Then Statistically, I've Failed

There is an audio statement which is read from Banksy in this post, in it he makes the statement, "If I have even only inspired one kid to pick up a can of spray paint and create art, after all this effort, then statistically, I've failed".....

The Banality of the Banality of Evil
Banksy 2013

The NewYork Housing Works is a Charity Organization that funds AIDS research and support. They have a number of "Thrift Shops" in lower Manhattan. In early October, a hooded customer bought a rather banal landscape painting off the walls for 50 Bucks. 2 weeks later, the painting was redonated back to the organization in a slightly altered state and signed by the Artist, Banksy. He requested that the painting be auctioned off and the proceeds to go to their charitable AIDS work. They did it and the 50 buck piece of mass produced art was resold for $615,000.00! To me this is so cool on so many levels...Concept becomes a gesture which becomes a physical social reality. This alone is why Banksy is one of the greatest graphic conceptualists of our era. He managed to have a "residency" in NYC with out once showing his face, without once making any physical manifestation beyond the art, which in most cases was totally disposable and he made a bigger impact than any artist or political activist could hope to have achieved in the same time span, with out a PR Machine...

In a lot of ways, a century after my conceptual/intellectual art hero, Marcel Duchamp broke down the barriers between idea and gesture, it took someone like Banksy, about a century later, who evolved from graffitti street art to take it to the next step.

This is Banksy's statement about his month long "residency" in New York.

I suppose it is fitting that this last piece, a physical homage/manifestation of the graffiti cliche of bubble lettering ends with the NYC Police physically subduing the perpetrators and destroying the art which was being mounted on an abandoned building in Queens is so perfect. It also gives an eloquent statement on the nature of street art.Outside is where art should live: among us. And rather than street art being a fad, maybe it’s the last thousand years of art history that are the blip, when art came inside, in service of the church and institutions. But art’s rightful place is on the cave walls of our communities, where it can act as a public service, provoke debate, voice concerns, forge identities.

As of 12:00PM, some guy is trying to take the piece. “He’s stumped and can’t figure out how to take it down,” says ANIMAL’s Aymann Ismail.
And as of 12:40, it’s gone. The cops have loaded it into the back of a van, and arrested the guys who took it down (apparently for trespassing), but not before one of them got punched in the chin by a Banksy fan.

(Photo: Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork)