Fran Lebowitz is right: the products of repression and self-hatred are artistically superior to the products of freedom and self-actualization. I mean: Vincent Van Gogh vs LeRoy Neiman. Case closed.
So this is what architects do in their spare time, when they’re not being paid to create soul-killing, fast-buck developments of appalling vulgarity that stain the surface of the Earth merely by existing:
Banksy has left Louisiana and is headed north, stenciling and skewering as he goes. Here he strings up the KKK outside Birmingham, Alabama.
Supertouch has the story:
British street artist BANKSY has been on a southern road trip of late, starting in a pre-Gustav New Orleans before moving on to ALABAMA where he paid homage to the great white powers-that-be with his stenciled image of a hung KKK member on an abandoned gas station. Taking matters into their own hands yesterday, irate locals broke out their own spray cans to let the world know what they think of a snotty English street artist pointin’ fingers at their good ole boys. Too bad they didn’t realize that simply cutting out the stencil & selling it on eBay would have been the sweetest revenge.
But like I said on the comments over there, by doing this the thin-skinned knuckle-walkers of Birmingham have given Banksy two news cycles instead of just one, illustrated his point with their own repressive actions, and turned a static work of art into a piece of social-engineered, community-based performance art, with themselves playing the trained monkeys.
Nice work, Birmingham!
And here’s what a local has to say about it. Turns out the owner of the gas station is a black guy who really liked the work:
I went down to Birmingham from Nashville Monday night to check this out…it’s not everyday something like this is happens so close. Got to the site around 11:30pm (not a good idea in that neighborhood that late!) only to discover that the piece had just been painted over. The paint was still drying…I was gutted.
So…we went back Tuesday morning to get a better look. We ended up sticking around for pretty much the entire afternoon. There was a steady flow of the people in the neighborhood stopping by to check it out as well as those tipped off by sites like this. It was really amazing to see the range of responses that this piece evoked. Some people saw it as death to racism…other just saw it as hate. As one local said…”Hate breeds hate”…it didn’t matter to him who was hanging from the noose…all he saw was hate. Overall…it really sparked some great conversations between people who probably never would have stopped to talk if it weren’t for this piece. Love it or hate it…I think the piece did it’s job.
While we were there…we had started talking to and older African-American man who ended up being the property owner. He had seen the image the day before and had come back to take video of the place – only to find it painted over. He understood the painting and appreciated the quality of work…but he had no idea what he was dealing with…so I got to fill him in and explain why so many people were coming by to take pictures.
Long story short…in an effort to protect this image from further damage or from disappearing altogether…I told him he might want to take the piece down himself. Not sure if I’ll get some flack for that on this site…but I thought it was the right thing to do. So…my friend and I ended hanging out with this amazing gentleman for the day and helped him remove the work. He did let us each keep one of the blank grey panels…so I guess I can say I own an original Banksy! HA!
Anyways…I told him I told him I’d help out and try to get an idea of what something like this could fetch if being sold. Any feedback would be great! I’d also be curious to know if anyone thinks there is any restoration that can be done. I’m not thinking there is…but I thought I’d ask.
and pictures of the sad de-Banksyfication of the site.
So.
So, the idea is: SWARM is a night when a large group of artist-run Vancouver galleries cooperate for once and have openings and parties on the same night, featuring local artists. Pictures on Flickr here.
So. Here in Zone Two, otherwise known as the Downtown EastSide, we had 13 galleries participating, and the Fearless City project sent teams out to each of the galleries to capture people’s reactions to the art and post them via SMS to a Twitter clone called SIFT which civilians can think of as just a place where all the text messages got filed one after the others.
You text your reactions to art: simple.
Oh yeah, and we had a repurposed shopping cart roving the streets packed to the gills with high-tech batteries, powering in order of importance a laptop which was managing the anarchy insofar as it could be managed AND a 48″ screen on which were displayed all of the messages as they came in unfiltered and in real time or as real as text messaging can get.
For realz.
The # codes are codes for which gallery the message originated from. From which the message originated.
Whatever.
Will link these up later if I’m not too lazy.
And now, to the transcript in REVERSE chronological order, as I am too lazy to flip this all around. And this is what it looked like, entirely unfiltered.
#as Reagan, please!
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:42 by Anonymous
#
Horse pussy is much tighter than female
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:35 by Anonymous
#
#pg muse needs more interesting projects. Andrew salgado rocks.
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:30 by Anonymous
#
Wheres the graveyard party at sorry!
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:16 by Anonymous
#
You are the best – don’t stop ‘011
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:10 by Anonymous
#
I lub you artists- keep doing your thang! DTES Forever – masala mario
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:06 by Anonymous
#
Oh yea
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:04 by Anonymous
#
Lotussss
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:03 by Anonymous
#
Where is the party at ??
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:03 by Anonymous
#
I have never felt so embowered
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:03 by Anonymous
#
Hey did I’d keel
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:03 by Anonymous
#
Swarmmmmmmmmmm
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:03 by Anonymous
#
This is addictive!!!!
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:02 by Anonymous
#
Mobile swarmin till the morn
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:01 by Anonymous
#
I came, i saw, then i came again.
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:00 by Anonymous
#
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:00 by Anonymous
#
#gg just let it out. Whatever that means to you.
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 23:00 by Anonymous
#
I love my thumbs!!!!!
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:56 by Anonymous
#
Best thing I’ve seen tonight!!!
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:56 by Anonymous
#
Big sad faces and empty spaces….what does that say about us?
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:56 by Anonymous
#
#as what’s happening at the after party?
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:55 by Anonymous
#
J Dilla never sounded better
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:48 by Anonymous
#
Yay gachet!
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:47 by Anonymous
#
You are in the middle of the opus, right now.
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:46 by Anonymous
#
#gg We are the barbarians and our love for art and culture can’t hide that
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:44 by Anonymous
#
#iu why should i care?
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:41 by Anonymous
#
Ac
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:39 by Anonymous
#
#gg I am standing right behind u
— Fri, 09/05/2008 – 22:34 by Anonymous
#
Continue reading
Mobile SWARM is tonight. Since the backstage section of the project started thirty seconds ago, I don’t really have time to explain. The project itself starts at 7pm Pacific Time and goes till 10. You can see it live here:
And if any of you technical genii know how to hook that up to a Prologue themed blog on an independent install using WordPress technology, or push it to a blog at Fearless City via RSS or something (that one’s Drupal), or hook it up with a Twitter feed (either mine or a brand new one) please put the details in the comments here.
It was Lisanti that started it, on Twitter. Cultural phenomena used to start in Rome and were carried, over the course of years, to the outer reaches of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Now they start on Twitter.
Sic transit Gloria I didn’t know Gloria took public transit, now where was I?
Oh yes, talking about decadence and cultural devolution and short attention spans. And Twits. Tweets. Whatevers.
@lianamaeby Have you considered the possibility that Jason Schwartzman is fucking atop your building’s dryer?
He sez. And he goes on, all unashamed-like:
It occurred to me that some of you may not be interested in who might be fucking atop @lianamaeby dryer.But I say dryer-humping is beautiful.
It is at this point that I recall hazily that it was on Lisanti‘s watch that Defamer posted the notorious Peer Pressure video. Peer Pressure? you ask, or you do if you’re not too undercaffeinated to recognize a cue when you see one. Peer Pressure, the glorious YouTube record of the Pathetic, Skeezy, Gangsta-Lite, Ottoman Gang-Banging Empire.
This:
Previously, of course, there was the brain-scarring Chachi Loves Couches incident, of which we shall not speak. It is still too painful.
And where has it gone from there? From the obviously diseased mind of a broken and twisted blogger, cast aside by Technorati and wandering now in the wilds of Tumblr, where the tumblrweeds are all following one another. Also: size queen!
Which he stole from BrianVan.
But now the meme (I said meme; shoot me if you must) has broken free of its moorings and is careening about the memosphere, infecting all in its path. First Silverstar, then Az:
Where will it end???
Boston?
Even the Germans?
raincoaster 