

Central Park (Banksy) - badboyboyce
http://www.banksyny.com/2013/10/13/central-park

======
pslam
I recall walking through a street of San Francisco (though I can't remember
which one - maybe the Haight somewhere) when I saw a big spray-painted piece
of art on a wall above the top of a building. I instantly recognized it as
being in the style of Banksy. I doubted it at the time because I'm a London
expat and it seemed too much of a coincidence to have your "local" artist
suddenly turn up in your new neighborhood.

It was only later I looked it up online and found it was actually his work.
I'm actually a little surprised that stall at Central Park didn't at least get
a few people questioning who the artist was. Perhaps they did, but for brevity
the video doesn't show those interactions, because they didn't end up buying
anything.

~~~
abat
The pieces he sold here look intentionally mediocre. They're just
reproductions using stencils he used a while ago on actual buildings. They
look much better in their original context. Here they look flat and boring.

Banksy actually does some interesting stuff with paintings
([http://imgur.com/S3CTKip](http://imgur.com/S3CTKip)) that's better than just
using his old stencils on white canvases. My guess is he wanted these canvases
to look like someone did the bare minimum to copy his most iconic stencils and
make money off of Banksy's fame.

That said I would have liked to have bought one even if the real art is the
entire performance and not the individual canvases being sold.

~~~
iamben
I think you're right - these look exactly like the Banksy 'reproductions' that
are sold in high street poster stores up and down the UK. Most of them looked
like a 30 second version of stencils / originals / prints that were released a
long time ago.

I think that most people who knew who Banksy was prior to this probably would
have looked, laughed and walked on. As for the guy who bought 4 of them for
the walls of his new house - he can probably pay off a fair whack of his
mortgage!

Over the last few years I'd imagine Banksy's made a fair few unsuspecting
people a significant chunk of change... Good on him :-)

------
quchen
Very rarely is a picture or painting interesting just by looking at it, but
the story behind an image is much harder to sell on the street. As to "people
don't recognize art when they see it" type of posts, there are plenty of
Banksys out there you've never heard of. In addition to that, what would the
appropriate reaction have been according to the poster? People fast-food
shopping art at a street corner, like that's any better?

~~~
vinceguidry
Reminds me of that time when Joshua Bell played in a subway with an incredibly
expensive violin. They showed people just walking past, not knowing at all
what they're missing. When I saw that I thought, "what the hell is he trying
to prove?"

You always need to adapt your art to the medium and provide contrast. To do
otherwise is to argue against reality. Your average run-of-the-mill street
performer is always going to get more attention than Joshua Bell will on the
street.

~~~
Rimpinths
Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post set this up and wrote a Pulitzer Prize
winning article about it. It's a great article, "Pearls Before Breakfast":

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)

~~~
yetanotherphd
Wow, that is one hell of a smug article.

>As metro stations go, L'Enfant Plaza is more plebeian than most.

~~~
reubenmorais
At least give the author the benefit of the doubt. I've never lived anywhere
near Washington D.C. but a quick search reveals the station is anything but
"plebeian":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Enfant_Plaza_%28WMATA_stat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Enfant_Plaza_%28WMATA_station%29)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Federal_Center,_Wash...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Federal_Center,_Washington,_D.C).

In other words: woosh.

~~~
yetanotherphd
Did you read the article? Is the smug tone some kind of joke that I'm not
getting? Because based on my own reading the author really does judge the
commuters for not stopping, and the use of "plebeian" was not in jest.

I think you're going out of your way to sound sophisticated by pretending you
"get it".

------
jaredstenquist
This is one of my favorite Banksy works. It was a block over from my last
office. Unfortunately it was defaced by some other graffiti artists. Ironic

[http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/wp-
content/uploads/2010/05/...](http://www.highsnobiety.com/news/wp-
content/uploads/2010/05/Banksy-Hits-Boston.jpg)

~~~
alwaysinshade
> Ironic

It's zero-day art. The people who try to preserve it by bolting glass plates
over the top are missing the point.

~~~
tehwebguy
Probably meant ironic because of the nature of the specific art piece: a man
pasting a "Cancelled" sign over some fake graffiti that says "Follow your
dreams"

~~~
nrivadeneira
I think it's more because graffiti is, by nature, defacing. So, someone
defaced a defacing.

------
norswap
I love that I get the feeling there is a message that wants to get out of the
experiment, but that it isn't explicitly stated.

~~~
Zoepfli
Yes, and that message is "art is as much about the object itself as it is
about its sociological context."

Put something into a museum and everybody will look at it reverently. Sell it
on the street and most will ignore it. Sad. But human.

~~~
grinich
The famous violinist Joshua Bell once played in a DC metro station for nearly
an hour. He played six Bach pieces (some of the hardest ever composed) on a
$3.5MM violin. Over a thousand people rushed by, unperturbed. He made $32 and
some change.

I still don't know how this makes me feel. You can say it's human to ignore
things on the street, but there were more children who stopped than adults.

I think it's moreso that the older we get, the less we trust our emotions.
We're scared to have an original opinion, or go against the grain. We let the
responsibilities of life take over-- it's easier than reflecting on who you
are and how things feel. We don't want to get in trouble, don't want to be
late for work, don't want people to laugh at us, don't want to feel alone.

I wish I knew how to fix this in the world. I think we're missing out on a
lot.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)

~~~
showerst
This is a great piece of writing, but before you take too much of a lesson in
human nature realize this was also in a commuter station at 8am on a work day.
Even if people had wanted to stop, they had somewhere to be.

I've seen musicians on the level of a talented high schooler draw a big crowd
and rake in cash at chinatown a few stops away. If Bell had done that
experiment in Dupont Circle at 6pm on a Saturday night he'd have probably
started a riot =).

~~~
Lerc
>Even if people had wanted to stop, they had somewhere to be.

The prison of modern life in a nutshell.

------
spinlock
Was that guy Banksy? I thought he never let himself be photographed without a
disguise?

My favorite Banksy was outside of Galapagos when it was in Williamsburg. I
loved walking by it until Splatter destroyed it.

Now, I'm actually in NYC for Comicon and I find out that Banksy was in Central
Park .... I'm so sad now.

~~~
nrivadeneira
I don't think it was Banksy. Most likely just a guy Banksy hired to sell the
pieces.

------
asd111
Colbert is trying to get some Banksy art on his studio
[http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-
videos/42957...](http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-
videos/429573/october-07-2013/banksy-s-new-york-reign-of-terror)

------
icpmacdo
Lucky for who ever bought one, Im sure they could sell it for 50X what they
bought them for.

~~~
dh0913
This article says they each had a market value around $30,000 USD, or 500X.
[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/banksy-sells-
origina...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/banksy-sells-original-
paintings-worth-2368651)

------
shapiro
Banksy is just the remainder of an unbalanced equation in the matrix.
Marketing has triumphed over Art. The rebel artist is an anomaly, but it is
not unexpected. Which has led you, inexorably, here.

------
flylib
unbelievable Banksys best piece of work yet

------
holycrap
It all makes sense now: That man is Banksy!

