Click here (BBC) to view some of the whimsical yet politically charged graffiti by Bansky on the 'Israel-West Bank Separation Barrier'... (and click here for Bansky's website).
Does this kind of activity make light of the conflict? Or does it amplify/clarify it for a larger audience?
5 comments:
From looking a this website, he (Bansky) appears to play a lot with natural surroundings and infrastructures as well as social symbols. I think he's fulfilling the graffiti artists duty of tagging the largest concrete wall in the world.
Though if this wall ever goes down like the Berlin did 21 years ago, let's hope it was due to peaceful negotiations and not artillery shells.
-Shaun
It depends on your perspective, to be honest. To me, it seems like Banksy is trying to amplify and clarify the untold Palestinian narrative through his art. But one could also look at as making light of the incessant and endless fighting.
-Elika
I personally really enjoyed his art. Art in general is a good way to express ideas that can be interpreted in a large variety of ways.I can see how it would be interpreted as making light of the conflict, but I don't see it that way. I see it as an attempt to describe the conflict accessibly and visually.
He does have a way of grabbing one's attention! I'm intrigued by the way he combines elements of normalcy with absurdity, challenging us to assess precisely where the line between the two is to be drawn, and who gets to draw it.
pdk
Well, on his website Bansky himself agreed with the assertion that his art was "crass dumb and simplistic." Too harsh a review I think, but looking at his wall art and some of his other work it does seem that he favors flippancy over more serious-minded expression. His art on the Israeli security wall is slightly less outrageous, but it certainly retains it's whimsical character. Some people might consider such light-hearted art on the wall to be distasteful, but that seems to me an unnecessarily mirthless attitude to take. The most effective way to peacefully protest against totalitarian behavior of any kind (not necessarily accusing Israeli as a whole of being totalitaria, here) and deprive it's authority symbols of their power is to laugh at them. Since the pillars of oppressive power are usually innately absurd, this isn't often a hard thing to accomplish, as Bansky's art proves. A tyrant hates nothing more than being made fun of, but can never admit it for fear of losing their authority. As the history of Eastern Europe has shown, it's when regimes become a laughing stock and a bore that their power begins to slip. Considering the art on the wall, then, I would go as far as to say that its the more serious, directly polemical art that would be truly distasteful.
-Nate
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