- its not about taste, its about public space and the ownership of the visual environment. what banksy does the equivalent of a mammal rubbing his scent glands up against trees. before he did this piece, that wall was a neutral surface which didn’t jostle for space (either visually or politically), and in a city as cluttered as london, that can be important. now its a big bit of ‘banksyworld’ and i don’t care for it. i feel the same way about many billboards, all tv screens on buses, on the underground and so on.

and of course everyone’s part of the system - it’s just some of us have different ways of expressing our opposition to it (or not) in more nuanced ways. have a look at joseph beuys’s 7000 oaks for another approach, and for how to get things done. i know he’s a different sort of artist by the way, but banksy’s stock is very high and he could be doing much more imaginitive stuff.

i would lay a weeks wages on banksy having shopped in tescos, used cashpoints (he has to put all that money in a bank somewhere) and he’d certainly be up for the police using CCTV evidence if he was mugged on oxford street. all stuff he uses in his work.

i don’t have a problem with his stance, but i do have a problem with his double standards, and his work being such one-liners, with a touch of cynicism for good measure…

Graffiti is good if it’s done well or makes you think, obviously “liam waz ere” scribbled on a toilet door is pathetic and ugly, but there’s a lot of really good artists out there and I believe graffiti is a form of art, even if it is vandalism, atleast it’s better than looking at a boring grey wall.

It is destructive to society. It makes the world an uglier place. People become afraid, offended, and apathetic about their environment.

that post office compound is round the corner from me, and to be honest i think this makes the place look more shitty than it did before. he’s pushed as a radical who speaks to the man on the street, but the truth is he made his name working in a very small, very fashionable area of london, populated by artists and media types who swoop in when they spot somewhere with ‘cred’ (and where they can make plenty of money on their apartments). he’s as an integral part of ‘the system’ (by which i mean the market forces he critiques) and relies upon it as much as anyone to sell their product.

their are many ways to articulate your protest against things in public spaces - a brief tour of 20th (and 21st) century art will throw up multiple examples of artists vastly more eloquent and interesting…