My Favorite Criminal or My Favorite Artist

The reason I think this post is important is because it is about art. Yes that's right art. I will be the first to admit that Art is boring as hell, well at least the majority of it is. But add crime, scandal, urban culture, scathing social commentary, and a little bit of wicked humor and Art becomes more than just Art. It can become a social movement. 

"Millennials" as my generation has been termed by some have really not had a good counterculture movement. Nothing that holds a candle to the sexual revolution or so called "hippy culture" that encompassed the anti-war movement, radical leftist movements, and the drug subculture.  After another decade and a half or so Punk culture began to develop and with it hardcore culture, skinhead culture (not all of these are positive nessecarily) straightedge etc.

Okay bear with me at this point and don't spout any of that "punks not dead" bullshit at me because it is.  What cool subculture is still out there screwing with the establishment? We "Millenials" don't have much but we do have "Street Art" (Disclaimer here: Like all countercultures there is no definite genesis point. I am not an expert on this subject, just a fan. Street Art has been around for a long time but it seems to be becoming more popular or at least gaining more publicity and more mainstream acceptability).

Street Art is crazy, it turns the world onto its head. When you as the consumer pirate an album, you get the music for free and you break the law, you are stealing from the artist.  When you see a street art piece, its free, but the artist more often than not is the one that broke the law.  They are breaking the law to bring art to you, so you can look at it for free. Its altruistic crime and it kinda makes my head hurt to think about it.  

Of course I can't really get involved in street art because I have no talent but I still want to support the hell out of these guys.  My favorite street artist goes by the alias "Banksy"  

You can read about Banksy here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy or you can let me paraphrase it for you.

Banksy may be named Robert or Robin Banks, or he may be named Robin Gunningham.  The mystery of the identity is part of what makes the dude so interesting to me.  According to his agent they have never even met face to face. 

Banksy started out doing freehand graffiti, but long story short it took too long so he switched to stencils and a legend was born.  This guy isn't doing graffiti for gang related reasons, he does it to make statements about society, some of his statements are simple, some are obscure, and some are just completely ridiculous.

 
This next picture is particularly cool because it was done in the Gaza strip where israel has erected a massive wall to isolate Arab citizens.

Here is one of his sculptures that he left in the street. I think it was given to a museum after it was removed by the authorities:

This though is one of my favorites: the picture will not really do much for you so let me provide some backstory via Wikipedia:

In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up"  -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy 

 Here are a couple more of my favorites:

A piece in Bethlehem:

The next few pieces were smuggled into various art museums (the Tate Britain Gallery, The British Museum The American Museum of Natural History and last but not least the f-ing Louvre. Yes thats right the place where they store the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, etc.) and then installed covertly by Banksy:

 

I hope that I might have got you interested enough in street art and Banksy to watch this movie when it comes out. I hope to see it as soon as it gets within a 3 hour drive of my house. 
This film is about Banksy is going to be capital "A" Amazing. Its called Exit Through the Gift Shop, Go see it.