Headline, July29, 2013

'''THE GUERRILLA STREET ARTIST :

 WHO MADE PEOPLE VERY VERY 

HAPPY'''

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums. Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors. Graffiti has been used to start Revolutions, Stop Wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren't listened to.

Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost Nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty, you can make somebody smile while they are passing by or taking a piss. That all is from :

Banksy, Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall.

'I had never heard of the graffiti artist named Banksy until a reputed publisher asked me to find him,which I did.

Right before I left States, I was provided with a list of art-world people to contact once I got there, people who might help me locate Banksy, but I paid as much attention to that list as I would a parking ticket.

All I knew about the guy was stuff I read on the Web and his site, banksy.co.uk which has a bunch of photos of his graffiti art and stencils, press clippings of him sabotaging big-name art museums with his work, and his manifesto, which stopped me cold. It's a diary entry of a British Officer who was one of the first to liberate a Concentration Camp in 1948:

'It was shortly after the British Red cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what men wanted, we were screaming for thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the Lipstick.

Woman lay in bed with no sheets but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with only a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red`lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.

Right after I checked into my hotel in central London, I went to work. I asked and  They both said that he's pretty big. And then this guy, who ended every question with a ''Yeah?'' asked me where I was from and what I was doing in London, and I told him I was from LA and here to hunt down a graffiti artist named Banksy and that I had no idea whatsoever where to go and where to even begin to find this guy.

He din't know who Banksy was, but he had some advice for me: ''Like minded people always hang together, yeah? Art and thieves go together, yeah? So go the area that has most car thieves, yeah? And you'll find the most artists, yeah? And that's where you will find him, yeah?''

The next morning I took the Underground to the East End and got off at the Liverpool Street exit. London is a very anti-street sign, and even though I had a map with me, most of the ground progress was guess work, I found that the farther I walked the more and more tags and graffiti I saw on the wall. And and then,  lo and behold I laid my eyes on a signature Banksy stencil. It was in pink spray paint, on the rim of a container, and right underneath it a graffiti artist was hard at work on the early stages of an Einstein portrait. 

There was a barricade set up so that the spectators couldn't bother the artists. I asked the artist if he knew Banksy, and he smiled cautiously and gave me a weak nod. I tried asking him a few questions about Banksy but he refused to tell me anything at all.   

Almost everybody knew Banksy, and the same words used every time : Legend. Well Respected. Controversial. Rock Star. And one guy told me that every time he sees a Banksy stencil, it brings pure joy to his heart. When I asked these people where I could maybe find him, they all laughed and said, Good Luck ! No chance!

The outdoors of London, every conceivable public space, is Banksy's Museum.

''When explaining yourself to the police, it's worth being as reasonable as possible,'' he advises.

''Graffiti writers are not real villains. I am always reminded of this by real villains.''

Hahaha!

A phantom with a stencil and a can of spray paint, maybe ''The Premier Guerrilla Street Artist'' In The World. Banksy was almost impossible to find. But his work is everywhere. And he makes people very very happy.

This awesome post continues. Let's see if the author can track him down and identify him. Stay with the suspense!

With respectful dedication to all the Students, Professors and Teachers from UK. See ya all on the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless: ''Art-Entertainment-Service''.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless