Art: Banksy - World's Best Artist?

Arrrgh! How can I say someone is the world's best artist - it's totally subjective! Well I'm saying it and you all can just kiss my grits if you don't like it. Better yet, nominate me someone else. Banksy just put 5 new pieces up in New Orleans to commemorate Hurricane Katrina or as history will call it - the great Bush Clusterfuck (part 12) of 05. They are typically brilliant - what would one expect from the mysterious best artist in the world?

Street Art: Turning Ads Into Art NY Style -- Phantom Cut And Paster Hits The Subway

By Noah Mallin

Readers of this blog (Hi Mom!) know that I'm a fan of clever art in public spaces (Ala anonymous Brit graffiti artist/sculptor/prankster Banksy). Blog And I Am Not Lying
has great pics of this mystery found artist's work (including the ones seen here), currently in subway stations now. Dig the Iran = Nam piece made out of the raw material of a big-budget Hollywood ad campaign above. Iron Man posters are a speciality of this phantom:


A trenchant commentary on recent baseball developments:

Mmm, cut and pastey goodness makes me feel a disturbance in the force:

Art: Banksy Revealed -- Is This Man One of The Great Artists of Our Time?

Cell Phone pic of the man who may be the elusive Banksy

Banksy may or may not be a great artist -- I think he ranks among the best. He certainly has been one of the most elusive. Exploding the notion of officially sanctioned "public" and "private" art has meant that he has kept his identity tightly under wraps as he stencils his work on local walls, sidewalks, and billboards around the world but mostly in his home base of the UK. Often his work is lucky to last longer than a few days before being cleaned off or painted over as graffiti. Recently an alert citizen spotted him putting up a new work in East London where he extended the double yellow line in the street into a flower before adding an image of the satisfied "artist" nearby.


Here is an article from the Times online on Banksy's "outing". Here's the Independent's article debating his merits. And here are a few of my favorite Banksy's:

The above is on the dividing wall in Palestine.




Banksy slapped these stickers on Paris Hilton's album in a few record stores on the day of its release.


On the side of a posh apartment tower.



Issues of privacy and surveillance are central to Banksy's work.