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When I reached one million clicks in December 2013 after 4 years I never thought about a development like this.
A big thanks to all of you for your support, encouragement and inspiration.
I am full of gratitude for having reached today a total of
29 million clicks. A big thanks to you all for your support, faves, comments and all the inspiration I receive by your works.
My dear Flickr friends,
Thank you so much for all your kind comments & faves, on my images :)
I really appreciate it !
Have a great sunday !
All the best to you & yours,
Lior
Just wanted to post a quick word of thanks (if you miss your language simply let me know) for 38 millions of views. Also thanks for your incredible number of requests and ideas.
For your incredible feedback last couple of days in particular. It took only 24 days and 23 posts to achieve this last million clicks, resulting now in a total of 35 millions. Your comments and own works are encouraging and inspiring.
Incredible 36 million clicks reached today. It took 19 days and 21 pictures to pass this milestone, with more than 1,5 million clicks July 2017 is my month with the highest traffic since I started. No lottery wins (Explore) were needed for the results of the last 10 months. A big thanks to you, not only for the inspiration I got from your works but also for the new ideas brought in by mail. I try to follow up your requests in the shortest possible time.
See-ming Lee at home in Brooklyn, NY, 2005.02.15.
Photography by See-ming Lee using SML's Canon EOS 10D + Canon 17-40 f4L + Bogen / Manfrotto 3021BPRO tripod.
Copyright 2005 See-ming Lee. All rights reserved.
The not-too-typical cell from the Eastern State Penitentiary. Compare to the typical cell arrangement.
This was the cell of Al Capone (Wikipedia), an American gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 1930s.
Related SML
In the middle foreground is the top of the Bank of America tower; behind it to the left is the squat, round, glass Roy Thompson Hall opera house.
Up a bit from the Opera House is the Hilton, then back from that a bit is the Sheraton, and facing the Sheraton is the New City Hall towers.
The tall white one to the right is First Canadian Place, and the red one at the right edge is Scotia Plaza.
I've not bothered to look up what most of the ones in the cluster in the middle are. By all means feel free to cross-check a satellite map to get a fuller sense of the view here.
In any case, even in spite of the smog, I think the view here goes out for several miles to the north-northwest. On a clear day I bet you can see all the way to the North Pole from here. I bet you can.
Honestly, I don't find this one nearly as interesting as the E-Type or Mark 1 cars, but it's still nice, the golden Jaguar on the hood is neat, and -- hey look! -- it has British-style right-hand-side steering. So that's unusual, around here anyway. But it still has nothing on the others :-)
My dear Flickr friends,
Thank you so much for all your kind comments & faves, on my images :)
I really appreciate it !
Have a great weekend !
All the best to you & yours,
Lior
~G.C. Lichtenberg
The is the Loews Theatre in the Waterfront where the movie premier was. Right after I took this shot I was told to leave and because n o one was allowed to take pictures of the movie theatre or any other building without permission. The guy even followed me to my car to make sure I put my camera and tripod away. I hadn't got booted from a place in a while!!!
By request! View On Black
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Margot Carr aka Pearl the Mime: actress, winger and street performer.
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To all my dear flickr friends,
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This I had been awarded as 4th out of best 20 photographer's in this month and also Top 20S Flickrstats with my 9 pics EXPLORED and One Front Page EXPLORED with 1423 Points earned for the month of July and awarded as the top 20's in the week 30th of the year 2011 contest, This is a weekly contest and also a monthly contest,
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3. Photo walk with Frame BANGLADESH
4. Incredible BANGLADESH 61/365[Beali Bill ]
6. Calliandra haematocephala flower buds
8. মেঘ থম থম করে। The Cloud for Rain
9. SUNNY sunday [ DEDICATION ] Enjoy the Music Below!
Thanks all y Viewers for your support with comments and FAVS ,
Interestingly, both of the Boston area Banksy pieces are on Essex St:
• F̶O̶L̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶Y̶O̶U̶R̶ ̶D̶R̶E̶A̶M̶S̶ CANCELLED (aka chimney sweep) in Chinatown, Boston
• NO LOITRIN in Central Square, Cambridge.
Does that mean anything? It looks like he favors Essex named streets & roads when he can. In 2008, he did another notable Essex work in London, for example, and posters on the Banksy Forums picked up & discussed on the Essex link as well.
Is there an Essex Street in any of the other nearby towns? It looks like there are several: Brookline, Charlestown, Chelsea, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lynn, Medford, Melrose, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Somerville, Swampscott, and Waltham. Most of these seem improbable to me, other than maybe Brookline, or maybe Somerville or Charlestown. But they start getting pretty suburban after that.
But, again, why "Essex"? In a comment on this photo, Birbeck helps clarify:
I can only surmise that he's having a 'dig' at Essex UK, especially with the misspelling of 'Loitering'. Here, the general view of the urban districts in Essex: working class but with right wing views; that they're not the most intellectual bunch; rather obsessed with fashion (well, their idea of it); their place of worship is the shopping mall; enjoy rowdy nights out; girls are thought of as being dumb, fake blonde hair/tans and promiscuous; and guys are good at the 'chit chat', and swagger around showing off their dosh (money).
It was also the region that once had Europe's largest Ford motor factory. In its heyday, 1 in 3 British cars were made in Dagenham, Essex. Pay was good for such unskilled labour, generations worked mind-numbing routines on assembly lines for 80 years. In 2002 the recession ended the dream.
• • • • •
This photo appeared on Grafitti - A arte das ruas on Yahoo Meme. Yes, Yahoo has a Tumblr/Posterous-esque "Meme" service now -- I was as surprised as you are.
• • • • •
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Banksy
• Birth name
Unknown
• Born
1974 or 1975 (1974 or 1975), Bristol, UK[1]
• Nationality
• Field
• Movement
Anti-Totalitarianism
Anti-War
• Works
Naked Man Image
One Nation Under CCTV
Anarchist Rat
Ozone's Angel
Pulp Fiction
Banksy is a pseudonymous[2][3][4] British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol[2] and to have been born in 1974,[5] but his identity is unknown.[6] According to Tristan Manco[who?], Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."[7] His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world.[8] Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.
Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti.[9] Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.[10]
Banksy's first film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[11] The film was released in the UK on March 5.[12]
Contents
• 1 Career
•• 1.1 2000
•• 1.2 2002
•• 1.3 2003
•• 1.4 2004
•• 1.5 2005
•• 1.6 2006
•• 1.7 2007
•• 1.8 2008
•• 1.9 2009
•• 1.10 2010
Career
Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994[14] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes.[15] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[14] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a piece. He claims he changed to stencilling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[16] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[16]
Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in central Bristol - (wider view). The image of Death is based on a 19th century etching illustrating the pestilence of The Great Stink.[17]
Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.
In late 2001, on a trip to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, he met up with the Gen-X pastellist, visual activist, and recluse James DeWeaver in Byron Bay[clarification needed], where he stencilled a parachuting rat with a clothes peg on its nose above a toilet at the Arts Factory Lodge. This stencil can no longer be located. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phone-box), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank.
2000
The album cover for Monk & Canatella's Do Community Service was conceived and illustrated by Banksy, based on his contribution to the "Walls on fire" event in Bristol 1998.[18][citation needed]
2002
On 19 July 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1/3 Gallery, a small Silverlake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 33 1/3 Gallery, Malathion, Funk Lazy Promotions, and B+.[19]
2003
In 2003 in an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[20] He later moved on to producing subverted paintings; one example is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[21]
2004
In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen's head with Princess Diana's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000.
2005
In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier. He reportedly said "The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km—the distance from London to Zurich. "[22]
2006
• Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern.[23]
• After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[24] on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[25]
• In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy Effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.[26]
2007
• On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[27] The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values.[28] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[6]
• In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural which comes with a house attached.[29]
• In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy's iconic image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the "graffiti" created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics".[30] Banksy tagged the same site again (pictured at right). This time the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Banksy made a tribute art piece over this second Pulp Fiction piece. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone, who was hit by an underground train in Barking, East London, along with fellow artist Wants, on 12 January 2007.[31] The piece was of an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest, holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website, saying:
The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving hand guns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote 'If it's better next time I'll leave it' in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone - rest in peace.[citation needed]
Ozone's Angel
• On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy's work was set with the auction of the work Space Girl & Bird fetching £288,000 (US$576,000), around 20 times the estimate at Bonhams of London.[32]
• On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art's Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award, and continued with his notoriously anonymous status.
• On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy's The Drinker had been stolen.[33][34]
• In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.[35]
• Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.[36] The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of one Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy's Manifesto has been substituted with Graffiti Heroes #03 that describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment.[37] By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Phillips' "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness."
• A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
• In the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owen, Banksy's tag can be seen on a dumpster in the film's credits.
• Banksy, who deals mostly with Lazarides Gallery in London, claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.[38]
2008
• In March, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on Thames Water tower in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this Society" in bright orange. London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F council workmen within three days.[39]
• Over the weekend 3–5 May in London, Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it didn't cover anyone else's.[40] Artists included Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, C215, Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover, Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil, Jef Aérosol, Mr Brainwash, Tom Civil and Roadsworth.[citation needed]
• In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster.[41]
• A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether.[42]
• His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill," opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.[43]
• The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV", painted in April 2008 will be painted over as it is graffiti. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art". [44] The work was painted over in April 2009.
• In December 2008, The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne Australia was vandalised. The image was protected by a sheet of clear perspex, however silver paint was poured behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere". The image was almost completely destroyed.[45].
2009
• May 2009, parts company with agent Steve Lazarides. Announces Pest Control [46] the handling service who act on his behalf will be the only point of sale for new works.
• On 13 June 2009, the Banksy UK Summer show opened at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works.[47][48] Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.[49] Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition has been visited over 300,000 times.[50]
• In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003 Blur single "Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed the piece to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.[51]
• In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included "I don't believe in global warming" which was submerged in water.[52]
2010
• The world premiere of the film Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.[53]
• In February, The Whitehouse public house in Liverpool, England, is sold for £114,000 at auction.[54] The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy.[55]
• In April 2010, Melbourne City Council in Australia reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over the last remaining Banksy art in the city. The image was of a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre. In 2008 Vandals had poured paint over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat. A council spokeswoman has said they would now rush through retrospective permits to protect other “famous or significant artworks” in the city.[56]
• In April 2010 to coincide with the premier of Exit through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, 5 of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city.[57] Banksy reportedly paid a Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.[58]
• In May 2010 to coincide with the release of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in Chicago, one piece appeared in the city.
Notable art pieces
In addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high profile art pieces, including the following:
• At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.[59]
• At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant enclosure.[60]
• In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[61]
• He put up a subverted painting in London's Tate Britain gallery.
• In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, they added it to their permanent collection.[62]
Near Bethlehem - 2005
• Banksy has sprayed "This is not a photo opportunity" on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.[22][63][64][65]
See also: Other Banksy works on the Israeli West Bank barrier
• In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: "This is a stunning visual comment on BT's transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider."[66]
• In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.[67] After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.[67] The mural was later defaced with paint.[67]
• In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up".[68][69][70]
• In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.[71][72]
Technique
Asked about his technique, Banksy said:
“I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl's face on some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is the key.[73]”
Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy's work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in his stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.
He mentions in his book, Wall and Piece, that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.
Identity
Banksy's real name has been widely reported to be Robert or Robin Banks.[74][75][76] His year of birth has been given as 1974.[62]
Simon Hattenstone from Guardian Unlimited is one of the very few people to have interviewed him face-to-face. Hattenstone describes him as "a cross of Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner" and "a 28 year old male who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, silver chain, and one silver earring".[77] In the same interview, Banksy revealed that his parents think their son is a painter and decorator.[77]
In May 2007, an extensive article written by Lauren Collins of the New Yorker re-opened the Banksy-identity controversy citing a 2004 photograph of the artist that was taken in Jamaica during the Two-Culture Clash project and later published in the Evening Standard in 2004.[6]
In October 2007, a story on the BBC website featured a photo allegedly taken by a passer-by in Bethnal Green, London, purporting to show Banksy at work with an assistant, scaffolding and a truck. The story confirms that Tower Hamlets Council in London has decided to treat all Banksy works as vandalism and remove them.[78]
In July 2008, it was claimed by The Mail on Sunday that Banksy's real name is Robin Gunningham.[3][79] His agent has refused to confirm or deny these reports.
In May 2009, the Mail on Sunday once again speculated about Gunningham being Banksy after a "self-portrait" of a rat holding a sign with the word "Gunningham" shot on it was photographed in East London.[80] This "new Banksy rat" story was also picked up by The Times[81] and the Evening Standard.
Banksy, himself, states on his website:
“I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.[82]”
Controversy
In 2004, Banksy walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa but with a yellow smiley face. Though the painting was hurriedly removed by the museum staff, it and its counterpart, temporarily on unknown display at the Tate Britain, were described by Banksy as "shortcuts". He is quoted as saying:
“To actually [have to] go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It's a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.[83]”
Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism,[84] and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organization, was quoted as saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".[6]
In June 2007 Banksy created a circle of plastic portable toilets, said to resemble Stonehenge at the Glastonbury Festival. As this was in the same field as the "sacred circle" it was felt by many to be inappropriate and his installation was itself vandalized before the festival even opened. However, the intention had always been for people to climb on and interact with it.[citation needed] The installation was nicknamed "Portaloo Sunset" and "Bog Henge" by Festival goers. Michael Eavis admitted he wasn't fond of it, and the portaloos were removed before the 2008 festival.
In 2010, an artistic feud developed between Banksy and his rival King Robbo after Banksy painted over a 24-year old Robbo piece on the banks of London's Regent Canal. In retaliation several Banksy pieces in London have been painted over by 'Team Robbo'.[85][86]
Also in 2010, government workers accidentally painted over a Banksy art piece, a famed "parachuting-rat" stencil, in Australia's Melbourne CBD. [87]
Bibliography
Banksy has self-published several books that contain photographs of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own writings:
• Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-95417040-0
• Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-95417041-7
• Banksy, Cut it Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-95449600-5
• Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413786-2
• Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-95519460-3
Random House published Wall and Piece in 2005. It contains a combination of images from his three previous books, as well as some new material.[16]
Two books authored by others on his work were published in 2006 & 2007:
• Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London (2006 - with new editions in 2007 and 2008) ISBN 978-0-95547120-9.
• Steve Wright, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home (2007) ISBN 978-1906477004
External links
Interestingly, both of the Boston area Banksy pieces are on Essex St:
• F̶O̶L̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶Y̶O̶U̶R̶ ̶D̶R̶E̶A̶M̶S̶ CANCELLED (aka chimney sweep) in Chinatown, Boston
• NO LOITRIN in Central Square, Cambridge.
Does that mean anything? It looks like he favors Essex named streets & roads when he can. In 2008, he did another notable Essex work in London, for example, and posters on the Banksy Forums picked up & discussed on the Essex link as well.
Is there an Essex Street in any of the other nearby towns? It looks like there are several: Brookline, Charlestown, Chelsea, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lynn, Medford, Melrose, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Somerville, Swampscott, and Waltham. Most of these seem improbable to me, other than maybe Brookline, or maybe Somerville or Charlestown. But they start getting pretty suburban after that.
But, again, why "Essex"? In a comment on this photo, Birbeck helps clarify:
I can only surmise that he's having a 'dig' at Essex UK, especially with the misspelling of 'Loitering'. Here, the general view of the urban districts in Essex: working class but with right wing views; that they're not the most intellectual bunch; rather obsessed with fashion (well, their idea of it); their place of worship is the shopping mall; enjoy rowdy nights out; girls are thought of as being dumb, fake blonde hair/tans and promiscuous; and guys are good at the 'chit chat', and swagger around showing off their dosh (money).
It was also the region that once had Europe's largest Ford motor factory. In its heyday, 1 in 3 British cars were made in Dagenham, Essex. Pay was good for such unskilled labour, generations worked mind-numbing routines on assembly lines for 80 years. In 2002 the recession ended the dream.
• • • • •
• Meredith Goldsten of the Boston Globe wrote to me on Facebook and asked for permission to run one of my Banksy photos in the newspaper, which I granted. Supposedly, this photo or one of the others I took appeared in the Globe on 15 May 2010, but I haven't been able to find it. The online version of that day's article, titled Tag — we’re it: Banksy, the controversial and elusive street artist, left his mark here. Or did he? uses a photo taken by "Essdras M. Suarez / Globe Staff". If I can find a copy of that day's paper and verify that one of my Banksy photos was in there, I'll scan the page & post a copy here :-)
• This photo appeared on Grafitti - A arte das ruas on Yahoo Meme. Yes, Yahoo has a Tumblr/Posterous-esque "Meme" service now -- I was as surprised as you are.
• This photo also appeared on Love Your Chaos on Tumblr, among other blogs. Thanks!
• • • • •
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Banksy
• Birth name
Unknown
• Born
1974 or 1975 (1974 or 1975), Bristol, UK[1]
• Nationality
• Field
• Movement
Anti-Totalitarianism
Anti-War
• Works
Naked Man Image
One Nation Under CCTV
Anarchist Rat
Ozone's Angel
Pulp Fiction
Banksy is a pseudonymous[2][3][4] British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol[2] and to have been born in 1974,[5] but his identity is unknown.[6] According to Tristan Manco[who?], Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."[7] His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world.[8] Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.
Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti.[9] Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.[10]
Banksy's first film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[11] The film was released in the UK on March 5.[12]
Contents
• 1 Career
•• 1.1 2000
•• 1.2 2002
•• 1.3 2003
•• 1.4 2004
•• 1.5 2005
•• 1.6 2006
•• 1.7 2007
•• 1.8 2008
•• 1.9 2009
•• 1.10 2010
Career
Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994[14] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes.[15] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[14] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a piece. He claims he changed to stencilling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[16] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[16]
Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in central Bristol - (wider view). The image of Death is based on a 19th century etching illustrating the pestilence of The Great Stink.[17]
Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.
In late 2001, on a trip to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, he met up with the Gen-X pastellist, visual activist, and recluse James DeWeaver in Byron Bay[clarification needed], where he stencilled a parachuting rat with a clothes peg on its nose above a toilet at the Arts Factory Lodge. This stencil can no longer be located. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phone-box), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank.
2000
The album cover for Monk & Canatella's Do Community Service was conceived and illustrated by Banksy, based on his contribution to the "Walls on fire" event in Bristol 1998.[18][citation needed]
2002
On 19 July 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1/3 Gallery, a small Silverlake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 33 1/3 Gallery, Malathion, Funk Lazy Promotions, and B+.[19]
2003
In 2003 in an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[20] He later moved on to producing subverted paintings; one example is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[21]
2004
In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen's head with Princess Diana's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000.
2005
In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier. He reportedly said "The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km—the distance from London to Zurich. "[22]
2006
• Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern.[23]
• After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[24] on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[25]
• In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy Effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.[26]
2007
• On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[27] The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values.[28] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[6]
• In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural which comes with a house attached.[29]
• In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy's iconic image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the "graffiti" created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics".[30] Banksy tagged the same site again (pictured at right). This time the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Banksy made a tribute art piece over this second Pulp Fiction piece. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone, who was hit by an underground train in Barking, East London, along with fellow artist Wants, on 12 January 2007.[31] The piece was of an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest, holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website, saying:
The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving hand guns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote 'If it's better next time I'll leave it' in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone - rest in peace.[citation needed]
Ozone's Angel
• On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy's work was set with the auction of the work Space Girl & Bird fetching £288,000 (US$576,000), around 20 times the estimate at Bonhams of London.[32]
• On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art's Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award, and continued with his notoriously anonymous status.
• On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy's The Drinker had been stolen.[33][34]
• In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.[35]
• Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.[36] The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of one Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy's Manifesto has been substituted with Graffiti Heroes #03 that describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment.[37] By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Phillips' "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness."
• A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
• In the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owen, Banksy's tag can be seen on a dumpster in the film's credits.
• Banksy, who deals mostly with Lazarides Gallery in London, claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.[38]
2008
• In March, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on Thames Water tower in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this Society" in bright orange. London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F council workmen within three days.[39]
• Over the weekend 3–5 May in London, Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it didn't cover anyone else's.[40] Artists included Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, C215, Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover, Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil, Jef Aérosol, Mr Brainwash, Tom Civil and Roadsworth.[citation needed]
• In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster.[41]
• A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether.[42]
• His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill," opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.[43]
• The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV", painted in April 2008 will be painted over as it is graffiti. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art". [44] The work was painted over in April 2009.
• In December 2008, The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne Australia was vandalised. The image was protected by a sheet of clear perspex, however silver paint was poured behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere". The image was almost completely destroyed.[45].
2009
• May 2009, parts company with agent Steve Lazarides. Announces Pest Control [46] the handling service who act on his behalf will be the only point of sale for new works.
• On 13 June 2009, the Banksy UK Summer show opened at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works.[47][48] Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.[49] Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition has been visited over 300,000 times.[50]
• In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003 Blur single "Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed the piece to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.[51]
• In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included "I don't believe in global warming" which was submerged in water.[52]
2010
• The world premiere of the film Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.[53]
• In February, The Whitehouse public house in Liverpool, England, is sold for £114,000 at auction.[54] The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy.[55]
• In April 2010, Melbourne City Council in Australia reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over the last remaining Banksy art in the city. The image was of a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre. In 2008 Vandals had poured paint over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat. A council spokeswoman has said they would now rush through retrospective permits to protect other “famous or significant artworks” in the city.[56]
• In April 2010 to coincide with the premier of Exit through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, 5 of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city.[57] Banksy reportedly paid a Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.[58]
• In May 2010 to coincide with the release of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in Chicago, one piece appeared in the city.
Notable art pieces
In addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high profile art pieces, including the following:
• At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.[59]
• At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant enclosure.[60]
• In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[61]
• He put up a subverted painting in London's Tate Britain gallery.
• In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, they added it to their permanent collection.[62]
Near Bethlehem - 2005
• Banksy has sprayed "This is not a photo opportunity" on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.[22][63][64][65]
See also: Other Banksy works on the Israeli West Bank barrier
• In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: "This is a stunning visual comment on BT's transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider."[66]
• In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.[67] After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.[67] The mural was later defaced with paint.[67]
• In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up".[68][69][70]
• In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.[71][72]
Technique
Asked about his technique, Banksy said:
“I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl's face on some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is the key.[73]”
Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy's work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in his stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.
He mentions in his book, Wall and Piece, that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.
Identity
Banksy's real name has been widely reported to be Robert or Robin Banks.[74][75][76] His year of birth has been given as 1974.[62]
Simon Hattenstone from Guardian Unlimited is one of the very few people to have interviewed him face-to-face. Hattenstone describes him as "a cross of Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner" and "a 28 year old male who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, silver chain, and one silver earring".[77] In the same interview, Banksy revealed that his parents think their son is a painter and decorator.[77]
In May 2007, an extensive article written by Lauren Collins of the New Yorker re-opened the Banksy-identity controversy citing a 2004 photograph of the artist that was taken in Jamaica during the Two-Culture Clash project and later published in the Evening Standard in 2004.[6]
In October 2007, a story on the BBC website featured a photo allegedly taken by a passer-by in Bethnal Green, London, purporting to show Banksy at work with an assistant, scaffolding and a truck. The story confirms that Tower Hamlets Council in London has decided to treat all Banksy works as vandalism and remove them.[78]
In July 2008, it was claimed by The Mail on Sunday that Banksy's real name is Robin Gunningham.[3][79] His agent has refused to confirm or deny these reports.
In May 2009, the Mail on Sunday once again speculated about Gunningham being Banksy after a "self-portrait" of a rat holding a sign with the word "Gunningham" shot on it was photographed in East London.[80] This "new Banksy rat" story was also picked up by The Times[81] and the Evening Standard.
Banksy, himself, states on his website:
“I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.[82]”
Controversy
In 2004, Banksy walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa but with a yellow smiley face. Though the painting was hurriedly removed by the museum staff, it and its counterpart, temporarily on unknown display at the Tate Britain, were described by Banksy as "shortcuts". He is quoted as saying:
“To actually [have to] go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It's a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.[83]”
Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism,[84] and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organization, was quoted as saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".[6]
In June 2007 Banksy created a circle of plastic portable toilets, said to resemble Stonehenge at the Glastonbury Festival. As this was in the same field as the "sacred circle" it was felt by many to be inappropriate and his installation was itself vandalized before the festival even opened. However, the intention had always been for people to climb on and interact with it.[citation needed] The installation was nicknamed "Portaloo Sunset" and "Bog Henge" by Festival goers. Michael Eavis admitted he wasn't fond of it, and the portaloos were removed before the 2008 festival.
In 2010, an artistic feud developed between Banksy and his rival King Robbo after Banksy painted over a 24-year old Robbo piece on the banks of London's Regent Canal. In retaliation several Banksy pieces in London have been painted over by 'Team Robbo'.[85][86]
Also in 2010, government workers accidentally painted over a Banksy art piece, a famed "parachuting-rat" stencil, in Australia's Melbourne CBD. [87]
Bibliography
Banksy has self-published several books that contain photographs of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own writings:
• Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-95417040-0
• Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-95417041-7
• Banksy, Cut it Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-95449600-5
• Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413786-2
• Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-95519460-3
Random House published Wall and Piece in 2005. It contains a combination of images from his three previous books, as well as some new material.[16]
Two books authored by others on his work were published in 2006 & 2007:
• Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London (2006 - with new editions in 2007 and 2008) ISBN 978-0-95547120-9.
• Steve Wright, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home (2007) ISBN 978-1906477004
External links
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Vought F4U-1D Corsair :
By V-J Day, September 2, 1945, Corsair pilots had amassed an 11:1 kill ratio against enemy aircraft. The aircraft's distinctive inverted gull-wing design allowed ground clearance for the huge, three-bladed Hamilton Standard Hydromatic propeller, which spanned more than 4 meters (13 feet). The Pratt and Whitney R-2800 radial engine and Hydromatic propeller was the largest and one of the most powerful engine-propeller combinations ever flown on a fighter aircraft.
Charles Lindbergh flew bombing missions in a Corsair with Marine Air Group 31 against Japanese strongholds in the Pacific in 1944. This airplane is painted in the colors and markings of the Corsair Sun Setter, a Marine close-support fighter assigned to the USS Essex in July 1944.
Transferred from the United States Navy.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1940
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 460 x 1020cm, 4037kg, 1250cm (15ft 1 1/8in. x 33ft 5 9/16in., 8900lb., 41ft 1/8in.)
Materials:
All metal with fabric-covered wings behind the main spar.
Physical Description:
R-2800 radial air-cooled engine with 1,850 horsepower, turned a three-blade Hamilton Standard Hydromatic propeller with solid aluminum blades spanning 13 feet 1 inch; wing bent gull-shaped on both sides of the fuselage.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Curtiss P-40E Warhawk (Kittyhawk IA):
Whether known as the Warhawk, Tomahawk, or Kittyhawk, the Curtiss P-40 proved to be a successful, versatile fighter during the first half of World War II. The shark-mouthed Tomahawks that Gen. Claire Chennault's "Flying Tigers" flew in China against the Japanese remain among the most popular airplanes of the war. P-40E pilot Lt. Boyd D. Wagner became the first American ace of World War II when he shot down six Japanese aircraft in the Philippines in mid-December 1941.
Curtiss-Wright built this airplane as Model 87-A3 and delivered it to Canada as a Kittyhawk I in 1941. It served until 1946 in No. 111 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force. U.S. Air Force personnel at Andrews Air Force Base restored it in 1975 to represent an aircraft of the 75th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group, 14th Air Force.
Donated by the Exchange Club in Memory of Kellis Forbes.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1939
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 330 x 970cm, 2686kg, 1140cm (10ft 9 15/16in. x 31ft 9 7/8in., 5921.6lb., 37ft 4 13/16in.)
Materials:
All-metal, semi-monocoque
Physical Description:
Single engine, single seat, fighter aircraft.
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Steven F. Udvar-Hazy | Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko (Moonlight) IRVING:
Originally designed as a three-seat, daylight escort fighter plane by the Nakajima Aeroplane Company, Ltd., and flown in 1941, the IRVING was modified as a night fighter in May of 1943 and shot down two American B-17 bombers to prove its capability. The Gekko (meaning moonlight) was redesigned to hold only two crewmen so that an upward firing gun could be mounted where the observer once sat. Nearly five hundred J1N1 aircraft, including prototypes, escort, reconnaissance, and night fighters were built during World War II. A sizeable number were also used as Kamikaze aircraft in the Pacific. The few that survived the war were scrapped by the Allies.
This J1N1 is the last remaining in the world. It was transported from Japan to the U.S. where it was flight tested by the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1946. The Gekko then flew to storage at Park Ridge, IL, and was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. The restoration of this aircraft, completed in 1983, took more than four years and 17,000 man-hours to accomplish.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1942
Country of Origin:
Japan
Dimensions:
Overall: 15ft 1 1/8in. x 41ft 11 15/16in., 10670.3lb., 55ft 9 5/16in. (460 x 1280cm, 4840kg, 1700cm)
Materials:
All-metal, monocoque construction airplane
Physical Description:
Twin-engine, conventional layout with tailwheel-type landing gear.
Armament: (2) 20 mm fixed upward firing cannon
Engines: (2) Nakajima Sakae 21 (NK1F, Ha35- 21) 14- cylinder air-cooled radial 1,130 horsepower (metric)
• • • • •
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Steven F. Udvar-Hazy | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1945
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)
Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish
Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.
~Marcel Proust
Thank you to EVERYONE as I went over 300,000 views yesterday! It has been a year and a few weeks since I signed up with my pro account (I only uploaded 2 pictures before I had it), and can't believe that I've hit this many! I am very honored to have so many fantastic contacts and flickr friends, and look forward to having many more!!! Again, thank you so much all of your for all of your support!
Another shot from the Waterfront last week. This is a bridge that crosses over the road some of the other restaurants.
I got to go to a special premier for "She's Out of My League", which was filmed in Pittsburgh and comes out this weekend. It is kind of a chick flick, but man, is it HILARIOUS! I definitely recommend it. And since it was all filmed in Pittsburgh, it was so cool to see so many familiar sights!!
Enjoy your week my friends!
I don't mind invitations, but please no big, shiny, flashing, glitter graphics, they will be deleted. Also, please contact me if you would like to use my pictures for any reason. Thanks!
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My blog: HDR Exposed
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1945
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)
Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish
Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.
Please, View On Black
Late for My Flickr Anniversary....Rather than go on about how many views and Flickrstats, I would rather focus on what I have received.
Inspiration, support, and mentoring, for which I am grateful. Growing as a photographer and individual from the privilege of viewing so many wonderful works from most every country, culture, and society.
The friendships and bonds whether they be casual or binding.
It has been a most wonderful year and for this I thank You all.
Noble
Still a bit off speed
A massive and heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who visits my photostream.
As you will know I'm a keen amatuer photographer. I take shots of almost anything and endeavour to produce the best I can given the limited resources I have.
It's a real pleasure to read and respond to comments and likewise those who message me direct :)
Not forgetting, it's a pleasure to see so many amazing photos from the people I follow (although it's tricky to keep up to date with everyone, as I'm sure you can appreciate) and generally across Flickr.
Warm regards, Simon :)
I'm sure that The Gap has a totally awesome explanation for why this photo of mine, published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license, is apparently being used on the Grey Pumice versions of the "Thermal body double" onesie (SKU #785589) and the 2-in-1 moto one-piece (SKU #785593) at gap.com.
The two images are clearly related to each other.
I eagerly await the Gap's response.
I have various thoughts about what's going on here — for example, the mind-boggling idea that some unknown factory in southeast Asia somewhere is cranking out thousands of $16.95 tshirts with my photo on them on behalf of the Gap, and yet they never attempted to contact me about their use of my work — but I'm trying to keep most of my thoughts to myself until Gap has a chance to respond.
This has come up, after all, on a Sunday afternoon, and I doubt the people there I tried to contact about this will find out until Monday morning. So I'll give them a day or so to formulate a response and get things moving to get this rectified.
That said, I appreciate all the Tweets & Re-Tweets, the articles in Jezebel & others, the mentions in local media, the Facebook comments, etc. Keep 'em coming, by all means.
But I'm going to try to mostly hold my tongue & give them a fair chance to respond before I write much more.
Your turn, Gap.
• • •
Addendum: By "your turn, Gap", I wasn't expecting anything like this.
• • •
News sources & blogs that have picked this up so far, in no particular order:
• Jezebel | Did The Gap Steal This Image From Flickr? (absolute tsunami of traffic from this one, thank you)
• A whole bunch of people are getting here from Reddit, apparently via Gap Pulls A Shepard Fairey and Gap Steals a Guy's Flickr Photo for Baby Gap Outfit, but mostly from their home page (!!).
• This Week in Photo | TWiP #187 — Crowd-Funded Photography
• SFist | The Gap Rips Off Hobbyist's Flickr Photo for Baby-Sized T-Shirt
• news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2169414 (they don't really seem to do titles)
• Reddit | Gap Steals a Guy's Flickr Photo for Baby Gap Outfit
• PetaPixel | Gap Uses Flickr Photo for Clothing Graphic without Permission (very handy rollover illustration on this one, thank you!)
• MediaBisto Unbeige | The Gap Accused of Stealing Flickr Photo, Reprinting Design on Shirt
• Styleite | Did The Gap Steal This Car Photo From Flickr?
• Styleite | Marka Hansen And The Trouble With Gap
• A Photo Editor | Gap Pulls A Shepard Fairey
• Lovelyish | Gap Steals Car Photo from Flickr
• Geek | Gap accused of stealing Flickr photo for shirt designs
• Small Aperture | Oh Gap, get it together!
• Allston City Limits | Gone in 60 seconds (points for the original title on this one)
• MakeupAlley | Horrible. Gap uses a Flickr users photo on tees without permission (chat board, need registration to see past comment titles)
• Laughing Squid, and a whole bunch of other Tumblr users.
• Secret Photo Nerds | -- (yet another registration-only discussion site, no idea what this is)
• NU | Gap steelt afbeelding (Dutch; English translation: "Gap Steals Image")
• Design Taxi | Did Gap Use Flickr Photo for Its Designs? (Is this a spam site? Bafflingly, the comments seem to be about something else entirely.)
• Futomaki | Kolejny dzień, kolejna afera (Polish; English translation: "Another day, another scandal")
• Panophoto | Gap utilise des images Flickr sans s'acquitter des droits (French forum; English translation: "Gap uses Flickr images without paying duties")
Thank you all.
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIC:
Hawker Chief Designer Sydney Camm's Hurricane ranks with the most important aircraft designs in military aviation history. Designed in the late 1930s, when monoplanes were considered unstable and too radical to be successful, the Hurricane was the first British monoplane fighter and the first British fighter to exceed 483 kilometers (300 miles) per hour in level flight. Hurricane pilots fought the Luftwaffe and helped win the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940.
This Mark IIC was built at the Langley factory, near what is now Heathrow Airport, early in 1944. It served as a training aircraft during the World War II in the Royal Air Force's 41 OTU.
Donated by the Royal Air Force Museum
Manufacturer:
Date:
1944
Country of Origin:
United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Wingspan: 12.2 m (40 ft)
Length: 9.8 m (32 ft 3 in)
Height: 4 m (13 ft)
Weight, empty: 2,624 kg (5,785 lb)
Weight, gross: 3,951 kg (8,710 lb)
Top speed:538 km/h (334 mph)
Engine:Rolls-Royce Merlin XX, liquid-cooled in-line V, 1,300 hp
Armament:four 20 mm Hispano cannons
Ordnance:two 250-lb or two 500-lb bombs or eight 3-in rockets
Materials:
Fuselage: Steel tube with aircraft spruce forms and fabric, aluminum cowling
Wings: Stressed Skin Aluminum
Horizontal Stablizer: Stress Skin aluminum
Rudder: fabric covered aluminum
Control Surfaces: fabric covered aluminum
Physical Description:
Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIC single seat, low wing monoplane ground attack fighter; enclosed cockpit; steel tube fuselage with aircraft spruce forms and fabric, aluminum cowling, stressed skin aluminum wings and horizontal stablizer, fabric covered aluminum rudder and control surfaces; grey green camoflage top surface paint scheme with dove grey underside; red and blue national roundel on upper wing surface and red, white, and blue roundel lower wing surface; red, white, blue, and yellow roundel fuselage sides; red, white and blue tail flash; Rolls-Royce Merlin XX, liquid cooled V-12, 1,280 horsepower engine; Armament, 4: 20mm Hispano cannons.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1945
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)
Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish
Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed P-38J-10-LO Lightning:
In the P-38 Lockheed engineer Clarence "Kelly" Johnson and his team of designers created one of the most successful twin-engine fighters ever flown by any nation. From 1942 to 1945, U. S. Army Air Forces pilots flew P-38s over Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific, and from the frozen Aleutian Islands to the sun-baked deserts of North Africa. Lightning pilots in the Pacific theater downed more Japanese aircraft than pilots flying any other Allied warplane.
Maj. Richard I. Bong, America's leading fighter ace, flew this P-38J-10-LO on April 16, 1945, at Wright Field, Ohio, to evaluate an experimental method of interconnecting the movement of the throttle and propeller control levers. However, his right engine exploded in flight before he could conduct the experiment.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1943
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 390 x 1170cm, 6345kg, 1580cm (12ft 9 9/16in. x 38ft 4 5/8in., 13988.2lb., 51ft 10 1/16in.)
Materials:
All-metal
Physical Description:
Twin-tail boom and twin-engine fighter; tricycle landing gear.
Believe it or not, I met Juhan Sonin three years ago on librarything.com, a social media site for book lovers. LibraryThing has an interesting feature which compares similarity of libraries and Juhan came out as in my top 3 list.
Organizing books by color is definitely a first - I must try this some time!
Compare our libraries - though clearly Juhan's is much bigger!
Interestingly, both of the Boston area Banksy pieces are on Essex St:
• F̶O̶L̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶Y̶O̶U̶R̶ ̶D̶R̶E̶A̶M̶S̶ CANCELLED (aka chimney sweep) in Chinatown, Boston
• NO LOITRIN in Central Square, Cambridge.
Does that mean anything? It looks like he favors Essex named streets & roads when he can. In 2008, he did another notable Essex work in London, for example, and posters on the Banksy Forums picked up & discussed on the Essex link as well.
Is there an Essex Street in any of the other nearby towns? It looks like there are several: Brookline, Charlestown, Chelsea, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lynn, Medford, Melrose, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Somerville, Swampscott, and Waltham. Most of these seem improbable to me, other than maybe Brookline, or maybe Somerville or Charlestown. But they start getting pretty suburban after that.
But, again, why "Essex"? In a comment on this photo, Birbeck helps clarify:
I can only surmise that he's having a 'dig' at Essex UK, especially with the misspelling of 'Loitering'. Here, the general view of the urban districts in Essex: working class but with right wing views; that they're not the most intellectual bunch; rather obsessed with fashion (well, their idea of it); their place of worship is the shopping mall; enjoy rowdy nights out; girls are thought of as being dumb, fake blonde hair/tans and promiscuous; and guys are good at the 'chit chat', and swagger around showing off their dosh (money).
It was also the region that once had Europe's largest Ford motor factory. In its heyday, 1 in 3 British cars were made in Dagenham, Essex. Pay was good for such unskilled labour, generations worked mind-numbing routines on assembly lines for 80 years. In 2002 the recession ended the dream.
• • • • •
This photo appeared on Grafitti - A arte das ruas on Yahoo Meme. Yes, Yahoo has a Tumblr/Posterous-esque "Meme" service now -- I was as surprised as you are.
• • • • •
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Banksy
• Birth name
Unknown
• Born
1974 or 1975 (1974 or 1975), Bristol, UK[1]
• Nationality
• Field
• Movement
Anti-Totalitarianism
Anti-War
• Works
Naked Man Image
One Nation Under CCTV
Anarchist Rat
Ozone's Angel
Pulp Fiction
Banksy is a pseudonymous[2][3][4] British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol[2] and to have been born in 1974,[5] but his identity is unknown.[6] According to Tristan Manco[who?], Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."[7] His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world.[8] Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.
Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti.[9] Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.[10]
Banksy's first film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[11] The film was released in the UK on March 5.[12]
Contents
• 1 Career
•• 1.1 2000
•• 1.2 2002
•• 1.3 2003
•• 1.4 2004
•• 1.5 2005
•• 1.6 2006
•• 1.7 2007
•• 1.8 2008
•• 1.9 2009
•• 1.10 2010
Career
Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994[14] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes.[15] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[14] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a piece. He claims he changed to stencilling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[16] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[16]
Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in central Bristol - (wider view). The image of Death is based on a 19th century etching illustrating the pestilence of The Great Stink.[17]
Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.
In late 2001, on a trip to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, he met up with the Gen-X pastellist, visual activist, and recluse James DeWeaver in Byron Bay[clarification needed], where he stencilled a parachuting rat with a clothes peg on its nose above a toilet at the Arts Factory Lodge. This stencil can no longer be located. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phone-box), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank.
2000
The album cover for Monk & Canatella's Do Community Service was conceived and illustrated by Banksy, based on his contribution to the "Walls on fire" event in Bristol 1998.[18][citation needed]
2002
On 19 July 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1/3 Gallery, a small Silverlake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 33 1/3 Gallery, Malathion, Funk Lazy Promotions, and B+.[19]
2003
In 2003 in an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[20] He later moved on to producing subverted paintings; one example is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[21]
2004
In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen's head with Princess Diana's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000.
2005
In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier. He reportedly said "The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km—the distance from London to Zurich. "[22]
2006
• Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern.[23]
• After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[24] on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[25]
• In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy Effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.[26]
2007
• On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[27] The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values.[28] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[6]
• In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural which comes with a house attached.[29]
• In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy's iconic image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the "graffiti" created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics".[30] Banksy tagged the same site again (pictured at right). This time the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Banksy made a tribute art piece over this second Pulp Fiction piece. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone, who was hit by an underground train in Barking, East London, along with fellow artist Wants, on 12 January 2007.[31] The piece was of an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest, holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website, saying:
The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving hand guns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote 'If it's better next time I'll leave it' in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone - rest in peace.[citation needed]
Ozone's Angel
• On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy's work was set with the auction of the work Space Girl & Bird fetching £288,000 (US$576,000), around 20 times the estimate at Bonhams of London.[32]
• On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art's Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award, and continued with his notoriously anonymous status.
• On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy's The Drinker had been stolen.[33][34]
• In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.[35]
• Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.[36] The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of one Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy's Manifesto has been substituted with Graffiti Heroes #03 that describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment.[37] By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Phillips' "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness."
• A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
• In the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owen, Banksy's tag can be seen on a dumpster in the film's credits.
• Banksy, who deals mostly with Lazarides Gallery in London, claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.[38]
2008
• In March, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on Thames Water tower in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this Society" in bright orange. London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F council workmen within three days.[39]
• Over the weekend 3–5 May in London, Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it didn't cover anyone else's.[40] Artists included Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, C215, Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover, Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil, Jef Aérosol, Mr Brainwash, Tom Civil and Roadsworth.[citation needed]
• In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster.[41]
• A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether.[42]
• His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill," opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.[43]
• The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV", painted in April 2008 will be painted over as it is graffiti. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art". [44] The work was painted over in April 2009.
• In December 2008, The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne Australia was vandalised. The image was protected by a sheet of clear perspex, however silver paint was poured behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere". The image was almost completely destroyed.[45].
2009
• May 2009, parts company with agent Steve Lazarides. Announces Pest Control [46] the handling service who act on his behalf will be the only point of sale for new works.
• On 13 June 2009, the Banksy UK Summer show opened at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works.[47][48] Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.[49] Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition has been visited over 300,000 times.[50]
• In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003 Blur single "Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed the piece to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.[51]
• In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included "I don't believe in global warming" which was submerged in water.[52]
2010
• The world premiere of the film Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.[53]
• In February, The Whitehouse public house in Liverpool, England, is sold for £114,000 at auction.[54] The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy.[55]
• In April 2010, Melbourne City Council in Australia reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over the last remaining Banksy art in the city. The image was of a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre. In 2008 Vandals had poured paint over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat. A council spokeswoman has said they would now rush through retrospective permits to protect other “famous or significant artworks” in the city.[56]
• In April 2010 to coincide with the premier of Exit through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, 5 of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city.[57] Banksy reportedly paid a Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.[58]
• In May 2010 to coincide with the release of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in Chicago, one piece appeared in the city.
Notable art pieces
In addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high profile art pieces, including the following:
• At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.[59]
• At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant enclosure.[60]
• In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[61]
• He put up a subverted painting in London's Tate Britain gallery.
• In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, they added it to their permanent collection.[62]
Near Bethlehem - 2005
• Banksy has sprayed "This is not a photo opportunity" on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.[22][63][64][65]
See also: Other Banksy works on the Israeli West Bank barrier
• In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: "This is a stunning visual comment on BT's transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider."[66]
• In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.[67] After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.[67] The mural was later defaced with paint.[67]
• In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up".[68][69][70]
• In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.[71][72]
Technique
Asked about his technique, Banksy said:
“I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl's face on some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is the key.[73]”
Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy's work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in his stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.
He mentions in his book, Wall and Piece, that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.
Identity
Banksy's real name has been widely reported to be Robert or Robin Banks.[74][75][76] His year of birth has been given as 1974.[62]
Simon Hattenstone from Guardian Unlimited is one of the very few people to have interviewed him face-to-face. Hattenstone describes him as "a cross of Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner" and "a 28 year old male who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, silver chain, and one silver earring".[77] In the same interview, Banksy revealed that his parents think their son is a painter and decorator.[77]
In May 2007, an extensive article written by Lauren Collins of the New Yorker re-opened the Banksy-identity controversy citing a 2004 photograph of the artist that was taken in Jamaica during the Two-Culture Clash project and later published in the Evening Standard in 2004.[6]
In October 2007, a story on the BBC website featured a photo allegedly taken by a passer-by in Bethnal Green, London, purporting to show Banksy at work with an assistant, scaffolding and a truck. The story confirms that Tower Hamlets Council in London has decided to treat all Banksy works as vandalism and remove them.[78]
In July 2008, it was claimed by The Mail on Sunday that Banksy's real name is Robin Gunningham.[3][79] His agent has refused to confirm or deny these reports.
In May 2009, the Mail on Sunday once again speculated about Gunningham being Banksy after a "self-portrait" of a rat holding a sign with the word "Gunningham" shot on it was photographed in East London.[80] This "new Banksy rat" story was also picked up by The Times[81] and the Evening Standard.
Banksy, himself, states on his website:
“I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.[82]”
Controversy
In 2004, Banksy walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa but with a yellow smiley face. Though the painting was hurriedly removed by the museum staff, it and its counterpart, temporarily on unknown display at the Tate Britain, were described by Banksy as "shortcuts". He is quoted as saying:
“To actually [have to] go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It's a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.[83]”
Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism,[84] and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organization, was quoted as saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".[6]
In June 2007 Banksy created a circle of plastic portable toilets, said to resemble Stonehenge at the Glastonbury Festival. As this was in the same field as the "sacred circle" it was felt by many to be inappropriate and his installation was itself vandalized before the festival even opened. However, the intention had always been for people to climb on and interact with it.[citation needed] The installation was nicknamed "Portaloo Sunset" and "Bog Henge" by Festival goers. Michael Eavis admitted he wasn't fond of it, and the portaloos were removed before the 2008 festival.
In 2010, an artistic feud developed between Banksy and his rival King Robbo after Banksy painted over a 24-year old Robbo piece on the banks of London's Regent Canal. In retaliation several Banksy pieces in London have been painted over by 'Team Robbo'.[85][86]
Also in 2010, government workers accidentally painted over a Banksy art piece, a famed "parachuting-rat" stencil, in Australia's Melbourne CBD. [87]
Bibliography
Banksy has self-published several books that contain photographs of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own writings:
• Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-95417040-0
• Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-95417041-7
• Banksy, Cut it Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-95449600-5
• Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413786-2
• Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-95519460-3
Random House published Wall and Piece in 2005. It contains a combination of images from his three previous books, as well as some new material.[16]
Two books authored by others on his work were published in 2006 & 2007:
• Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London (2006 - with new editions in 2007 and 2008) ISBN 978-0-95547120-9.
• Steve Wright, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home (2007) ISBN 978-1906477004
External links
All of these pictures were taken over the span of half an hour or so while having a picnic dinner with the family.
I wasn't really keeping track while I was doing this, but there are probably half a dozen or so individual planes (most shown multiple times, of course), and I dunno, maybe fifty or so images in total.
Due to Flickr constraints, the largest version available here is 2048 x 1027pixels, and a bit fuzzy in some of the details. The original is 11,454 x 5,745, or around 111" by 52" (9+ feet by 4+ feet) if printed at 300dpi resolution. And quite a bit sharper, too :-)
Move your mouse over the photo to see notes about some of the recognizeable details.
• • • •
This photo was very kindly used by Andrew Phelps at WBUR's Hubbub blog as their inaugural Photo of the Day on 1 October 2010. Thanks!
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Curtiss P-40E Warhawk (Kittyhawk IA):
Whether known as the Warhawk, Tomahawk, or Kittyhawk, the Curtiss P-40 proved to be a successful, versatile fighter during the first half of World War II. The shark-mouthed Tomahawks that Gen. Claire Chennault's "Flying Tigers" flew in China against the Japanese remain among the most popular airplanes of the war. P-40E pilot Lt. Boyd D. Wagner became the first American ace of World War II when he shot down six Japanese aircraft in the Philippines in mid-December 1941.
Curtiss-Wright built this airplane as Model 87-A3 and delivered it to Canada as a Kittyhawk I in 1941. It served until 1946 in No. 111 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force. U.S. Air Force personnel at Andrews Air Force Base restored it in 1975 to represent an aircraft of the 75th Fighter Squadron, 23rd Fighter Group, 14th Air Force.
Donated by the Exchange Club in Memory of Kellis Forbes.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1939
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 330 x 970cm, 2686kg, 1140cm (10ft 9 15/16in. x 31ft 9 7/8in., 5921.6lb., 37ft 4 13/16in.)
Materials:
All-metal, semi-monocoque
Physical Description:
Single engine, single seat, fighter aircraft.
• • • • •
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird:
No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated globally in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71, the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft. The Blackbird's performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War.
This Blackbird accrued about 2,800 hours of flight time during 24 years of active service with the U.S. Air Force. On its last flight, March 6, 1990, Lt. Col. Ed Yielding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida set a speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour. At the flight's conclusion, they landed at Washington-Dulles International Airport and turned the airplane over to the Smithsonian.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Designer:
Date:
1964
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 18ft 5 15/16in. x 55ft 7in. x 107ft 5in., 169998.5lb. (5.638m x 16.942m x 32.741m, 77110.8kg)
Other: 18ft 5 15/16in. x 107ft 5in. x 55ft 7in. (5.638m x 32.741m x 16.942m)
Materials:
Titanium
Physical Description:
Twin-engine, two-seat, supersonic strategic reconnaissance aircraft; airframe constructed largley of titanium and its alloys; vertical tail fins are constructed of a composite (laminated plastic-type material) to reduce radar cross-section; Pratt and Whitney J58 (JT11D-20B) turbojet engines feature large inlet shock cones.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Naval Aircraft Factory N3N:
In 1934 the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia was tasked to manufacture a new primary trainer for the U.S. Navy. Following successful tests, this little biplane trainer was built in both land and seaplane versions. The Navy initially ordered 179 N3N-1 models, and the factory began producing more than 800 N3N-3 models in 1938. U.S. Navy primary flight training schools used N3Ns extensively throughout World War II. A few of the seaplane version were retained for primary training at the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1961 they became the last biplanes retired from U.S. military service.
This N3N-3 was transferred from Cherry Point to Annapolis in 1946, where it served as a seaplane trainer. It was restored and displayed at the Naval Academy Museum before being transferred here.
Transferred from the United States Navy
Manufacturer:
Date:
1941
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 10ft 9 15/16in. x 25ft 7 1/16in. x 34ft 1 7/16in., 2090lb. (330 x 780 x 1040cm, 948kg)
Materials:
bolted steel-tube fuselage construction with removable side panels wings, also constructed internally of all metal, covered with fabric like the fuselage and tail.
Physical Description:
Bright yellow bi-plane, hand crank start. Cockpit instrumentation consists of an altimeter, tachometer, airspeed indicator, compass, turn and bank indicator, and a combination fuel and oil temperature and pressure gauge, floats.
• • • • •
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Space Shuttle Enterprise:
Manufacturer:
Rockwell International Corporation
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 57 ft. tall x 122 ft. long x 78 ft. wing span, 150,000 lb.
(1737.36 x 3718.57 x 2377.44cm, 68039.6kg)
Materials:
Aluminum airframe and body with some fiberglass features; payload bay doors are graphite epoxy composite; thermal tiles are simulated (polyurethane foam) except for test samples of actual tiles and thermal blankets.
The first Space Shuttle orbiter, "Enterprise," is a full-scale test vehicle used for flights in the atmosphere and tests on the ground; it is not equipped for spaceflight. Although the airframe and flight control elements are like those of the Shuttles flown in space, this vehicle has no propulsion system and only simulated thermal tiles because these features were not needed for atmospheric and ground tests. "Enterprise" was rolled out at Rockwell International's assembly facility in Palmdale, California, in 1976. In 1977, it entered service for a nine-month-long approach-and-landing test flight program. Thereafter it was used for vibration tests and fit checks at NASA centers, and it also appeared in the 1983 Paris Air Show and the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans. In 1985, NASA transferred "Enterprise" to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.
Transferred from National Aeronautics and Space Administration
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Steven F. Udvar-Hazy | Boeing B-29 Superfortress "Enola Gay":
Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated propeller-driven bomber of World War II and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Although designed to fight in the European theater, the B-29 found its niche on the other side of the globe. In the Pacific, B-29s delivered a variety of aerial weapons: conventional bombs, incendiary bombs, mines, and two nuclear weapons.
On August 6, 1945, this Martin-built B-29-45-MO dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Bockscar (on display at the U.S. Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio) dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Enola Gay flew as the advance weather reconnaissance aircraft that day. A third B-29, The Great Artiste, flew as an observation aircraft on both missions.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1945
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 900 x 3020cm, 32580kg, 4300cm (29ft 6 5/16in. x 99ft 1in., 71825.9lb., 141ft 15/16in.)
Materials:
Polished overall aluminum finish
Physical Description:
Four-engine heavy bomber with semi-monoqoque fuselage and high-aspect ratio wings. Polished aluminum finish overall, standard late-World War II Army Air Forces insignia on wings and aft fuselage and serial number on vertical fin; 509th Composite Group markings painted in black; "Enola Gay" in black, block letters on lower left nose.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Grumman F6F-3 Hellcat:
The Grumman F6F Hellcat was originally conceived as an advanced version of the U.S. Navy's then current front-line fighter, the F4F Wildcat (see NASM collection). The Wildcat's intended replacement, the Vought F4U Corsair (see NASM collection), first flown in 1940, was showing great promise, but development was slowed by problems, including the crash of the prototype.
The National Air and Space Museum's F6F-3 Hellcat, BuNo. 41834, was built at Grumman's Bethpage, New York, factory in February 1944 under contract NOA-(S)846. It was delivered to the Navy on February 7, and arrived in San Diego, California, on the 18th. It was assigned to Fighter Squadron 15 (VF-15) on USS Hornet (CV12) bound for Hawaii. On arrival, it was assigned to VF-3 where it sustained damage in a wheels-up landing at NAS Barbers Point, Hawaii. After repair, it was assigned to VF-83 where it was used in a training role until February 21, 1945. After numerous transfers 41834 was converted to an F6F-3K target drone with the installation of sophisticated radio-control equipment. It was painted red with a pink tail that carried the number 14. Its mission was to be used in Operation Crossroads - the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. It flew on June 24, 1946, with a pilot, on a practice flight and was launched, unmanned, soon after the first bomb test. Instrumentation on board and photographic plates taped to the control stick obtained data on radioactivity. Three more manned flights preceded the final unmanned flight on July 25, 1946, which evaluated the first underwater explosion. Records indicate that exposure of this aircraft to the radioactive cloud was minimal and residual radiation is negligible.
F6F-3K 41834 was transferred to NAS Norfolk and logged its last flight on March 25, 1947, with a total of 430.2 flying hours. It was assigned to the National Air Museum on November 3, 1948, and remained at Norfolk until October 4, 1960, when it was moved by barge to Washington and placed in storage. In 1976 this Hellcat was loaned to the USS Yorktown Museum at Charleston, South Carolina. A superficial restoration was performed at the museum, but because of the harsh environment and its poor condition the Hellcat was returned to NASM on March 16, 1982. In 1983, it was sent to Grumman Aerospace where a team of volunteers completely restored the aircraft. In 1985, it was shipped back to the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland, and put in storage. NASM's F6F-3 Hellcat is scheduled to be displayed in the new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center at Dulles International Airport in Virginia in 2004.
Transferred from the United States Navy.
Manufacturer:
Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation
Date:
1943
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 338 x 1021cm, 4092kg, 1304cm (11ft 1 1/16in. x 33ft 5 15/16in., 9021.2lb., 42ft 9 3/8in.)
Physical Description:
Heavy armor plate, reinforced empennage, R-2800-10W engine, spring tabs on the ailerons (increased maneuverability), could carry rockets as well as bombs.
Changbaishan (長白山 Chang Bai Mountain) has two separate areas: the northern slope and the western slope. Each offers a different view of the mountain. The photo here depicts the western slope of the mountain.
Photographed with the Canon EOS 6D + Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM. 10 captures stitched using cylindrical projection covering a FOV of 68.08 x 29.10.
長白山西坡 Western Slope, Chang Bai Mountain (Changbaishan) / 中國東北 Dongbei, China / SML.20140725.6D.33117-SML.20140725.6D.33126-Pano.i10.C.68.08x29.10(-7.32).P1
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed Martin X-35B STOVL:
This aircraft is the first X-35 ever built. It was originally the X-35A and was modified to include the lift-fan engine for testing of the STOVL concept. Among its many test records, this aircraft was the first in history to achieve a short takeoff, level supersonic dash, and vertical landing in a single flight. It is also the first aircraft to fly using a shaft-driven lift-fan propulsion system. The X-35B flight test program was one of the shortest, most effective in history, lasting from June 23, 2001 to August 6, 2001.
The lift-fan propulsion system is now displayed next to the X-35B at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport.
On July 7, 2006, the production model F-35 was officially named F-35 Lightning II by T. Michael Moseley, Chief of Staff USAF.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Date:
2001
Dimensions:
Wing span: 10.05 m (33 ft 0 in)
Length: 15.47 m (50 ft 9 in)
Height: approximately 5 m (15 ft 0 in)
Weight: approximately 35,000 lb.
Materials:
Composite material aircraft skin, alternating steel and titanium spars. Single-engine, single-seat configuration includes lift-fan and steering bars for vertical flight.
Physical Description:
Short takeoff/vertical landing variant to be used by U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marines and the United Kingdom, equipped with a shaft-driven lift fan propulsion system which enables the aircraft to take off from a short runway or small aircraft carrier and to land vertically.
Engine: Pratt & Whitney JSF 119-PW-611 turbofan deflects thrust downward for short takeoff/vertical landing capability. The Air Force and Navy versions use a thrust-vectoring exhaust nozzle. The Marine Corps and Royal Air Force/Navy version has a swivel-duct nozzle; an engine-driven fan behind the cockpit and air-reaction control valves in the wings to provide stability at low speeds.
Other major subcontractors are Rolls Royce and BAE.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Grumman A-6E Intruder:
The Navy's experience in the Korean War showed the need for a new long-range strike aircraft with high subsonic performance at very low altitude--an aircraft that could penetrate enemy defenses and find and destroy small targets in any weather. The Grumman A-6 Intruder was designed with these needs in mind. The Intruder first flew in 1960 and was delivered to the Navy in 1963 and the Marine Corps in 1964.
The Navy accepted this airplane as an "A" model in 1968. It served under harsh combat conditions in the skies over Vietnam and is a veteran of the 1991 Desert Storm campaign, when it flew missions during the first 72 hours of the war. It has accumulated more than 7,500 flying hours, over 6,500 landings, 767 carrier landings, and 712 catapult launches.
Transferred from the United States Navy, Office of the Secretary
Date:
1960
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 16ft 2in. x 52ft 12in. x 54ft 9in., 26745.8lb. (4.928m x 16.154m x 16.688m, 12131.8kg)
Materials:
Conventional all-metal, graphite/epoxy wing (retrofit), aluminium control surfaces, titanium high-strength fittings (wing-fold).
Physical Description:
Dual place (side by side), twin-engine, all-weather attack aircraft; multiple variants.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | McDonnell F-4S Phantom II:
The U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps and the air forces of 12 other nations have flown the multi-role Phantom II. In this aircraft, then a Navy F-4J, on June 21, 1972, Cmdr. S. C. Flynn and his radar intercept officer, Lt. W. H. John, spotted three enemy MiG fighters off the coast of Vietnam and shot down one MiG-21 with a Sidewinder air-to-air missile. This Phantom also flew combat air patrols and bombing missions during the Linebacker II bombing campaign that same year.
Later assigned to the Marine Corps, this F-4J was extensively modernized and designated an F-4S. Changes included improving the engines (smokeless), hydraulics, electronics, and wiring; modifying the wings to increase maneuverability; and adding a radar homing and warning antenna, as well as formation tape lights on the fuselage and vertical tail.
Transferred from the United States Navy.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1958
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 16ft 3in. x 38ft 5in. x 58ft 3in., 39999.6lb. (4.953m x 11.709m x 17.755m, 18143.7kg)
Other: 58ft 3in. x 16ft 3in. x 38ft 5in. (17.755m x 4.953m x 11.709m)
Materials:
All metal, semi-monocoque structure
Physical Description:
Twin-turbojet (J79-GE-8), two-seat (tandem) fighter / bomber. All metal, semi-monocoque structure. Cantilever, low-wing, monoplane. Dog-toothed leading edge of wing (12 degrees), anhedral tail (23 degrees).
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Republic F-105D Thunderchief :
The F-105 was designed as a supersonic, single-seat, fighter-bomber capable of carrying nuclear weapons or heavy bomb loads at supersonic speeds. The F-105D variant was an all-weather fighter-bomber version, fitted with mono-pulse and Doppler radar for night or bad weather operations. The original weapons bay, designed for nuclear stores, was sealed and fitted with additional fuel tanks. Bombs were carried on multiple weapons racks on the centerline of the fuselage, and on wing pylons. The aircraft was fitted with a retractable in-flight refueling probe. The first F-105D flew on 9 June 1959 and 610 F-105Ds were eventually built.
This aircraft has served in several F-105 units around the world and is restored to its 1967 Vietnam-era 388th Tactical Fighter Wing, 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron camouflage as it flew during its assignment to Korat RTAB, Thailand. This jet also was briefly assigned to the 355 TFW located at Takhli RTAB in 1968. After this "Thud" finished its combat tour-which certainly included missions supporting Operation "Rolling Thunder," "Steel Tiger," and "Barrel Roll"-it returned stateside and began more than a decade assigned to the District of Columbia Air National Guard and was transferred to the Air and Space Museum in late 1981.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Date:
1961
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 19ft 8in., 26854.8lb. (5.994m, 12181.2kg)
Other: 19ft 8in. x 64ft 5in. x 34ft 11in. (5.994m x 19.634m x 10.642m)
Materials:
All metal monoplane, supersonic single-engine jet fighter.
Physical Description:
Single-seat, single-engine, jet, fighter/bomber; USAF.
• • • • •
Beginning in 1962, the H-34 served as the primary Marine Corps assault helicopter of the Vietnam War until its replacement by the turbine-powered CH-46. It began in 1952 as a Navy anti-submarine warfare helicopter evolved from the Sikorsky S-55 series. Initially designated as the HSS-1, it would also go on to see significant service in the combat assault and utility roles with the Army and Marine Corps. Great Britain and France also deployed versions in some of the first helicopter combat assault operations.
A large payload capacity and generous center-of-gravity range made the H-34 series an effective transport helicopter for the1950s. Its weaknesses were a reciprocating engine that struggled in the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia and maintenance intensive mechanical components. This Marine Corps UH-34D never served overseas, but wears the markings of Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 163 that did see extensive combat in Vietnam.
Transferred from the United States Marine Corps
Manufacturer:
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Physical Description:
All equipment that came with the helicopter that is not attached to it is contained in box A19750823002 with the exception of two items. The VIP steps that attach to the side of the aircraft and the long-handled tool to assist with main rotor blade deployment are stored inside the helicopter's cabin.
• • • • •
Quoting Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Bell UH-1H Iroquois "Huey" Smokey III:
In 1956, the Iroquois, commonly known as the Huey, first flew as an Army replacement for the H-13 medevac helicopter of Korean War fame. By the end of the 20th century, Bell had produced more Hueys than any other American military aircraft, except for the Consolidated B-24. Superbly suited to the air mobility and medical evacuation missions in Vietnam, the Huey became an indelible symbol of that conflict.
This UH-1 compiled a distinguished combat record in Vietnam from 1966 to 1970 with four units, including the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion of the 1st Cavalry and the 118th and 128th Assault Helicopter Companies. Numerous patches on its skin attest to the ferocity of missions flown while operating as a "Smoke Ship," laying down smokescreens for air assault operations with the 11th Combat Aviation Battalion.
Transferred from the United States Army Aviation Museum
Manufacturer:
Date:
1966
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Rotor Diameter: 14.7 m (48 ft 3 in)
Length: 12.6 m (41 ft 5 in)
Height: 4.2 m (13 ft 7 in)
Weight, empty: 2,580 kg (5,687 lb)
Weight, gross: 4,309 kg (9,500 lb)
Materials:
Overall: Metal airframe, plexiglass windows.
Physical Description:
Utility helicopter, two-blade main and tail rotors, powered by a single GE T-53L13BA turbo-shaft engine. There are oil stains on the lower aft fuselage and beneath the tail rotor gear box. The horizontal stabilizer was removed.
See more photos of this, and the Wikipedia article.
Details, quoting from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum | Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird:
No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated globally in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71, the world's fastest jet-propelled aircraft. The Blackbird's performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War.
This Blackbird accrued about 2,800 hours of flight time during 24 years of active service with the U.S. Air Force. On its last flight, March 6, 1990, Lt. Col. Ed Yielding and Lt. Col. Joseph Vida set a speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging 3,418 kilometers (2,124 miles) per hour. At the flight's conclusion, they landed at Washington-Dulles International Airport and turned the airplane over to the Smithsonian.
Transferred from the United States Air Force.
Manufacturer:
Designer:
Date:
1964
Country of Origin:
United States of America
Dimensions:
Overall: 18ft 5 15/16in. x 55ft 7in. x 107ft 5in., 169998.5lb. (5.638m x 16.942m x 32.741m, 77110.8kg)
Other: 18ft 5 15/16in. x 107ft 5in. x 55ft 7in. (5.638m x 32.741m x 16.942m)
Materials:
Titanium
Physical Description:
Twin-engine, two-seat, supersonic strategic reconnaissance aircraft; airframe constructed largley of titanium and its alloys; vertical tail fins are constructed of a composite (laminated plastic-type material) to reduce radar cross-section; Pratt and Whitney J58 (JT11D-20B) turbojet engines feature large inlet shock cones.
Long Description:
No reconnaissance aircraft in history has operated in more hostile airspace or with such complete impunity than the SR-71 Blackbird. It is the fastest aircraft propelled by air-breathing engines. The Blackbird's performance and operational achievements placed it at the pinnacle of aviation technology developments during the Cold War. The airplane was conceived when tensions with communist Eastern Europe reached levels approaching a full-blown crisis in the mid-1950s. U.S. military commanders desperately needed accurate assessments of Soviet worldwide military deployments, particularly near the Iron Curtain. Lockheed Aircraft Corporation's subsonic U-2 (see NASM collection) reconnaissance aircraft was an able platform but the U. S. Air Force recognized that this relatively slow aircraft was already vulnerable to Soviet interceptors. They also understood that the rapid development of surface-to-air missile systems could put U-2 pilots at grave risk. The danger proved reality when a U-2 was shot down by a surface to air missile over the Soviet Union in 1960.
Lockheed's first proposal for a new high speed, high altitude, reconnaissance aircraft, to be capable of avoiding interceptors and missiles, centered on a design propelled by liquid hydrogen. This proved to be impracticable because of considerable fuel consumption. Lockheed then reconfigured the design for conventional fuels. This was feasible and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), already flying the Lockheed U-2, issued a production contract for an aircraft designated the A-12. Lockheed's clandestine 'Skunk Works' division (headed by the gifted design engineer Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson) designed the A-12 to cruise at Mach 3.2 and fly well above 18,288 m (60,000 feet). To meet these challenging requirements, Lockheed engineers overcame many daunting technical challenges. Flying more than three times the speed of sound generates 316° C (600° F) temperatures on external aircraft surfaces, which are enough to melt conventional aluminum airframes. The design team chose to make the jet's external skin of titanium alloy to which shielded the internal aluminum airframe. Two conventional, but very powerful, afterburning turbine engines propelled this remarkable aircraft. These power plants had to operate across a huge speed envelope in flight, from a takeoff speed of 334 kph (207 mph) to more than 3,540 kph (2,200 mph). To prevent supersonic shock waves from moving inside the engine intake causing flameouts, Johnson's team had to design a complex air intake and bypass system for the engines.
Skunk Works engineers also optimized the A-12 cross-section design to exhibit a low radar profile. Lockheed hoped to achieve this by carefully shaping the airframe to reflect as little transmitted radar energy (radio waves) as possible, and by application of special paint designed to absorb, rather than reflect, those waves. This treatment became one of the first applications of stealth technology, but it never completely met the design goals.
Test pilot Lou Schalk flew the single-seat A-12 on April 24, 1962, after he became airborne accidentally during high-speed taxi trials. The airplane showed great promise but it needed considerable technical refinement before the CIA could fly the first operational sortie on May 31, 1967 - a surveillance flight over North Vietnam. A-12s, flown by CIA pilots, operated as part of the Air Force's 1129th Special Activities Squadron under the "Oxcart" program. While Lockheed continued to refine the A-12, the U. S. Air Force ordered an interceptor version of the aircraft designated the YF-12A. The Skunk Works, however, proposed a "specific mission" version configured to conduct post-nuclear strike reconnaissance. This system evolved into the USAF's familiar SR-71.
Lockheed built fifteen A-12s, including a special two-seat trainer version. Two A-12s were modified to carry a special reconnaissance drone, designated D-21. The modified A-12s were redesignated M-21s. These were designed to take off with the D-21 drone, powered by a Marquart ramjet engine mounted on a pylon between the rudders. The M-21 then hauled the drone aloft and launched it at speeds high enough to ignite the drone's ramjet motor. Lockheed also built three YF-12As but this type never went into production. Two of the YF-12As crashed during testing. Only one survives and is on display at the USAF Museum in Dayton, Ohio. The aft section of one of the "written off" YF-12As which was later used along with an SR-71A static test airframe to manufacture the sole SR-71C trainer. One SR-71 was lent to NASA and designated YF-12C. Including the SR-71C and two SR-71B pilot trainers, Lockheed constructed thirty-two Blackbirds. The first SR-71 flew on December 22, 1964. Because of extreme operational costs, military strategists decided that the more capable USAF SR-71s should replace the CIA's A-12s. These were retired in 1968 after only one year of operational missions, mostly over southeast Asia. The Air Force's 1st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (part of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing) took over the missions, flying the SR-71 beginning in the spring of 1968.
After the Air Force began to operate the SR-71, it acquired the official name Blackbird-- for the special black paint that covered the airplane. This paint was formulated to absorb radar signals, to radiate some of the tremendous airframe heat generated by air friction, and to camouflage the aircraft against the dark sky at high altitudes.
Experience gained from the A-12 program convinced the Air Force that flying the SR-71 safely required two crew members, a pilot and a Reconnaissance Systems Officer (RSO). The RSO operated with the wide array of monitoring and defensive systems installed on the airplane. This equipment included a sophisticated Electronic Counter Measures (ECM) system that could jam most acquisition and targeting radar. In addition to an array of advanced, high-resolution cameras, the aircraft could also carry equipment designed to record the strength, frequency, and wavelength of signals emitted by communications and sensor devices such as radar. The SR-71 was designed to fly deep into hostile territory, avoiding interception with its tremendous speed and high altitude. It could operate safely at a maximum speed of Mach 3.3 at an altitude more than sixteen miles, or 25,908 m (85,000 ft), above the earth. The crew had to wear pressure suits similar to those worn by astronauts. These suits were required to protect the crew in the event of sudden cabin pressure loss while at operating altitudes.
To climb and cruise at supersonic speeds, the Blackbird's Pratt & Whitney J-58 engines were designed to operate continuously in afterburner. While this would appear to dictate high fuel flows, the Blackbird actually achieved its best "gas mileage," in terms of air nautical miles per pound of fuel burned, during the Mach 3+ cruise. A typical Blackbird reconnaissance flight might require several aerial refueling operations from an airborne tanker. Each time the SR-71 refueled, the crew had to descend to the tanker's altitude, usually about 6,000 m to 9,000 m (20,000 to 30,000 ft), and slow the airplane to subsonic speeds. As velocity decreased, so did frictional heat. This cooling effect caused the aircraft's skin panels to shrink considerably, and those covering the fuel tanks contracted so much that fuel leaked, forming a distinctive vapor trail as the tanker topped off the Blackbird. As soon as the tanks were filled, the jet's crew disconnected from the tanker, relit the afterburners, and again climbed to high altitude.
Air Force pilots flew the SR-71 from Kadena AB, Japan, throughout its operational career but other bases hosted Blackbird operations, too. The 9th SRW occasionally deployed from Beale AFB, California, to other locations to carryout operational missions. Cuban missions were flown directly from Beale. The SR-71 did not begin to operate in Europe until 1974, and then only temporarily. In 1982, when the U.S. Air Force based two aircraft at Royal Air Force Base Mildenhall to fly monitoring mission in Eastern Europe.
When the SR-71 became operational, orbiting reconnaissance satellites had already replaced manned aircraft to gather intelligence from sites deep within Soviet territory. Satellites could not cover every geopolitical hotspot so the Blackbird remained a vital tool for global intelligence gathering. On many occasions, pilots and RSOs flying the SR-71 provided information that proved vital in formulating successful U. S. foreign policy. Blackbird crews provided important intelligence about the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its aftermath, and pre- and post-strike imagery of the 1986 raid conducted by American air forces on Libya. In 1987, Kadena-based SR-71 crews flew a number of missions over the Persian Gulf, revealing Iranian Silkworm missile batteries that threatened commercial shipping and American escort vessels.
As the performance of space-based surveillance systems grew, along with the effectiveness of ground-based air defense networks, the Air Force started to lose enthusiasm for the expensive program and the 9th SRW ceased SR-71 operations in January 1990. Despite protests by military leaders, Congress revived the program in 1995. Continued wrangling over operating budgets, however, soon led to final termination. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration retained two SR-71As and the one SR-71B for high-speed research projects and flew these airplanes until 1999.
On March 6, 1990, the service career of one Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird ended with a record-setting flight. This special airplane bore Air Force serial number 64-17972. Lt. Col. Ed Yeilding and his RSO, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Vida, flew this aircraft from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds, averaging a speed of 3,418 kph (2,124 mph). At the conclusion of the flight, '972 landed at Dulles International Airport and taxied into the custody of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. At that time, Lt. Col. Vida had logged 1,392.7 hours of flight time in Blackbirds, more than that of any other crewman.
This particular SR-71 was also flown by Tom Alison, a former National Air and Space Museum's Chief of Collections Management. Flying with Detachment 1 at Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, Alison logged more than a dozen '972 operational sorties. The aircraft spent twenty-four years in active Air Force service and accrued a total of 2,801.1 hours of flight time.
Wingspan: 55'7"
Length: 107'5"
Height: 18'6"
Weight: 170,000 Lbs
Reference and Further Reading:
Crickmore, Paul F. Lockheed SR-71: The Secret Missions Exposed. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 1996.
Francillon, Rene J. Lockheed Aircraft Since 1913. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1987.
Johnson, Clarence L. Kelly: More Than My Share of It All. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985.
Miller, Jay. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works. Leicester, U.K.: Midland Counties Publishing Ltd., 1995.
Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird curatorial file, Aeronautics Division, National Air and Space Museum.
DAD, 11-11-01
Volkswagen has been trending for a while in the social media sphere in recent years. Their retro vans and beetles have been remixed to unrecognisable magical form. So to see this at Art Basel is a surprise. The higher echelon of the art world often feel somewhat dated, filled with “old people” hiding behind the gates in their ivory towers. It is unclear if this means that they are rebranding, or perhaps simply that Asia is the “new world” in art as California is in the world of wines.
This work is by Indonesian artist Ichwan Noor (b. 1963), an artist born in Jakarta and studied at the Indonesian Art Institute, Yogyakarta. He got his idea of this piece from his personal perception that objects are products of a “transportation culture,” which induced hints and signs of spiritual emotion.
For this sculpture / installation, real parts from VW Beetle '53 is used as raw materials, and combined with aluminium and polyester to form this majestic sphere measuring 180 x 180 x 180 cm. Exposure to Indonesian contemporary artworks is a first for me at Art Basel Hong Kong, and I am seriously considering traveling to Indonesia for more.
Seriously. Crazyisgood. SML Love. VW lovers rejoice!
Ichwan Noor
Beetle Sphere, 2013
Aluminium, polyester, real parts from VW beetle '53, paint
180 x 180 x 180 cm
# Ichwan Noor
www.artbaselhongkong-online.com/?Action=showProduct&i...
www.mondecor.com/kuratorial/ichwan-noor-solo-exhibition-e...
# Art:1 by Mondecor Gallery
Jl. Rajawali Selatan Raya no. 3
Jakarta 10720
Indonesia
# SML Data
+ Date: 2013-05-23T17:48:05+0800
+ Dimensions: 5118 x 3570
+ Exposure: 1/30 sec at f/8.0
+ Focal Length: 19 mm
+ ISO: 500
+ Camera: Canon EOS 6D
+ Lens: Canon EF 17-40 f/4L USM
+ GPS: 22°16'59" N 114°10'22" E
+ Location: 香港會議展覽中心 Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre (HKCEC)
+ Workflow: Lightroom 4
+ Serial: SML.20130523.6D.14135
+ Series: 新聞攝影 Photojournalism, SML Fine Art, Art Basel Hong Kong 2013
# Media Licensing
Creative Commons (CCBY) See-ming Lee 李思明 / SML Photography / SML Universe Limited
“Ichwan Noor (b. 1963): Beetle Sphere, 2013 (Aluminium, polyester, real parts from VW beetle '53, paint)” / Art:1 by Mondecor Gallery / Art Basel Hong Kong 2013 / SML.20130523.6D.14135
/ #Photojournalism #CreativeCommons #CCBY #SMLPhotography #SMLUniverse #SMLFineArt #Crazyisgood #SMLProjects
/ #中國 #中国 #China #香港 #HongKong #攝影 #摄影 #photography #Art #FineArt #ArtBasel #ABHK #IchwanNoor #MondecorGallery #Indonesia #WTF #Beetle #VW #Volkswagen #installation
Posted via email to ☛ HoloChromaCinePhotoRamaScope‽: cdevers.posterous.com/banksy-no-loitrin.
• • • • • • • • • •
Interestingly, both of the Boston area Banksy pieces are on Essex St:
• F̶O̶L̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶Y̶O̶U̶R̶ ̶D̶R̶E̶A̶M̶S̶ CANCELLED (aka chimney sweep) in Chinatown, Boston
• NO LOITRIN in Central Square, Cambridge.
Does that mean anything? It looks like he favors Essex named streets & roads when he can. In 2008, he did another notable Essex work in London, for example, and posters on the Banksy Forums picked up & discussed on the Essex link as well.
Is there an Essex Street in any of the other nearby towns? It looks like there are several: Brookline, Charlestown, Chelsea, Gloucester, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lynn, Medford, Melrose, Quincy, Revere, Salem, Saugus, Somerville, Swampscott, and Waltham. Most of these seem improbable to me, other than maybe Brookline, or maybe Somerville or Charlestown. But they start getting pretty suburban after that.
But, again, why "Essex"? In a comment on this photo, Birbeck helps clarify:
I can only surmise that he's having a 'dig' at Essex UK, especially with the misspelling of 'Loitering'. Here, the general view of the urban districts in Essex: working class but with right wing views; that they're not the most intellectual bunch; rather obsessed with fashion (well, their idea of it); their place of worship is the shopping mall; enjoy rowdy nights out; girls are thought of as being dumb, fake blonde hair/tans and promiscuous; and guys are good at the 'chit chat', and swagger around showing off their dosh (money).
It was also the region that once had Europe's largest Ford motor factory. In its heyday, 1 in 3 British cars were made in Dagenham, Essex. Pay was good for such unskilled labour, generations worked mind-numbing routines on assembly lines for 80 years. In 2002 the recession ended the dream.
• • • • •
• This is a scan of this Banksy photo running in the the Boston Globe on May 13, 2010. This is the first time I've made the newspaper with one of my photos :-) (The Globe later ran a longer article, titled Tag — we’re it: Banksy, the controversial and elusive street artist, left his mark here. Or did he? with a photo taken by one of their staff photographers, Essdras M. Suarez.
• This photo appeared on Grafitti - A arte das ruas on Yahoo Meme. Yes, Yahoo has a Tumblr/Posterous-esque "Meme" service now -- I was as surprised as you are.
• The photo has also appeared, among other places, on CafeBabel, a European online affairs magazine based in Paris.
• • • • •
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Banksy
• Birth name
Unknown
• Born
1974 or 1975 (1974 or 1975), Bristol, UK[1]
• Nationality
• Field
• Movement
Anti-Totalitarianism
Anti-War
• Works
Naked Man Image
One Nation Under CCTV
Anarchist Rat
Ozone's Angel
Pulp Fiction
Banksy is a pseudonymous[2][3][4] British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol[2] and to have been born in 1974,[5] but his identity is unknown.[6] According to Tristan Manco[who?], Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."[7] His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world.[8] Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.
Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti.[9] Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.[10]
Banksy's first film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[11] The film was released in the UK on March 5.[12]
Contents
• 1 Career
•• 1.1 2000
•• 1.2 2002
•• 1.3 2003
•• 1.4 2004
•• 1.5 2005
•• 1.6 2006
•• 1.7 2007
•• 1.8 2008
•• 1.9 2009
•• 1.10 2010
Career
Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994[14] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes.[15] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[14] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a piece. He claims he changed to stencilling whilst he was hiding from the police under a train carriage, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[16] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[16]
Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in central Bristol - (wider view). The image of Death is based on a 19th century etching illustrating the pestilence of The Great Stink.[17]
Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.
In late 2001, on a trip to Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, he met up with the Gen-X pastellist, visual activist, and recluse James DeWeaver in Byron Bay[clarification needed], where he stencilled a parachuting rat with a clothes peg on its nose above a toilet at the Arts Factory Lodge. This stencil can no longer be located. He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phone-box), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank.
2000
The album cover for Monk & Canatella's Do Community Service was conceived and illustrated by Banksy, based on his contribution to the "Walls on fire" event in Bristol 1998.[18][citation needed]
2002
On 19 July 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1/3 Gallery, a small Silverlake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 33 1/3 Gallery, Malathion, Funk Lazy Promotions, and B+.[19]
2003
In 2003 in an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[20] He later moved on to producing subverted paintings; one example is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[21]
2004
In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen's head with Princess Diana's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000.
2005
In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on Israel's highly controversial West Bank barrier. He reportedly said "The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km—the distance from London to Zurich. "[22]
2006
• Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern.[23]
• After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[24] on 19 October 2006 a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[25]
• In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy Effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.[26]
2007
• On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[27] The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values.[28] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[6]
• In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural which comes with a house attached.[29]
• In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy's iconic image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the "graffiti" created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics".[30] Banksy tagged the same site again (pictured at right). This time the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Banksy made a tribute art piece over this second Pulp Fiction piece. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone, who was hit by an underground train in Barking, East London, along with fellow artist Wants, on 12 January 2007.[31] The piece was of an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest, holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website, saying:
The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving hand guns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote 'If it's better next time I'll leave it' in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone - rest in peace.[citation needed]
Ozone's Angel
• On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy's work was set with the auction of the work Space Girl & Bird fetching £288,000 (US$576,000), around 20 times the estimate at Bonhams of London.[32]
• On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art's Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award, and continued with his notoriously anonymous status.
• On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy's The Drinker had been stolen.[33][34]
• In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.[35]
• Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.[36] The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of one Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy's Manifesto has been substituted with Graffiti Heroes #03 that describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment.[37] By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Phillips' "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness."
• A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
• In the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owen, Banksy's tag can be seen on a dumpster in the film's credits.
• Banksy, who deals mostly with Lazarides Gallery in London, claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.[38]
2008
• In March, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on Thames Water tower in the middle of the Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this Society" in bright orange. London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F council workmen within three days.[39]
• Over the weekend 3–5 May in London, Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it didn't cover anyone else's.[40] Artists included Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, C215, Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover, Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil, Jef Aérosol, Mr Brainwash, Tom Civil and Roadsworth.[citation needed]
• In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the associated levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster.[41]
• A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting depicting a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether.[42]
• His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill," opened 5 October 2008. The animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror.[43]
• The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV", painted in April 2008 will be painted over as it is graffiti. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art". [44] The work was painted over in April 2009.
• In December 2008, The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne Australia was vandalised. The image was protected by a sheet of clear perspex, however silver paint was poured behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere". The image was almost completely destroyed.[45].
2009
• May 2009, parts company with agent Steve Lazarides. Announces Pest Control [46] the handling service who act on his behalf will be the only point of sale for new works.
• On 13 June 2009, the Banksy UK Summer show opened at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works.[47][48] Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.[49] Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition has been visited over 300,000 times.[50]
• In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003 Blur single "Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed the piece to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.[51]
• In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included "I don't believe in global warming" which was submerged in water.[52]
2010
• The world premiere of the film Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.[53]
• In February, The Whitehouse public house in Liverpool, England, is sold for £114,000 at auction.[54] The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy.[55]
• In April 2010, Melbourne City Council in Australia reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over the last remaining Banksy art in the city. The image was of a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre. In 2008 Vandals had poured paint over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat. A council spokeswoman has said they would now rush through retrospective permits to protect other “famous or significant artworks” in the city.[56]
• In April 2010 to coincide with the premier of Exit through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, 5 of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city.[57] Banksy reportedly paid a Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.[58]
• In May 2010 to coincide with the release of "Exit Through the Gift Shop" in Chicago, one piece appeared in the city.
Notable art pieces
In addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high profile art pieces, including the following:
• At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.[59]
• At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant enclosure.[60]
• In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.[61]
• He put up a subverted painting in London's Tate Britain gallery.
• In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, they added it to their permanent collection.[62]
Near Bethlehem - 2005
• Banksy has sprayed "This is not a photo opportunity" on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.[22][63][64][65]
See also: Other Banksy works on the Israeli West Bank barrier
• In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: "This is a stunning visual comment on BT's transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider."[66]
• In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go.[67] After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.[67] The mural was later defaced with paint.[67]
• In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up".[68][69][70]
• In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.[71][72]
Technique
Asked about his technique, Banksy said:
“I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl's face on some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is the key.[73]”
Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy's work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in his stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.
He mentions in his book, Wall and Piece, that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.
Identity
Banksy's real name has been widely reported to be Robert or Robin Banks.[74][75][76] His year of birth has been given as 1974.[62]
Simon Hattenstone from Guardian Unlimited is one of the very few people to have interviewed him face-to-face. Hattenstone describes him as "a cross of Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner" and "a 28 year old male who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, silver chain, and one silver earring".[77] In the same interview, Banksy revealed that his parents think their son is a painter and decorator.[77]
In May 2007, an extensive article written by Lauren Collins of the New Yorker re-opened the Banksy-identity controversy citing a 2004 photograph of the artist that was taken in Jamaica during the Two-Culture Clash project and later published in the Evening Standard in 2004.[6]
In October 2007, a story on the BBC website featured a photo allegedly taken by a passer-by in Bethnal Green, London, purporting to show Banksy at work with an assistant, scaffolding and a truck. The story confirms that Tower Hamlets Council in London has decided to treat all Banksy works as vandalism and remove them.[78]
In July 2008, it was claimed by The Mail on Sunday that Banksy's real name is Robin Gunningham.[3][79] His agent has refused to confirm or deny these reports.
In May 2009, the Mail on Sunday once again speculated about Gunningham being Banksy after a "self-portrait" of a rat holding a sign with the word "Gunningham" shot on it was photographed in East London.[80] This "new Banksy rat" story was also picked up by The Times[81] and the Evening Standard.
Banksy, himself, states on his website:
“I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me.[82]”
Controversy
In 2004, Banksy walked into the Louvre in Paris and hung on a wall a picture he had painted resembling the Mona Lisa but with a yellow smiley face. Though the painting was hurriedly removed by the museum staff, it and its counterpart, temporarily on unknown display at the Tate Britain, were described by Banksy as "shortcuts". He is quoted as saying:
“To actually [have to] go through the process of having a painting selected must be quite boring. It's a lot more fun to go and put your own one up.[83]”
Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism,[84] and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organization, was quoted as saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".[6]
In June 2007 Banksy created a circle of plastic portable toilets, said to resemble Stonehenge at the Glastonbury Festival. As this was in the same field as the "sacred circle" it was felt by many to be inappropriate and his installation was itself vandalized before the festival even opened. However, the intention had always been for people to climb on and interact with it.[citation needed] The installation was nicknamed "Portaloo Sunset" and "Bog Henge" by Festival goers. Michael Eavis admitted he wasn't fond of it, and the portaloos were removed before the 2008 festival.
In 2010, an artistic feud developed between Banksy and his rival King Robbo after Banksy painted over a 24-year old Robbo piece on the banks of London's Regent Canal. In retaliation several Banksy pieces in London have been painted over by 'Team Robbo'.[85][86]
Also in 2010, government workers accidentally painted over a Banksy art piece, a famed "parachuting-rat" stencil, in Australia's Melbourne CBD. [87]
Bibliography
Banksy has self-published several books that contain photographs of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own writings:
• Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-95417040-0
• Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-95417041-7
• Banksy, Cut it Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-95449600-5
• Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413786-2
• Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-95519460-3
Random House published Wall and Piece in 2005. It contains a combination of images from his three previous books, as well as some new material.[16]
Two books authored by others on his work were published in 2006 & 2007:
• Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London (2006 - with new editions in 2007 and 2008) ISBN 978-0-95547120-9.
• Steve Wright, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home (2007) ISBN 978-1906477004
External links
Colorful boats parked at the dock inside Jilin Beishan Park, a scenic park in Dongbei, China.
Photographed with the Canon EOS 7D + Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM. Panorama stitched using 12 images covering a FOV of 11.71 x 4.05.
Rainbow Boats / 中國東北吉林市北山公園 Jilin Beishan Park, Dongbei, China / SML.20140727.7D.52140-SML.20140727.7D.52151-Pano.i12.P.11.71x4.05(6.90)
The Saint Sophia Cathedral in Harbin (聖索菲亞教堂) is a former Russian Orthodox church located in the central district of Daoli, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, China. Built in 1907 and expanded from 1923-32, it was closed during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution periods, and turned into a museum in 1997.
The church stands 53.3 meters (175 ft) tall, occupies an area of 721 square meters (0.18 acres), and is the perfect example of Neo-Byzantine architecture. The main structure is laid out like a cross with the main hall topped with a huge green tipped dome. Under the bright sun, the church and the square area it lies on looks quite like the Red Square in Moscow.
Pictured is the view of the church from its side, where pigeons gather around its facade. Photographed with the Canon EOS 6D + Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM.
# More Information
+ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sophia_Cathedral_in_Harbin
聖索菲亞教堂 Saint Sophia Cathedral in Harbin / 中国黑龙江哈尔滨 Harbin, Heilongjiang, China / SML.20140728.6D.33452.P2
Mixed media paintings by Dean Russo (Facebook). Photographed inside the artist's studio during Dumbo Art Festival in 2009.
Dean Russo on the Web
13th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® (Sept 25 to Sept 27, 2009)
www.dumboartfestival.org/press_release.html
The three-day multi-site neighborhood-wide event is a one-of-a-kind art happening: where serendipity meets the haphazard and where the unpredictable, spontaneous and downright weird thrive. The now teenage D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® presents touchable, accessible, and interactive art, on a scale that makes it the nation's largest urban forum for experimental art.
Art Under the Bridge is an opportunity for young artists to use any medium imaginable to create temporary projects on-the-spot everywhere and anywhere, completely transforming the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, New York, into a vibrant platform for self-expression. In addition to the 80+ projects throughout the historical post-industrial waterfront span, visitors can tour local artists' studios or check out the indoor video_dumbo, a non-stop program of cutting-edge video art from New York City and around the world.
The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) has been the exclusive producer of the D.U.M.B.O Art Under the Bridge Festival® since 1997. DAC is a big impact, small non-profit, that in addition to its year-round gallery exhibitions, is committed to preserving Dumbo as a site in New York City where emerging visual artists can experiment in the public domain, while having unprecedented freedom and access to normally off-limit locations.
Related SML
+ SML Flickr Collections: Events
+ SML Flickr Sets: Dumbo Arts Center: Art Under the Bridge Festival 2009
Mixed media paintings by Dean Russo (Facebook). Photographed inside the artist's studio during Dumbo Art Festival in 2009.
Dean Russo on the Web
13th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® (Sept 25 to Sept 27, 2009)
www.dumboartfestival.org/press_release.html
The three-day multi-site neighborhood-wide event is a one-of-a-kind art happening: where serendipity meets the haphazard and where the unpredictable, spontaneous and downright weird thrive. The now teenage D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® presents touchable, accessible, and interactive art, on a scale that makes it the nation's largest urban forum for experimental art.
Art Under the Bridge is an opportunity for young artists to use any medium imaginable to create temporary projects on-the-spot everywhere and anywhere, completely transforming the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, New York, into a vibrant platform for self-expression. In addition to the 80+ projects throughout the historical post-industrial waterfront span, visitors can tour local artists' studios or check out the indoor video_dumbo, a non-stop program of cutting-edge video art from New York City and around the world.
The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) has been the exclusive producer of the D.U.M.B.O Art Under the Bridge Festival® since 1997. DAC is a big impact, small non-profit, that in addition to its year-round gallery exhibitions, is committed to preserving Dumbo as a site in New York City where emerging visual artists can experiment in the public domain, while having unprecedented freedom and access to normally off-limit locations.
Related SML
+ SML Flickr Collections: Events
+ SML Flickr Sets: Dumbo Arts Center: Art Under the Bridge Festival 2009
13th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® (Sept 25 to Sept 27, 2009)
www.dumboartfestival.org/press_release.html
The three-day multi-site neighborhood-wide event is a one-of-a-kind art happening: where serendipity meets the haphazard and where the unpredictable, spontaneous and downright weird thrive. The now teenage D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® presents touchable, accessible, and interactive art, on a scale that makes it the nation's largest urban forum for experimental art.
Art Under the Bridge is an opportunity for young artists to use any medium imaginable to create temporary projects on-the-spot everywhere and anywhere, completely transforming the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, New York, into a vibrant platform for self-expression. In addition to the 80+ projects throughout the historical post-industrial waterfront span, visitors can tour local artists' studios or check out the indoor video_dumbo, a non-stop program of cutting-edge video art from New York City and around the world.
The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) has been the exclusive producer of the D.U.M.B.O Art Under the Bridge Festival® since 1997. DAC is a big impact, small non-profit, that in addition to its year-round gallery exhibitions, is committed to preserving Dumbo as a site in New York City where emerging visual artists can experiment in the public domain, while having unprecedented freedom and access to normally off-limit locations.
Related SML
+ SML Flickr Collections: Events
+ SML Flickr Sets: Dumbo Arts Center: Art Under the Bridge Festival 2009
I knew that this won't work as a portrait when I photograph it. The reflection on the window is too great and it literally cuts off her head. But then I can't really get them to open the windows, and there is some interesting things happening with the forms of the bridge, the people in the car that you cannot really see, as well as the pedestrians on the road from the reflection - you can call this a one-frame collage!
13th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® (Sept 25 to Sept 27, 2009)
www.dumboartfestival.org/press_release.html
The three-day multi-site neighborhood-wide event is a one-of-a-kind art happening: where serendipity meets the haphazard and where the unpredictable, spontaneous and downright weird thrive. The now teenage D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® presents touchable, accessible, and interactive art, on a scale that makes it the nation's largest urban forum for experimental art.
Art Under the Bridge is an opportunity for young artists to use any medium imaginable to create temporary projects on-the-spot everywhere and anywhere, completely transforming the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, New York, into a vibrant platform for self-expression. In addition to the 80+ projects throughout the historical post-industrial waterfront span, visitors can tour local artists' studios or check out the indoor video_dumbo, a non-stop program of cutting-edge video art from New York City and around the world.
The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) has been the exclusive producer of the D.U.M.B.O Art Under the Bridge Festival® since 1997. DAC is a big impact, small non-profit, that in addition to its year-round gallery exhibitions, is committed to preserving Dumbo as a site in New York City where emerging visual artists can experiment in the public domain, while having unprecedented freedom and access to normally off-limit locations.
Related SML
+ SML Flickr Collections: Events
+ SML Flickr Sets: Dumbo Arts Center: Art Under the Bridge Festival 2009