Banksi Biography Wikipedia

All the current news of the week with one letter receive fresh news from Kommersant UK by e -mail to subscribe to OK, September 06, photo: RF. His works are always based on relevant and topical topics, his projects amaze with the imagination and knock entire cities out of ordinary life. So who is he: a genius or a bully? What contribution did he make to the development and popularization of street painting?

Why does Banksy not complain to museums, and his paintings diverge for hundreds of thousands of dollars? In an interview with UK, an art critic, candidate of philosophical sciences, Maria Berezanskaya, spoke about the mysterious artist in an interview with the Kommersant. Avignonian girls "" Art Volkhonka ", he played a key role in the development of street art. He is the main figure of this movement in contemporary art, and it is in such an angle that I consider it in my book.

Thanks to him, the ideas about what could be considered a real art, books about street art appeared, it was recognized by museums by some even began to acquire work in their collections, galleries and auction houses. And after him, other street artists were also entered there. Today, no one has doubts that Street art is not vandalism or hooliganism, but one of the most significant directions in modern culture and art.

The artists before him, for example, Jean-Michel Baskia and Kita Haring, who also lit up as street artists, have an important difference: they considered Street art only as part of their project. For Baskia, this is more a conceptual project, it is closer in his street work to conceptualism than to street art. Haring also did not consider his mission to bring art to the streets - he wanted to spread it to the much larger space than we used to this.

He has a body art that he actively promoted. Haring generally painted on everything: bodies, fences, advertising banners, subway indexes, bicycles, etc.

He wanted art to literally spread around the world. But this is not quite what Banksy wants to show. He wants to tell the world that street art is real, and he, in my opinion, turns out. Graffiti is an art focused on their own, on a narrow, closed party of people who understand what this or that inscription means, or TAG, as graffiti themselves call them and they call themselves rateers.

The art of Banksy is focused on a wide range of spectators. In your opinion, can his work be called art in the full sense of the word? Of course, it can be considered a full-fledged art, because it is recognized as art-instance: museums, galleries and auction houses, this is first. Secondly, it is clear to the mass viewer. The third - Banksy does not stand aloof from the history of art, it is part and successor to the art of the twentieth century.

He constantly leads a dialogue with his predecessors. His work focuses on two main directions: conceptualism and pop art. Despite the fact that historically these directions are opposed to each other, Banksy connects them. Let's start with pop art. It arose in the years, focuses on pop culture and consumer society, and some call it easy art. Banksy takes from him primarily from the work of his beloved Andy Warhol a mocking manner, as well as interest in the popular culture and consumer society.

He uses in his works advertising images, cartoons, and film characters. For example, Banksy has a series of works with the image of a supermodel Kate Moss, which resembles a series of portraits of Warhol with Marilyn Monroe. Or a poster with a can of canned tesco soup is a tribute to Warhol's legendary creation “Campbell Banks”. But it cannot be said that Banksy simply repeats behind his idol.

When Warhol creates his icons of the consumer society, he leaves the viewer the right to decide, this is really the icons that need to be worshiped, or this is a mockery of the consumption society. The fact is that Warhol worked in the years when the consumption society was only born and it was unclear what it would be. Banksi looks at the world of advertising and pop culture through the eyes of the next, our generation, and he knows that the consumer society has not led us to anything.

And unlike Warhol, who retains a neutral position, Banksy judges him harshly, scolds modern consumption and consumer society. In his opinion, people, carried away by brands, advertising and primitive images of popular culture, completely forgot about true human values: friendship, love, mutual assistance. And the fact that Warhol sounds like a question for the viewer: is it good or bad?

With the conceptual art of Banksi, the rejection of traditional museum institutions is related. In years, conceptualists arranged a rebellion against museums. They tried to tell the audience that a paradoxical situation has developed in the world of art when a small bunch of music workers actually decides what is art and what not.Therefore, conceptual artists begin to create an art, which, on the one hand, is non -vulnerable, and on the other - non -profit.

They rented some warehouse, office premises, arranged exhibitions in them or produced catalogs instead of familiar exhibitions, that is, they tried in every possible way to get around the usual paths, after which art becomes recognized. And then, thirty years, Banksy does the same. He is very distrustful of the cold, desert museum halls, where the canvases can be seen in strictly defined hours and from a respectful distance.

In protest against museum orders, he arranges a whole series of art actions. For example, his first exhibition is not held in the museum, but in a rented warehouse, where it brings living cows. When Banksy still gets into the museum, he begins to hooligate. So, he filled the museum of a hundred parodies to works of art - there were also antique statues corrected by a mischievous hand, and classic paintings with hooligan inscriptions.

According to the landscape of the impressionist, Claude Monet Banksy scatters trolleys from a supermarket, and attachs funny cartoon eyes and a clown nose to the portraits of Engra and Rembrandt. Of course, these were just copies of masterpieces: ancient statues were made of gypsum, and the famous paintings were photocopies. These tricks, at first glance, Shutovsky, express a serious claim to the modern museum community.

That is why Banksy is so annoyed by unauthorized exhibitions - everyone remembers what a scandal with the Moscow exhibition of Banksy in the year. However, this happens every time his work is exposed without his knowledge, no matter where, in Moscow, London or Paris. He is always outraged, says that the exhibitions were not authorized by him and that they are not real, and calls not to visit them although I really put up his works bought at auctions on them.

Banksy does not want him to be categorized as other artists, breaking on topics or periods - he decides how to interact with museums and interact at all. Tell us in more detail what meanings are unable to not notice. It happens that these parallels and hints are quite straightforward, like a jacocard with a grenade launcher. But sometimes the viewer needs tips in order to read the messages in the next Banksi painting, for example, hear his dispute with Andy Warhol or make out a graceful parody of Roy Liechtenstein.

And in many ways, my book deciphers his work, reveals the second, third, fourth meanings that are not always obvious to us, because to understand them we need to well understand the history of art - both the twentieth century, which he loves very much and classical. Consider this on the example of the painting “Mobile Lovers” with a hugging couple - both a man and a woman look at the screen of a mobile phone.

A parody of modern life, isn't it? But if you recall the history of art of the twentieth century, it will be found that this plot is close to the work of the Belgian artist-scurelist Rene Magritt “Lovers”-the famous series of two paintings, which depicts lovers covered with fabric. Magritte in his manner characteristic of him does not give the viewer an answer to the question: why his lovers suddenly find themselves in a veil of fabric.

Maybe this is a metaphor for dizzying love, which is blind. And perhaps we are talking about the alienation between a man and a woman who shares a wall of misunderstanding. After a century, Banksy gives his interpretation of the work of Magritte. Only in the year, lovers are no longer separated by a metaphorical bedspread, but by a mobile phone: each is in their virtual world.

And it turns out that although their bodies are in contact, they are infinitely far from each other. It is important that Banksy actualizes the picture, making it an interesting modern viewer. He also acts with other works of avant -garde and classics, modernizing the history of art, making it non -casual and understandable to today's viewer. In my opinion, this is one of the most interesting areas in which Banksy can be considered.

He shows how to look at the history of art, and leads a dialogue with the past, how any good artist shares it. And Banksy leads, on the one hand, a dialogue with the past, and on the other hand, dialogue with the viewer, combining the art of the past and modern viewer with the help of his work. Why, by now, on the streets of London or other cities, new paintings have not appeared on today's events, financial and geopolitical crisis, a decrease in living standards?

Banksy did not make new paintings, grandiose projects for a long time. Perhaps he is accumulating strength. Once it already happened when, until October, he was silent for a long time, and then presented a large project in New York. His last works on the theme of the pandemic of coronavirus and quarantine, in my opinion, were passing. Therefore, I am also waiting for him to speak out.

In your opinion, what three works are Banksy's best? Because the mystery that surrounds him causes a stir. And Banksy himself believes that anonymity has a much more powerful force than popularity: “I don’t understand why people are so striving to publicize all the details of their personal life, they probably forgot that invisibility is a real supervial,” he said.

Banksy uses this superpower one hundred percent. Another reason for its popularity is the relevant topics of the works. He always speaks on the anger of the day, affects the topics that excite humanity in the 21st century: global warming, an unfair separation of wealth, a pandemic, and political conflicts. His art is not abstract thoughts about good and evil, when the viewer does not understand what the artist wants to say by his work, these are always close life of us realities.

But at the same time, in the art of Banksi there is always not only a modern, current part, but also the second bottom, the very abstract questions about good and evil. I will name the most interesting, in my opinion, work of Banksy. I don’t know if they can be considered the best. Nothing unusual, the only thing that clung to his eyes is a massive gilded frame that did not suit the picture at all, but Banksy himself made it and forbade it to shoot.

Trading went briskly, and now the cost of the picture exceeded a million pounds. The final blow of the hammer sounded, the picture left for 1 pounds. And then the picture began to self -destruct!