Banksy

The British artist, Banksy, is famous for his pseudo-anonymous graffiti. On his website, Banksy showcases his outdoor and indoor works, drawings, videos of his exploits (e.g., hanging satirical works of art at the Natural History Museum, Disneyland, etc.), news clippings, and a manifesto. Banksy is fascinating for his tongue-in-cheek pranks at established cultural institutions and for his outdoor art. Both are used as social commentary, often in regard to war, consumerism, norms, and icons. Even other graffiti is not safe!

For his outdoor works, Banksy employs very large JPEG images such as the one above. They are about 870 x 695 pixels and 94,621 bytes. This format is especially effective in showing viewers the scope of his work and its environment. Many of the photos show people walking by unaware, talking on their cellphones (yet another commentary?!). The images are set up so the viewer scrolls left to right; there are multiple pages. No metadata is provided, other than occasional commentary by Banksy. Also, interestingly, at least one of the photos is copyrighted by Getty Images as its name is across the photo.

Banksy's drawings are also set up for viewers to scroll through. The indoor works, however, can only be seen individually. Some are JPEGs and others are GIFs.

I viewed the films in Quicktime. The video quality is not fantastic but I could definitely see what was going on. The videos show Banksy - in disguise, of course - putting up works and fake museum signs (false metadata or part of the art work?).

The manifesto is actually a quote from a WWII British soldier regarding the liberation of a concentration camp. Banksy found his source material from the Imperial War Museum. His notation of it indicates to me that he does respect the rights of other creative (and historical) works, but also his work plays off of and comments on the past.

The "Cuttings" section are of articles about Banksy. Amusingly, Banksy notes that the article on his supposed commission for Prince Harry's girlfriend is completely false. Rather than having a standard artist biography, Banksy represents himself through what others have said about him, thus maintaining a sense of anonymity and mystery. The news clippings are set up so that the viewer must click on a newspaper name, which then leads to a large but unreadable thumbnail of the article. For example, one is 412 x 534 pixels. The viewer must then click on the thumbnail. A new window opens up and a larger, higher quality image of the article appears.

This is a fairly well-designed website that is intentionally sparse on biographical information about the artist but allows people to see Banksy's work without having to go to the physical locations. The photos may also be the only remaining evidence of some of his graffiti that might have been defaced or "dogged" since the photos were taken. I think this website is aimed towards self-promotion and creating a web presence. Anyone interested in graffiti, art as social commentary, or modern art would be interested in this site.