
Banksy Dismaland Show Revealed at Weston's Tropicana - kurren
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-33999495
======
dang
There's also [http://hyperallergic.com/231114/banksys-new-apocalyptic-
them...](http://hyperallergic.com/231114/banksys-new-apocalyptic-theme-park-
is-designed-to-disappoint/), which might be a bit more substantive. via
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10095509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10095509).

------
BillTheCat
It's funny how commercial Banksy's art has become. People track down his art,
rip it out of walls and sell it for millions of dollars to the very people
that the art is mocking.

I like what Max Tempkin said in regards to selling people literal crap for $6
a piece: "... [T]here's no protesting capitalism. There's nothing you can say
about capitalism that it won't subsume and sell back to you." [1]

[1]
[http://blog.maxistentialism.com/post/105481561063/](http://blog.maxistentialism.com/post/105481561063/)

~~~
kaolinite
My favourite story on a similar note is how a Marc Jacob's boutique was
vandalised a few years ago. The vandal spray painted "ART" across the front of
the store. Marc Jacobs responded by photographing it and putting it on a
teeshirt and selling it for $700.

[http://www.huhmagazine.co.uk/3721/art-by-art-jacobs-t-
shirt](http://www.huhmagazine.co.uk/3721/art-by-art-jacobs-t-shirt)

~~~
qq66
Mind-boggling to think about, but could the vandal assert copyright over the
spray painted wordmark?

~~~
nosuchthing
Not really.

For reference, Richard Prince's derivative 'artwork', particularly the slight
modification of artwork from other artists without consent has more often than
not been ruled fair use —
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-17/richard-
pr...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-17/richard-prince-
instagram-and-authorship-in-a-digital-world)

~~~
PhasmaFelis
Geez, it's depressing what this stuff says about us. The definition of "art"
becomes "anything produced by an Approved Artist," nothing less or more. If I
showed up at the Frieze Gallery trying to sell them a piece of shit on a
plate, they'd laugh in my face. If I produced documentation proving that the
plate had in fact been shat upon by Andy Warhol, it would suddenly be Art and
worth a fortune. If I revealed that I had faked the documentation, it would
suddenly be worthless again--unless the whole routine had attracted enough
attention for the art world to crown me a Designated Artist, in which case
anything I smeared shit on henceforth would become, by fiat, Art.

There is literally no quality intrinsic to the work itself that contributes to
its status as Art. Traditionally someone says "Hah, I could have made that,"
and someone else smiles smugly and says "Yes, but you didn't, did you?" The
thing is, it wouldn't matter if I had. I'm not an Artist, so wouldn't be Art.

Art is reduced to nothing more than a subset of Celebrity.

Richard Prince could print out this post and sell it for $50,000.

~~~
petercooper
This is not just true of art but even with businesses that get funded by VCs
or that make it into Y Combinator. The latest group dating or photo sharing
app might just be another dull piece of crap until it gets validated by the
celebrity of VCs or an accelerator.

~~~
firebones
What an idea: businesses as collectibles.

A baseball in the gift shop for $5 versus identical baseball that happened to
be Alex Rodriguez's 500th home run fetching $105,000.

It's not the nature of art, it's purchasing the story around it.

idlewords had a name for this: investor storytime. [1] All these examples have
less to do with whether something is or isn't "art" and more about whether the
mystique around the story appeals to someone who is willing to part with cash
to be part of that a story. A plate with shit is a plate with shit, but a
plate of shit with a story? Now you're talking.

[1]
[http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/internet_with_a_human_face.htm)

~~~
petercooper
I'd argue the send glitter to your enemies business was an example of business
as art/collectible. MillionDollarHomepage perhaps another example.

------
chrisBob
Anyone interested in Banksy but doesn't know much about him? Check out "Exit
Through the Gift Shop". About half way through it turns into the most
hilarious documentary I have ever seen.

~~~
serg_chernata
There's also a great documentary on HBO that follows Banksy's residency in NY.

~~~
stefantalpalaru
That one's a bit sad because it shows the local taggers defacing his stencils
shortly after they are in place.

~~~
acqq
Why not? That's the environment of these works.

~~~
KC8ZKF
Perhaps _that 's_ the idea. The defacement is supposed to happen, and we are
to feel sad about it.

~~~
Jtsummers

       I MET a Traveler from an antique land, 
       Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
       Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand, 
       Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, 
       And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 
       Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, 
       Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
       The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: 
       And on the pedestal these words appear: 
       "My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings." 
       Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair! 
       No thing beside remains. Round the decay 
       Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare, 
       The lone and level sands stretch far away.
    

\- _Ozymandias_ , Percy Bysshe Shelley

Everything we make is ephemeral, nothing will last. It will be transformed by
man or by nature. Either in its meaning or its form. And, ultimately, it will
fall to the elements.

EDIT: I recently learned that there's a second poem, this one by Horace Smith.
The two wrote their poems as a competition.

    
    
      IN Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, 
        Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws 
        The only shadow that the Desart knows:— 
      "I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone, 
        "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows 
      "The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,— 
        Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose 
      The site of this forgotten Babylon. 
    
      We wonder,—and some Hunter may express 
      Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness 
        Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, 
      He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess 
        What powerful but unrecorded race 
        Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
    

\- _Ozymandias_ , Horace Smith

~~~
nosuchthing
Pertinent on empherialness of art, politics, and existence:

"How Wang Fo Was Saved", by Marguerite Yourcenar & Animated by Rene Laloux
(animator of "La Planète Sauvage")

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbe_19I0vhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbe_19I0vhs)

~~~
WaxProlix
An odd thread for Hacker News, critiques of capitalism, poetry and reflection
upon the ephemeral nature of things and - more shocking yet - references to La
Planete Sauvage.

------
chestnut-tree
The UK's Channel 4 News has a good video report on Dismaland here (approx 6
mins):

 _Dismaland: inside Banksy’s dystopian playground_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wruEnynr1w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wruEnynr1w)

~~~
hristov
Cool. If he moves this to america I would love to apply for a job as a pissed
off usher.

------
dankohn1
If you're not already familiar with Banksy, this is my favorite piece from his
New York residency:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX54DIpacNE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX54DIpacNE)

And here is where the Simpsons had Banksy design their opening:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1iplQQJTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1iplQQJTo)

------
msoad
How Banksy still is anonymous with all this?

If you don't know him, checkout his website:
[http://banksy.co.uk/](http://banksy.co.uk/)

P.S: It's known that it's a "he". That's why I used "he" and "his"

~~~
misiti3780
one of the UK papers figured out who he was a few years ago. i know he didnt
officially admit it but if you read this article it is pretty clear they
actually did track him down (in my opinion anyways)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1034538/Graffiti-a...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1034538/Graffiti-
artist-Banksy-unmasked---public-schoolboy-middle-class-suburbia.html)

~~~
WaxProlix
Not a lot of credibility to the daily mail; it could be right, but they just
outright make shit up sometimes. It's basically a tabloid.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Er, it is quite literally a tabloid. No basically about it. It's not a
broadsheet.

------
petercooper
The point I've taken away from Dismaland is how most theme parks are _already_
Dismaland.

Think of what would make for an awful theme park: high price to enter, long
queues everywhere, screaming kids, highly priced low quality food, security
checks, a constant push to buy crap.. that's _already_ what we allow to pass
as a theme park, yet people willingly sign up to enter.

------
qq66
Interesting to see how well-made some of these pieces are. The overturned
horse and the killer whale look very high quality. I wonder how Banksy
produces these and maintains his or her anonymity, as the pieces look like
they are the work of large teams of professionals.

~~~
riffraff
I think it's been definitely shown he actually has (is?) a large team of
professionals, if you watch "exit through the gift shop" you will see the
setup for some of the works which uses many different people.

------
ctrijueque
Two other links with photos and a excerpt of an interview with Banksy about
the park.

[http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/preview-inside-banksy-s-
dism...](http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/preview-inside-banksy-s-dismaland-
tropicana-weston-super-mare)

[http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/october-2015-banksy-s-
dismal...](http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/october-2015-banksy-s-dismaland-
exclusive-interview)

------
dismal2
Hasn't this already been covered on this season of Bojack Horseman?

------
zemanel
I worked in Bristol between last and this year. Sometime around August maybe
last year on a Monday morning, as i was having a work break outside the
building, i looked over the corner and a new Bansky was on the wall (girl with
the earing). In the afternoon, a wave of admirers was already rolling in. By
tuesday, someone had already dafaced the piece, by splashing black ink over
some parts of it.

~~~
jkestner
I guess I'd prefer the defacement to the aforementioned chopping off to turn
into sellable art.

~~~
zemanel
I think that in the end it may not matter; if i had to classify "real" art and
was thinking clearly, i'd say "real" art is the message that the piece
carries, as the piece itself is just wood, stone, ink or whatever, can be
defaced, taken off a wall and sold to a rich guy's living room wall whereas
the message is intangible.

So i guess censorship would actually be the worst case.

Ps. This line of thought relates to some of the other comments in these
threads ("... [T]here's no protesting capitalism. There's nothing you can say
about capitalism that it won't subsume and sell back to you."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10093768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10093768))

------
andy_ppp
Things really are getting worse for most people now. Something that maybe we
aren't used to as technologists in our little bubbles away from the rest of
the economy.

Dismaland is not even satire, it's a reflection of what is really happening as
the rich try to prop up a system that looks like its about to fail again...
buy gold and bitcoin.

------
sprkyco
Really wish he would pull something like this stateside at Lake Dolores:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Dolores_Waterpark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Dolores_Waterpark)

------
kzhahou
Absolutely beautiful work. Love it.

At the same time, though, as a commentary by the acclaimed Banksy, isn't
"Disneyland is over-commercialized hell" a cliched theme at this point?

~~~
antod
I'm no art critic, but I suspect Disneylands commercialism is not the target
of the commentary at all (more likely the direction of modern society or 21st
century Britain or something like that), it is just the physical manifestation
or visual theme of that commentary.

A bit like how the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man is not really a deity, but the
physical manifestation of Gozer the Gozerian. You miss the point somewhat if
you concentrate on the marshmellow.

------
werber
Looks cool, but god damn it's redundant.

~~~
Sven7
I don't know. Seems a bit timely.

Bob Iger of Disney this week has said, that they are at a point with their
content/merch/theme parks etc able to "burn out" the entire consuming
population of the country if they wanted too...

Imagine what that overoptimized machine can do in a few years from now.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Maybe Bob should just Let It Go.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
... into the vault for 25 years.

------
chad_strategic
Well played, Mr. Banksy, well played. (golf clap)

