E-Learning Corgi focuses on distance training and education, from instructional design to e-learning and mobile solutions, and pays attention to psychological, social, and cultural factors. The edublog emphasizes real-world e-learning issues and appropriate uses of emerging technologies. Susan Smith Nash is the Corgi's assistant.
The mysterious artist known as Banksy has surfaced again, this time in detailed reviews of his work and claims about his true identity.
Banksy, whose distinctive stencil art has expressed potent political commentary as well as whimsical representations of human emotions, dreams, and the human condition, has achieved legendary status in Britain. Popular opinion puts him at a level more popular that Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and others.
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His anonymity and method of street painting, legally deemed defacement, vandalism, and public disorder, and the virtual lack of legal repercussions have provoked some critics to ask why Banksy gets a pass, and other street artists get fines and jail time.
Banksy mural produced on the walls of the Royal Courts of Justice Building in London after 900 people were jailed after protesting attacks on Gaza
The quest to solve the mystery of Banksy's identity has been hotly pursued by many investigators; but just as fiercely obfuscated by those who are likely to know the true identity. After all, Banksy can't work in a vacuum; his street art is often a production requiring a three-person team to execute the production hauling scaffolding, paint, stencils, and transportation so that the work is done in a virtual blink of an eye.
Producing this art on the side of a 20+-story building requires a crew working rapid-fire like a race car drivers pit crew.
Further, Banksy must have agents and promoters, along with an adept (even if often unused) legal team.
According to an extensive Reuters report (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-art-banksy/), there are three main contenders for the identity of Banksy. Perhaps the most stunning and surprising is the lead musician in the trip-hop group, Massive Attack (most famously responsible for the intro music in the popular television series, House).
Banksy, Love Is in the Air
Robert Del Naja, a stencil artist in his own right, has famously stated that he is not Banksy; he's better than Banksy. That seems like a very Banksy-esque statement, given the games, sense of identity, and the clear blend of political messaging along with deconstructive and anarchist philosophy that gird up his work with a firm foundation of ideas about identity, consumer culture, late-stage capitalism, and power vis-a-vis the arbiters of taste and cultural "value."
Some of Banksy's most recent and also most risky works are located on the walls of buildings in Ukraine, bombed by the Russian army. While they do make statements about war, its impact on everyday people and life, and the assault on innocence, in this case, exploitation rears its ugly head. It may be a protest against war, but it's impossible to deny that there would be much less impact if the images were stenciled on walls in a British city. Location, location, location.
Banksy stencil art on the walls of a bombed-out apartment building in Kyiv.
Yes, location matters. Other people's misery make a great backdrop for a whimsical or political statement by an artist whose works can command millions of dollars (even $25 million for a half-shredded "Girl with Balloon" stencil, now renamed "Love Is in the Bin"), who lives unmolested by air strikes, in warm, heated rooms far from the dark, unheated bombed out flats where food and water are an ongoing interrogatory. Perhaps the exploitation itself is a part of the artist's performance. If the goal is to provoke a complex and annoying gallimaufry of emotions, it works.
Love Is in the Bin, Banksy. Sold for $25 million.
I say "gallimaufry" quite deliberately because "gallimaufry" is a stew of anything one has available; in Britain, it would be hearty. In Ukraine, it would be a dry blend of concrete dust, glass shards, and bullet casings.
