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Art by the famous artist Banksy is to be included in a new initiative to document the UK’s murals. As reported by The Art Newspaper, the project will see more than 5,000 murals from across the UK digitally recorded for access in a free public database. The project is being overseen by the... View full entry
A mural painted by Banksy which first appeared not long after Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU) has been destroyed after the building it was painted on was knocked down. The artwork, said to have been valued at around £1m, first appeared in the coastal town of Dover in 2017, the year after Britain voted to leave the union in a controversial referendum. — CNN
The mural, located on the side of the Castle Amusements building, depicted a worker chipping away at one the 12 stars on the EU flag. In 2019, the mural vanished after it was whitewashed. And, now, despite efforts to potentially restore the work, the building it was painted on has been demolished... View full entry
Banksy had just put the finishing touches on his latest artwork on an abandoned farmhouse in in Kent, England, when shortly after completion, a construction crew demolished the building. Entitled Morning is Broken, the work featured a silhouetted cat and a boy with arms outstretched opening two dilapidated sheets of iron, which were shaped like curtains. — Hypebeast
News of the demolition spread across media channels and social platforms like Instagram and Twitter. A report from The Guardian explained that the site, owned by Kitewood, was "earmarked for dozens of new homes" as demolition on the site began on Tuesday, March 14. When workers began demolishing... View full entry
In 2010, while in town for the Los Angeles premiere of his documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” the British street artist Banksy left a gift for fans: a mural of a girl on a swing, dangling beneath the five-foot red “A” of the word “PARKING” on a gritty downtown lot.
Now that girl — as well as the historic building in the downtown fashion district that serves as her canvas — is for sale to the highest bidder.
— The New York Times
The historic 26,000-square-foot Downtown Los Angeles building was purchased for $4 million three years prior to the popular documentary's premiere and underwent a $1.8 million renovation before its then-owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in April this year. Related on Archinect: Recent Banksy... View full entry
Banksy is getting into the shuffle in the effort to preserve a grade-II listed former prison complex in England called Reading Gaol. The BBC is reporting that the famed street artist intends to sell the stencil he used for an Oscar Wilde-inspired mural placed on the building’s exterior wall in... View full entry
The artist Thierry Guetta, aka Mr Brainwash, is temporarily turning the former Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills—designed by the architect Richard Meier in 1996—into his own museum. The French-born Los Angeles-based artist this week sealed a deal that will allow him to lease the building, which was bought by the luxury brand LVMH for $80m in 2018, until it and two other properties the company acquired on North Rodeo Drive are turned into a hotel. — The Art Newspaper
Previously, the building, rising three stories, functioned as an outpost of the Museum of Television & Radio and then to the Paley Center for Media, which left earlier this month, The Art Newspaper reports. Equipped with the required museum facilities, the structure provides a capable canvas... View full entry
Last week, a piece by the anonymous graffiti artist was stenciled onto a building at the northwest corner of 14th street and sixth avenue in New York City. The structure—a former bank building—was tagged with one of Banksy's trademark rats running around a clock that is native to the... View full entry
Who the fuck cares what Banksy’s real name is. You should care about his art instead, what he’s given you, and stop trying to take more than what’s to be had. Don’t deny yourself great artistic creativity simply to satisfy the curiosity of some blip of an itch that will deny him his anonymity to create. Doing that will make you less than the worst, you wouldn’t even be a super villain scientist, but a spectator searching for a sport to watch that you’re too inept to participate in. — davidchoe.com
Related stories in the Archinect news:Banksy about to open "Dismaland" pop-up exhibition in British seaside resortAfter Banksy: the parkour guide to GazaAn interview with man behind the “Stealing Banksy?” auctionBanksy's unpublished NYT op-ed declares new WTC is the biggest eyesore in New York View full entry
Over the past five weeks, more than 150,000 people have visited the subversive theme park in a derelict seafront lido, which had been shut since 2000 and reopened in a blaze of publicity on 20 August. [...]
But, it is the town's tourist businesses that have reaped the benefit - to the tune of £20m, says Visit Somerset, more than three times what the trade body initially suggested. [...]
Everyone has noted the irony of the anti-capitalist art show boosting business.
— bbc.com
Previously: Banksy about to open "Dismaland" pop-up exhibition in British seaside resort View full entry
Rumors have been circulating around the internet for a few days, but later this week Banksy is now set to open a new pop-up exhibition entitled "Dismaland" at in Weston-Super-Mare, UK.
The venue is called "Tropicana", a 10,200-square-foot site to be transformed into "Dismaland", a probable attack on American entertainment giant Disney. [...]
As usual with Banksy, the details are very scarce, but earlier this morning Iain Brimecome and Jon Goff were able to fly their drone above the site [...].
— streetartnews.net
Another aerial view of "Dismaland," expected to open later this week. Photo: Iain Brimecome & Jon Goff, image via streetartnews.net.Photo via @francisclarke on Twitter.Banksy in the Archinect news:After Banksy: the parkour guide to GazaAn interview with man behind the “Stealing Banksy?”... View full entry
My name is Abdallah AlQassab, nearly 50% of us are unemployed and we are very available to show you around — Theguardian
In response to graffiti artist Banksy's Make this the Year YOU Discover a New Destination Gaza tourist video, the territory's parkour team show us what real life is like there and their dreams beyond the border. To the sounds of Palestine's biggest female hip-hop artist, Shadia Mansour, join... View full entry
Next week in London, The Sincura Group will be holding a similar auction of street pieces formally by Banksy. That’s the same company that last year successfully sold the Banksy “Slave Labour” wall at auction for just over $1 million. They’ve titled their auction Stealing Banksy? and it will include approximately 18 works, at least 7 of which are street pieces formally by Banksy that have been removed from their original locations, some of them specifically removed for this sale. — blog.vandalog.com
The artists behind New York’s graffiti haven 5 Pointz have learned that their last-ditch legal effort to save the outdoor gallery will likely fail.
“The building, unfortunately, is going to have to come down,” federal judge Frederic Block said in New York’s eastern district court on Friday. [...]
“I’m getting the sense that the traditional academic way of looking at things needs to be updated,” Block said.
— The Guardian
Today’s piece was going to be an op-ed column in the New York Times.
But they declined to publish what I supplied. Which was this... - Banksy
— Better Out than In
For the latest in their inventive visual mockery of Cooper Union president and unalloyed economic realist Jamshed Bharucha, the student activists of Free Cooper Union satirically reconfigured a Banksy work that popped up near the school’s campus over the weekend. — hyperallergic.com