A new bold and evocative public work of art from Banksy

Banksy Scaled the Prison That Once Jailed Oscar Wilde to Paint His Latest Mural, by Sarah Rose Sharp, Hyperalleric.com, March 5, 2021

Banksy confirmed the artwork in a clever video stitched together with a Bob Ross tutorial.

Blockbuster street artist Banksy has laid claim to his latest work of public art — an olde tyme prison escape stenciled on the wall of the defunct HM Reading Prison in Reading, Berkshire, England. The prison, also known as Reading Gaol, was built in 1844 and operated until early 2014. Until this week, it was perhaps most famous for housing writer Oscar Wilde during a two-year imprisonment (1895-1897) after a conviction for “gross indecency.” Following his release, Wilde published The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a poem that narrates the 1896 hanging of Charles Thomas Woodridge, convicted of murdering his wife.

The Banksy mural features a figure in prison stripes and a cap. He appears to be climbing down the exterior brick wall on a rope ladder instead of a ream of paper, anchored by a typewriter. The image is likely an allusion to Wilde as Reading’s famous inmate and his subsequent poetic work that both documents Woodridge’s hanging while also identifying with him as a fellow prisoner.

Watch the Instagram video:

The artist left his work open to speculation for a few days before taking to Instagram with a video documenting the mural’s clandestine application, with narration supplemented by overlay from Bob Ross’s famous public access painting program, The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. The audio selections first seem to merely narrate the creation of the mural, details of which are captured in the tight halo of the artist’s headlamp, but once we cut to shots of the mural in full view the following day, the audio clips telegraph the artist’s statement on the work. Read the whole article here.

Here’s a creative prescription for managing your medical bills.

Oversized hospital bill paintings sold to pay off medical debts, by Oscar Holland, CNN, October 5, 2020

An art collective has come up with a novel way of paying off three people’s medical debt: turning their hospital bills into huge paintings and selling them to collectors for thousands of dollars.

The paintings were sold for the same amount owed on each bill, with the money used to pay off the applicants’ medical debts. Credit: MSCHF

New York-based MSCHF, which is known for its irreverent art projects, identified Americans with sizable medical debt, including one with a bill for over $47,000. The group then hand-painted the invoices on 6-foot-tall canvases and sold them on the art market for precisely the amount owed.

Beyond settling these individuals’ debts with the money generated, the artists aim to make a wider commentary about the US health care system. Over 137 million people in the United States reported medical financial hardship, a 2019 study found.

Read more here.

r/Place, an incredible 2017 reddit experiment with a simple premise and strict parameters, stands out for the spirit of challenge and community it ignited. It brought the best of collaborative street art into the heart of the digital realm, it earned its place in the annals of internet culture, and it’s worth revisiting and remembering. Here’s how it went down, through the eyes of one very engaged participant.

(If you’re unfamiliar with reddit, here’s a pretty good primer.)

“The story of r/Place. As told by a foot soldier for r/Mexico.”
By Arturo Gutierrez
ART + Marketing
April 3, 2017

I’m sure other historians can tell you who was the first. Others much more knowledgeable than me who can pinpoint where exactly in the vast Canvas did the cursors of hundreds aimed themselves into a singular area, and willed order out of the chaos. But I’m not the one to tell.

Instead, what I saw as a bystander that April 1st was the emergence of life, color, and memes of all sizes and kinds growing almost by magic. And as the hours passed, as I laid a pixel here, waited, and laid another pixel there, the whole Canvas evolved and grew between each of my visits. It was an amazing sight to behold. An inspiring feat of human ingenuity, humor, and improvised politics in slow motion.

Yes, that’s right. For even in these early hours, even before the dedicated subreddits, the forums, Discord channels and massive bot armies of the later days, a silent, wordless body of politics was being established right before our eyes. Read more.

The Hippie Bus Tour To Queens revisited…

Before Banksy: Art pranksters and provocateurs who Banksy’d us first
by Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta
ANC news.abs-cbn.com
October 10, 2018

As that cynical adage goes, It’s all been done before. But at least in the art world, each prank takes on a wildly different form

Banky’s latest stunt at a Sotheby’s auction (a self-destructing artwork automated to shred itself after being sold) recalled other art pranksters who played the system with the same wink wink nudge nudge kind of subversion. There’s a joke that’s being played and it’s not on the artist—which means it’s on whoever believes that the numbers on a price tag equate to the value of a work of art. Other pranksters have also poked fun at institutions that house high art (what is high art anyway?), or at spectators of art who don’t know what art is. Here are a few stunning and smug indictments of all of us art heathens.

Harvey Stromberg’s Stickers

In 1971, Harvey Stromberg wad described by the New York Times as a “photographer, or a media manipulator, or a self-made chance factor, or a guerilla artist or a fraud. All of the above. None of the above.” This description set the tone for how he was regarded in the art world.

One prank he famously pulled was a photographic “exhibit” at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) where he made exact-to-scale photographs of utility objects—light switches, alarm buzzers, bricks, and keyholes, among other things. Using double-sided tape, Stromberg stuck these photographs in spaces it was customary to find them. It was described as the “longest-running one-man photo exhibit,” as it took museum personnel all of two years to discover and remove the stickers. The “show” ran hitchless for two years so Stromberg threw in another prank. He decided it was time to officially “open” the exhibit at the MOMA—complete with formal invitations to both guests and media. If MOMA administrators treated the opening nonchalantly, it would encourage other such pranks; if they treated it as a criminal offense, it would cheapen their position as champions of conceptual art.

Joey Skaggs and “The Hippie Bus Tour to Queens”

Joey Skaggs and his East Village “hippie” friends would be gawked at as city curiosities by bridge and tunnel people—so he decided to change the narrative and turn the show around. In 1968, he rented a Greyhound bus and took 60 hippies to Queens where they could take snapshots of, and gawk at, normal people going about their typical, suburban preoccupations. “Look, it’s someone mowing the lawn!,” one can imagine one of the passengers saying, or “Look it’s a man washing his car!” or even “Why’s the plumber taking so long at Mrs. Robinson’s house?”

Read the rest of this article here.

Don’t get mad get even. Interlochen Center for the Arts prankees prank back… with a flourish.

Art Prank At Museum Fundraiser Goes Viral
by Beth Milligan
Traverse Ticker
Feb. 27, 2018

Instructors in the Visual Arts department at Interlochen Center for the Arts stole the spotlight at the Great Lakes Children’s Museum A-Ha! Fundraiser this weekend with a prank on one of their colleagues – a stunt that went viral on the Internet.

Mindy Ronayne and Megan Hildebrandt, both Interlochen instructors and members of the Great Lakes Children’s Museum board, snuck a last-minute addition into the fundraiser’s silent auction Saturday. The duo submitted a parody painting inspired by a famous portrait of Gerard Andriesz Bicker, painted by the Dutch artist Bartholomeus Van Der Helst in the 17th century and exhibited at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The head on the parody painting was of Andy Schmitt, director of information technology at Interlochen. The bid card for the painting read:

Portrait of Andrea D. Schmitty: First President of the Grand Traverse Feline Association and sister-in-law of Ann, the wife of lumber baron and Father of Traverse City, Perry Hannah. Andrea was also a successful game hunter and lifelong advocate in the fight to stop the cat skinning trade. Widely known as a tinkering enthusiast.

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Artist JR’s massive photo of a baby peers into the U.S. from the Mexican side of the border.

Giant portrait of toddler peers over US-Mexico border wall
by Julie Watson
AP
September 9, 2017

TECATE, Calif. (AP) - A photo of a giant toddler stands in Mexico and peers over a steel wall dividing the country from the United States.

The boy appears to grip the barrier with his fingers, leaving the impression the entire thing could be toppled with a giggle.

A French artist who goes by the moniker "JR" erected the cut-out of the boy that stands nearly 65 feet (20 meters) tall and is meant to prompt discussion of immigration.

On Friday, a steady stream of people drove to the remote section of wall near the Tecate border crossing, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southeast of San Diego. Border Patrol agents warned visitors to keep the dirt road clear for their patrols and not pass anything through the fence. Read the rest of this article here.

At least we hope it’s him!

Special guests join the writers and editors of Atlas Obscura for a totally authentic variety show!

Atlas Obscura LIVE! Imposters

DATE
Thursday, September 14, 2017

Nobody expected to see a whale beached along the Seine last Friday…

“Elaborate ‘Dead Whale' Stunt Takes Parisians By Surprise”
by Nina Golgowski
Huffington Post
July 23, 2017

It wasn't a sight for the fainthearted.

On Friday, Parisians woke to find a massive sperm whale beached along the river Seine, drawing some shock and concern from some passersby.

Fortunately for animal lovers, the giant carcass, which was seen being tended to by people in white jumpsuits, was a fake — though the object of a very real concern.

Belgian artist collective Captain Boomer, which took responsibility for the stirring display, said they carried out the performance art to raise awareness about the beaching of whales and dolphins and how humans play a role.

To assist in delivering this message, artists dressed up like forensic scientists and pretended to perform tests on the animal while others interacted with the public. (more…)

The Story of the ‘Portofess,' the Prank Confessional Booth at the 1992 Democratic Convention
by Sarah Laskow
Atlas Obscura
July 14, 2017

Artist Joey Skaggs fooled everyone and pedaled off.

At 1992's Democratic National Convention, a Dominican priest showed up on a tricycle. Attached to the back was a confessional booth, with a sign that read "Portofess." The priest said he biked to New York, where the convention was held, all the way from California. The church, according to the priest, needed to take a "more aggressive stance and go where the sinners are." He was ready to take confession from any politician who wanted or needed it.

The Portofess made papers all over the country. But soon enough Reuters revealed that the Archdiocese in California had never heard of this priest, who called himself Father Anthony Joseph or, sometimes, Father William. All other efforts to find him after the convention failed, as well, because he wasn't a priest at all, but a character conceived by artist and activist Joey Skaggs, who has perfected the art of pranking the media.

Skaggs's works include "Fish Condos" for upwardly mobile guppies, "Santa's Missile Tow," which featured Santa and his elves bringing a missile to the United Nations, and many other sculptures and performances. He talked to Atlas Obscura about what it took to create the Portofess and what reactions he got from the police, protestors, and the public. Read the full interview here.

In what reads like a pitch for an art film or a postmodern fever dream, journalist Carey Dunne goes on a thoughtful search for the story behind artist Maurizio Cattelan’s “epic troll,” a solid gold toilet named “America”.

“Waiting To Pee in ‘America,’ the Gold Toilet at the Guggenheim”
by Carey Dunne
Hyperallergic
September 23, 2016

While waiting in line to pee in “America,” a toilet cast in 18-karat gold and installed in a Guggenheim Museum bathroom, I ran into my friend Fritz Mead, who lives in a shack he built himself out of scrap wood in a backyard next to a skate bowl he also built himself. The shack doesn”™t have plumbing, so to use a working toilet he has to leave his shack and go into the basement apartment next door.

Given his apparent ambivalence about plumbing “” let alone luxury plumbing “” I was surprised to see Fritz waiting to use the gold toilet, which is the work of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. Estimated to be worth as much as $2.5 million, “America” (which opened at the Guggenheim last week), will remain installed in an otherwise ordinary fourth floor bathroom for a year. (When asked exactly how much the toilet cost, a guard said, “If you have to ask, you already know,” a riddle I am still trying to solve.)

Cattelan “intends visitors to use the toilet just as they would any other facility in the building,” according to the wall text. It gets special treatment, though: only one visitor is allowed inside the stall at a time, for no more than five minutes; the toilet seat must not be lifted; a security guard inspects the toilet after each visit; and a cleaning crew cleans it with a special gold-cleaning product every 20 minutes. The wait time when I visited was two hours.

Read the rest of the story here.

“JR at The Louvre” at Musée du Louvre, Paris from May 25 – June 28, 2016, presented by French Street Artist JR

This Summer, the Louvre”™s Pyramid Will “Disappear”
By Erin Blakemore
Smithsonian.com
March 15, 2016

A French street artist promises a tantalizing trick of the eye

I.M. Pei”™s grand pyramid brought controversy, modernity and a new entrance to the Louvre. But is it time for the pyramid to disappear? Kind of: As Henri Neuendorf reports for artnet News, a French artist will eliminate the pyramid through a mind-bending optical illusion this summer. Read the full story here.

Reddit user Jazus ur lookin well starts new selfie trend:

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March 30, 2014: Pranks and Hoaxes, produced by Wisconsin Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International, presents an interview with Joey Skaggs called Art of the Hoax – Joey Skaggs.

Listen here

From Deborah, Michael, & Toni:

Banksy’s month long New York show “Better Out Than In” continues. Here’s work found in the streets from October 11-14, 2013.

October 14, 2013, Queens

Says Banksy:

Some people criticize me for using sources that are a bit low brow (this quote is from ‘Gladiator’) but you know what? “I’m just going to use that hostility to make me stronger, not weaker” as Kelly Rowland said on the X Factor.

October 13, 2013, Banksy originals sold for $60 each in Central Park

Want to know who bought them and how much they were worth? Read about it here.

October 12, 2013, Concrete Confessional (more…)

From Marcy LaViollette: Banksy has taken up residency on the streets of NYC for the month of October, 2013

From Banksy’s Better Out Than In Website:

October 6 – No posts today due to shocking footage found on YouTube:

October 5

A New York delivery truck converted into a mobile garden (includes rainbow, waterfall and butterflies) will visit a different location every evening from dusk.

Images found around town (some have already been tagged over) from October 2nd & 3rd: (more…)