Art For Art’s Sake

I have no feelings either way about the artist Banksy, whoever he, she or, more likely, they are. When more of his graffiti appears on a wall somewhere in Bristol, my initial reaction is one of ‘Meh’. But many people do, including overseas tourists who come to gaze at his ‘artwork’. As a born and bred Bristolian, I don’t really understand what it has got to do with me.

Some regard him as some kind of artistic genius. I am no art expert but I struggle to understand how computer-generated stencils – and my guess is that this is how he works – constitutes genius. From what I can gather, Banksy leaves his home in the dead of night, armed with a spray can and a stencil, finds a wall and blasts paint on it. The next morning, the local media steams to a virtual orgasm, whilst Atticus and Ophelia set aside their vegan breakfast and craft ales to tell the world just what a great place ‘Briz’ is. (Briz is great, but Briz is Brislington, not Bristol.)

I swear this is at least in part a hipster affliction. In my admittedly small world, I know very few people who give what we Bristolians refer to as a flying fuck about Banksy. That is not to say that people regard his work as rubbish or even great. They just don’t see anything to get excited about.  For the hipsters, none of whom sound remotely Bristolian (because most of them aren’t), it’s a different story, a reflection of the lively and creative city that people who live, say, in the big estates, don’t quite see.

The secretive nature of Banksy’s identity/identities doesn’t exactly trouble me. It strikes me that the only thing we know about Banksy is the stencilled offerings themselves. They are in Bristol, but they aren’t about Bristol.  I’d rather admire some of the genius of Isambard Brunel’s offerings in our great city, even though he never actually lived in the city. (He was also the son of a French asylum seeker so it’s best not to mention that bit to the hard of thinking.)

I mean, good luck and all that if your idea of fun is to stand around in the freezing cold looking at a stencilled work of art, but just don’t expect all of us to get that excited about it.