a fridge like a kite and Abraham Lincoln as a homeless man – adorn buildings around the city, according to the New York Times.
A statement released by Banksy reveals that they were created in response to Fred Radtke aka the “Grey Ghost”, an anti-graffiti campaigner who uses grey paint to cover up street art. The statement also said: “Three years after Katrina I wanted to make a statement about the state of the cleanup operation.”
Banksy organised The Cans Festival London over the weekend of May 3–5, 2008. The event took place at Leake Street, a tunnel beneath London Waterloo station formerly used by Eurostar. Team Banksy invited approximately 40 street artists from around the world to participate in the exhibition.
Photos: Romany WG and others
Can Festival programme
A PDF of the official Cans Festival programme can be downloaded here:
Looking for radical art? Try the South Bank, not Banksy
Banksy’s Cans festival, bringing together 40 of the world’s best stencil artists, can’t compete with the 40-year-old posters in the Hayward Gallery
Dazzling but blunt … Banksy’s Cans festival. Piss Alley, we call it. The Times this weekend dubbed it “London’s hottest venue“. For most, Leake Street has always been Leake Street by name, Leake Street by nature. For Banksy, though, this tunnel road was just the kind of “filth pit” he’d been looking for. Remembering to ask permission from owners Eurostar, he gathered together the world’s best stencil artists to spray paint the tunnel in time for the bank holiday, and lo, the Cans festival was born.
Despite the poised irreverence and iconoclasm of the Cans festival, it was the posters in the Hayward that – despite all the failed hopes of the ’68 generation, despite the simplicity and even naivety of the images – still grip, still provoke. Truth be told, radical art today is anything but: it may look sharp, but its edge is blunt.
“Gentrify this” was the up-yours slogan greeting the crowds at Banksy’s festival. But gentrification is exactly what these artists had achieved. The closest you came to barricades at this event were the security barriers channelling punters inside. The score was laid down on the festival’s website: after detailing the opening hours (for Piss Alley! – I never thought I’d live to see the day), it sternly warns “After 10pm access is strictly limited … and will get even more so if anyone else tries throwing bottles at security”.
And just in case anyone thinks about making a spontaneous contribution, the website makes clear that artists coming to stencil need to report to reception and be shown where to paint, with a disclaimer explaining that “painting outside the designated area may well result in prosecution”.
But there we have it. For all the brilliance of the stencil artists, the messy, apocalyptic feel of the thing was so in tune with our general sense of the world going to hell in a handcart that it confirmed the status quo rather than challenged it. This was iconoclasm with an unremitting ironic twist. Don’t like religion? Here’s the Pope morphed with Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch. Wanna take a pop at film icons? Here’s a cat scratching Audrey Hepburn’s eyes out. Apart from some notable exceptions – such as the central tree sculpture sprouting surveillance cameras – it was the backwards-looking creed that was striking.
Whether looking for icons to smash or to praise, it was the past that informed. In the brochure the political icon held aloft is Stuart Christie, the Scottish anarchist who was a member of the Angry Brigade in the 1970s. William Blake is misrepresented as an outsider hounded by the establishment who labelled him mad and buried him in a heretics’ graveyard (Blake was buried by choice in the dissenters’ graveyard at Bunhill Fields, with the standard Church of England service). Truth is, the Cans festival’s rebels without a cause cannot bear to look into the future. They don’t trust it and have more in common with the self-named ancients who gathered around Blake in his later years, bemoaning the modern industrial world and conservatively clutching at a “golden age”.
How different from the Paris posters of ’68 which brim with the possibilities of tomorrow. Whatever the disappointments of the uprisings, these images convey powerful and provocative messages. The outline of a cross drilling into the profile of a head communicates the perceived problem with religion. Irony – that constant bugbear of art today – works very differently here. It is a device to drive the message home, most often in the juxtaposition of text and image. A poster bearing the words “Retour à normale …” has row upon row of identical sheep heading back to the pen. A young face swathed in bandages and secured with a safety pin through the mouth is captioned “Une jeunesse que l’avenir inquiète trop souvent …” (“Youth worries too often about the future”). The future was what young people would make if they would be heard. Today, our radical young artists are jeunesse-ancients, world-weary before their time. To paraphrase Blake, the Cans festival was of the devil’s party without knowing it.
Pictures on Walls published the following statement:
“Bethlehem is one of the most contentious places on earth.
Perched at the edge of the Judaen desert at the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa in the state of Palestine it was governed by the British following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. After World War II the United Nations voted to partition the region into two states – one Jewish, one Arab and there’s been fighting ever since.
It’s obviously not the job of a loose collection of idiot doodlers to tell you what’s right or wrong about this situation, so you’re advised to do further reading yourself (this month’s National Geographic has an excellent article all about Bethlehem).
We would like to make it very clear Santa’s Ghetto is not allied to ANY race, creed, religion, political organization or lobby group. As an organisation the only thing we’ll say on behalf of our artists is that we don’t speak on behalf of our artists. This show simply offers the ink-stained hand of friendship to ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.
Every shekel made in the store will be used on local projects for children and young people. Not one cent will go to any political groups, governmental institutions or, in fact, any grown-ups at all.
Banksy contributed with quite a few pieces, among them some very rare canvases, among them The ‘Peace Dove with Bulletproof Vest’ and ‘Stop and Search’, as can be seen in the photo below of the store front on Manger Square:
Photo: monstris_uk on Flickr
The Watchtower collaborations
The watchtowers were an interesting collaboration at Santa’s Ghetto 2007. Banksy created a limited edition of 15, while invited artists decorated unique towers – some sources say at least 15 unique towers were made by different artists. The late Tawfiq Salsaa, an accomplished olive wood carver from Bethlehem, appears to have sculpted the original one.
Here are a few of the unique towers. From left to right: Peter Kennard, Blu, Kelsey Brooks (2 x Hope) and Tawfiq Salsaa:
Photos: Bonhams
Another intriguing piece was the monumental olive wood sculpture of the Old Town in Jerusalem, a collaboration by Banksy and the late Tawfiq Salsaa. Two years later, the same Old Jerusalem model appeared at Banksy vs Bristol Museum:
Jerusalem Old Town by Tawfiq Salsaa and Banksy. Photographed at Walled Off Hotel in 2022. Photo R.A.
List of artists at Santa’s Ghetto 07:
3D Abdul Rohman Elmzyen Adam Koukoudakis Aiko Ayed Arafah Banksy Bast Ben Turnbull Blu Conor Harrington Eine Erica il Cane Faile Gee Vaucher James Cauty Jonathan Yeo Karim Dabbah Kelsey Brookes Lucy McLauchlan Mark Jenkins Antony Micallef Paul Insect Sir Peter Blake Peter Kennard Kat Phillips Ron English Sam 3 Sickboy Souleiman Mansour Swoon Yousef Katalo
On the same journey to the Bethlehem area, Banksy painted five stencils, among them the Armoured peace dove.
As reported by CNN on 3 December 2007:
By Brie Schwartz
(CNN) — British graffiti artist Banksy has launched an art exhibition in Bethlehem that he hopes will focus attention on the poverty of the West Bank and draw tourists to the traditional birthplace of Christianity.
A Palestinian man walks by Banksy’s camel, painted on the security barrier near Bethlehem.
As part of the project, Banksy has adorned the controversial security barrier around the West Bank town with spray paint and plaster works of art in a comment on the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Israel says the purpose of the barrier is to prevent terrorist attacks being launched from the West Bank. Palestinian leaders however say the barrier amounts to an illegitimate land grab by Israelis, setting unilateral borders for an eventual Palestinian state.
The new exhibition, called “Santa’s Ghetto Bethlehem 2007,” is a collaboration by artists who say they are trying to revitalize tourism to Bethlehem and “offer the ink-stained hand of friendship to ordinary people in an extraordinary situation.”
Banksy’s sketches on the security barrier flow towards Manger Square, across from the Church of the Nativity, where Christians believe Jesus was born. His images include a dove wearing a bullet-proof vest, a young girl in a frilly pink dress frisking a soldier and a donkey being checked for its identity papers.
According to the Web site for Santa’s Ghetto, Banksy thought he was making an ironic commentary with the donkey picture, but locals told him the animals are frequently asked for ID papers. Santa’s Ghetto typically operates during the month of December out of a small store on Oxford Street in London, where underground artists showcase their work.
Banksy, who started the initiative six years ago, says: “I felt the spirit of Christmas was being lost. It was becoming increasingly uncommercialized and more and more to do with religion, so we decided to open our own shop and sell pointless stuff you didn’t need.”
His exhibition in Bethlehem is rife with the same satirical sentiments. Beyond the barrier graffiti, the work of Santa’s Ghetto’s diverse artists spread across three floors of a building in Manger Square.
Inside, examples include a painting by Palestinian artist Suleiman Mansour in which a man carries the city of Jerusalem on his back, and London artist Peter Kennard’s montage of dollar bills printed on pages from the Jerusalem Post. Proceeds from Santa’s Ghetto sales go to charity.
Little is known about Banksy other than that he was born in Bristol, western England. Collections of his original work, which attract the likes of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, have sold for more than $1 million (almost £500,000).
Banksy’s previous political statements have included hanging a picture of a cave man pushing a shopping cart in the British Museum and placing a doll of a Guantanamo Bay detainee in Disneyland. The doll was removed, but the “primitive” portrait became a part of the British Museum’s permanent collection.
Tourism — even in the traditional Christmas peak season — has been hard hit in recent years with Israeli checkpoints keeping most of the local Palestinians in and all but the most determined tourists out. As a result levels of unemployment are high.
Speaking through the Web site, Banksy says tourists need not fear visiting the West Bank. “It would do good if more people came to see the situation here for themselves.
“If it is safe enough for a bunch of sissy artists then it’s safe enough for anyone.”
One can perceive several changes in Banksy’s street art from 2007 onwards: Fewer, but more elaborate. Banksy went to Bristol in October to paint a police sniper and a boy with a paper bag waiting to burst into his ears.
BANKSY AT GLASTONBURY. JUNE 2007
Banksy revisited the Glastonbury festival, where he erected “Boghenge”, a version of Stonehenge. He also stencilled “cop frisking a little girl”.
The 2006 edition of Santa’s Ghetto took place in Oxford Street, near Tottenham Court Road. It had works of David Shrigley, Jamie Hewlett, Ericailcane, and a host of other up-and-coming artists in the urban/street art universe.
Also present were some interesting works by Kennard Phillips—the collaboration between Cat Phillips and Peter Kennard. One of Banksy’s most important influences is undoubtedly Peter Kennard.
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Hansel & Gretel
Banksy didn’t contribute as many works as previous editions of Santa’s Ghetto. But he had one interesting oil painting — ‘Hansel & Gretel’ with Michael Jackson. The motif is copied from a painting by Tom Ormond (b. 1974) called ‘From Beyond the Stars’ from 2005. But, is it a “vandalised oil”, or is Banksy’s Hansel & Gretel painted from scratch?
From Beyond the Stars. Tom Ormond, 2005. And to the right: Hansel & Gretel. Banksy, 2006
Participants. Santa’s Ghetto 2006
List of participants. Santa’s Ghetto 2006.
As reported by Sean O’Hagan in The Guardian:
Art brats put the cool in Yule
A squatted shop on Oxford Street selling works by Banksy? So long Christmas tat
Only 14 shopping days to Christmas and, unlike many major department stores on London’s Oxford Street, ‘Santa’s Ghetto’ is doing a roaring trade. The Banksys sold out in the first hour of opening, the Hewletts followed suit, and there were unseemly scraps over the Shrigleys. The word on the street is that sales in the first week hit £300,000. Not bad for a squatted shop only advertised via a website and word of mouth.
Now 10 days into its three-week run, ‘Santa’s Ghetto’ is the brainchild of Banksy, the suddenly ubiquitous but still invisible graffiti artist, whose work also graces the more august Serpentine Gallery across town, part of the Damien Hirst ‘Murderme’ collection. Part art gallery, part print shop, part good old-fashioned happening, ‘Santa’s Ghetto’ has been a fixture in the capital for the past five years but this is its first pitch in the West End. It is organised by a collective called Pictures On Walls, who describe themselves as ‘more like a record company than a print house’.
This is unlike any other seasonal shopping expedition. There are two burly, besuited bouncers on the door, and the main window display features a huge photographic print of a grinning Tony Blair snapping himself on his mobile against a backdrop of a firestorm in Iraq. An inebriated lifesize Santa with bug eyes also jerks like a man in the throes of almighty comedown. Inside, there’s a Mona Lisa flashing her arse, her enigmatic smile now revealed as a bawdy come-hither look.
The art is determinedly ‘street’, edgy in tone, and brutalist in form. The buzz is palpable, and, having just come from the almost empty, energy-sapping space that houses this year’s Turner Prize non-event, I found it oddly uplifting. In among the crowds of mostly young and trendy visitors there are some life-size sculptures resembling many of the punters – hoodies, baggy jeans, sneakers. One such figure seems to be peering though the wall into Waterstone’s next door; another could be a homeless beggar but, beneath the hood, there is no face, just a dark cavernous hole.
Amid the posters, prints and original artworks on the walls there are some arresting images, particularly Ben Turnbull’s ominous sculpture of a gun in a glass case embossed with the words ‘Break In Case of Emergency’. We’re talking visual overload here, though, and a lot of the graphic work needs more room to breathe. The most arresting piece in this wilfully overcrowded space is Emma Heron’s vending machine, which sells artifical limbs. A black boy on crutches, one leg blown off at the knee, peers longingly inside. Amid all the irony and the mischief, it is the only piece that stops people in their tracks.
‘It’s brilliant art because it makes you think,’ says Si, aged 18, who has journeyed into the West End from Tottenham with his mates. None of them has ever set foot in an art gallery before, save for a school outing to Tate Modern, whichleft Si unimpressed. ‘Some of it was all right, but a lot of it was boring,’ he says. ‘This is more the sort of stuff I’d buy if I won the lottery.’ He stands briefly in front of Banksy’s latest allegorical piece: two tiny Hansel and Gretel figures lingering uncertainly by the threshold of the Wicked Witch’s house, tempted by a stick of candy. ‘It’s Michael Jackson,’ he whoops. ‘Oh man, that’s naughty.’
That’s exactly the word for most of the work in ‘Santa’s Ghetto’: ‘naughty’, as in mischievous, gleefully shocking, and unhindered by the heavy baggage of conceptual art – though Hirst obviously sees Banksy as a fellow traveller on the road to world domination.
As art events go, ‘Santa’s Ghetto’ is an uneasy mix of provocation, old-fashioned radicalism and trendier-than-thou, Hoxton-style posturing. The organisers have what they call on their website ‘a unique artist development programme’ that includes ‘returning sketches with “what the fuck is this?” scrawled over the top’. Cork Street it isn’t. They are currently trying to trace the interventionists who spraypainted the front windows of the shop with anti-globalisation graffiti in the early hours of last Sunday morning – just to credit their work on the website, you understand. Try as I might, I can’t see Charles Saatchi or Jay Jopling running with that one just yet, but Malcolm McLaren would certainly be proud of them.
· ‘Santa’s Ghetto’, Oxford Street (next to Tottenham Court Road Station), until 23 December; picturesonwalls.com
Banksy unofficial 