I’ve been a big fan of Banksy‘s work for years now. If you don’t know who he is, good. That’s the point. He’s tried to remain anonymous for a long time, perpetrating what many consider vandalism, what other – like myself – consider street art. I’m not going to get entirely into his history right now, but some of his work has become entirely iconic and his the act of posting them incredibly buzzworthy. For example, you may have heard of the guy who was hanging his own paintings in several museums when no one was looking. Some remained up for hours, others days before anyone noticed that they didn’t belong with the other classics.
Today on NYmag.com I read an article about his latest major statement. Apparently England has been installing a large number of closed circuit surveilance cameras and many people are getting the “big brother” feel from always having a watchful lens pointed their way. Over the weekend, Banksy put up three stories worth of scaffolding, under which he painted a massive message and two figures onto the wall, all under the eye of one of these cameras. When he removed the scaffolding, the work was revealed – on the side of a post office. It’s his biggest work of “vandalism” to date and I think it’s pretty brilliant.
What do you think?