Banksy #30 Bronx Zoo

162th street with Jerome ave.

During the 70s, some of the feature players of the New York Yankees started feuding each other. This, combined with the rowdy Yankees fans and the conditions of the borough of the Bronx, ended with the team being known as the “Bronx Zoo”. Banksy paid homage to this convulsive era of the Yankees with his penultimate piece, a pretty colored cheetah stenciled in a wall in front of the team’s stadium, which he called the “Bronx Zoo”. In a concept he used before, Banksy tags the chilling wild animal with white, black and yellow letters and signs. If you look closely, you can see the initials of New York, the peace sign, and, apparently, the nickname Cope, which could be a tease to one of the local taggers. As reported by Animal New York, Cope tried to fool the residents days ago by posting an image on his Instagram account of what he claimed a collaboration with Banksy. Well, this is coming to an end. Get ready for Banksy’s farewell!

Banksy #29 The banality of the banality of evil

157 East 23rd Street, inside a Housing Works Thrift Shop

In ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’, Hanna Arendt explored the political and philosophical consequences of the so-called ‘Banality of Evil’, a theory on the fact that the great evils in History, and the Holocaust in particular, have been executed by ordinary people who were just following orders. ‘The banality of the banality of evil’ is a new twist on that concept by Banksy himself. The elusive artist picked up a canvas depicting a landscape from the Housing Works thrift shop on East 23rd street. He then vandalized the canvas painting a Nazi official on it (what links the piece to the ‘Banality of Evil’) and re-donated it to the thrift store. You can see his signature on the bottom left corner, under the original signature. By the way, that’s certainly not a low brow reference. According to Gothamist, the painting was sold two months ago for just $50 and it’s going up for auction to benefit Housing Works at Bidding for Good. The auction started at $74,000, but it quickly surpassed the amount. Housing Works is a healing community of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS and their mission is to end the dual crises of homelessness and AIDS through relentless advocacy, the provision of lifesaving services, and entrepreneurial businesses. So, this was a nice one, Banksy.

Banksy #28 Robot

2808 Stillwell ave.

132741. Believe it or not, those numbers correspond to a color code used in making web sites, in that case a very dark blue or a dark shade of cyan-blue. After some letters, a truck and a weird performance by the Reaper itself, Banksy hit again the walls of Brooklyn with his signature stencil style. On his last piece so far, the Brit-born artist depicted a not so futuristic robot painting a barcode with a spray can. Under it, the enigmatic numbers. As you can notice, there’s a 25 next to them, which can be a reference to some variation in the color. This one is on Coney Island, what makes for a fairly long trip, although it seems there should be no fear to catch it defaced. The owner of the building is there to let you know he doesn’t know who is Banksy, but after watching Today his own place on the whole internet he’s protecting the piece to sell it. If you ask him about the possibility to get a plexiglass, like the guy congratulated with ‘Hammer Boy‘, you receive a shy “may be”, but I wouldn’t put away that.

Banksy #27 Blocked Message

Noble st. with West st. on Greenpoint

“Today’s piece was going to be an op-ed column in the New York Times”, writes Banksy on his website. Unfortunately, the newspaper declined the offer and the elusive street artist hit back with a scrawl in Greenpoint, an area he already hit days ago. In the op-ed, which can be read entirely here, Banksy describes the new One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the West, as a soul-less and shy skyscraper. “Nobody comes to New York for your well-mannered common sense. We are here for the spirit and audacity. Of which OWTC has none”, writes Banksy. The Brit-born artist assures that the 9/11 attacks were an attack to all of us, but critiques the response to it as “something that looks like it never wanted to be build”, or “something they would build in Canada”. He ripped the ‘New York Times’ mimicking the front page of the paper, even including its famous motto: “All the news that’s fit to print”. ‘The New York Times’ hasn’t responded yet. When I got it, somebody out there was giving papers that read ‘I’m Banksy’, what let to a few fans impersonating him. I know you won’t get fooled!

UPDATE (10/28): ‘The New York Times’ confirmed that Banksy submitted an op-ed and art. As reported by Metro, the paper couldn’t agree on any of the pieces and they rejected it. According to Eileen Murphy, spokesperson for ‘The New York Times’, what the elusive artist posted on his site “is not exactly the same as what he submitted”.

UPDATE (10/29): The whole scrawl has already been defaced entirely.

Banksy #25 Don’t Fear the Reaper

76 East Houston st.

Banksy scavengers had to wait until 6pm to find out what the elusive street artist had prepared, but it was pretty worthy. Let’s put some background here. When Banksy released his documentary, ‘Exit through the Gift Shop‘ on 2010, he inadvertently used an actual name of a London-based band. To make it up, the stenciler promised to paint for them a new backdrop for their gigs if they agreed to change their name. They agreed to change it to Brace Yourself and they received a $320,000 worthy piece depicting the Reaper on a bumper car. So, as it turns out, the last piece of Banksy is a not so grim Reaper riding a bumper car on Houston street with the company of a live accordion player. The Reaper is remote controlled by a guy hiding in a small closet (you can actually see him if you look closely enough). Every 15 minutes or so, the accordion guy stops playing and suddenly the first notes of the 76′ Blue Oyster Cult’s classic ‘(Don’t Fear) The Reaper’ starts playing. The art installation becomes a disco floor with its own studio lights and the crowd loves it! The whole installation is in a patio and surrounded by a squared fence, so there’s no way to deface this one. For some, Banksy celebrates Halloween with it, for others it looks like the elusive street artist teases the whole party. The installation is open from dusk to midnight until Sunday 27th.

Banksy #24 Waiting in Vain

West 641 51th st.

“Guess who stopped by the club last night?”. The official Twitter account of the New York Hustler Club did not miss the opportunity to take advantage of his latest and most distinguished visit, Mr. Banksy himself. His one-day hiatus caught off guard the city, but Today the elusive street artist hit again with his signature black and white stencil style and not a wall but a door. The piece depicts a guy in a tuxedo with a wilting bouquet of flowers waiting (in vain) his lover… allegedly a stripper of the club. When I got there, the piece was already being guarded by three security men, who were standing in front of the stencil almost obstructing the shot. As reported by Gothamist, the Larry Flint’s Hustler Club has decided to remove the door “to keep it safe from vandals”. They are determining where it can be displayed in the future… “hopefully inside of the club”. So, you know guys…

UPDATE (10/25): This past night, the owner of the club removed the door. You can see the workers ruining the piece right here.

Banksy Ronald McDonald

All the city

Gottcha! This piece was as elusive as Banksy himself. On October 16th the street artist unfolded to New York a fiberglass replica of Ronald McDonald, the omnipresent mascot of the infamous fast food chain, and has been moving it from one McDonald’s to another. Together with it, there’s a living boy shining his big clown shoes. As the audio guide noted, Ronald is “arguably the most sculpted figure in history after Christ”, so Banksy hits here one of the most signature symbols of the Capitalism and the Consumer Culture of the US and the World. And this poor looking boy, voicelessly shining his shoes, is “a critique of the heavy labour required to sustain the polished image of a mega-corporation”, according to the audio guide. The image gets more powerful pictured in front of an actual McDonald’s restaurant. Ronald stares at the boy waving impassively with a face that’s actually the one of the Greek God Hermes, messengers of the Olympian Gods and patron of travelers, shepherds… and thieves, carved by Praxiteles in 340 BC. By the way, don’t try to elicit anything out of the shining boy, he’s speechless. I got it, with Sirens of the Lambs (!) thanks to the guys of Street Art News on 3rd st., with 6th ave, but it’s hard to tell which McDonald’s is going to hit next. Good luck out there!

Banksy #22 Sphinx

35th ave with 127th st.

A hunt for a Banksy piece is also a trip to some of those forgotten corners of this humongous and sometimes unattainable city. The Brit-born artist has unfolded a new piece on Willet Points (far away in Queens), near the Citi Field (Mets’ Stadium) and in the middle of an industrial area full of car workshops, auto-glass shops and tire stores. In fact, Banksy has congratulated these middle-class workers with a 1/36 scale replica of the great Sphinx of Giza made from smashed cinderblocks. “You’re advised not to drink the replica Arab spring water”, told Banksy when he unveiled the piece through his website. Somebody out there has pointed out that the sphinx could be a reference to the monument building of politicians or corporations like Citibank, owners of the Citi Field, and its subsequent decadence. Anyway, when I got there, some of the workers were protecting the sphinx, which is in the middle of a puddle. They put some pallets, blocking the only way to the Sphinx, and were actually standing there, surrounded by a caution tape, preventing anybody to access it. They let you know that they were trying to protect the piece from defacement, not to ban anybody to enjoy it.

UPDATE (19.20): Well, that was fast. The owner of the auto-glass shop where Banksy unveiled the Sphinx has removed it to sell it. The sculpture was loaded into a moving truck, outraging the scavengers that were there.

Banksy #21 Ghetto 4 Life

East 153 with Elton ave.

Banksy hit again South Bronx with his signature black and white stencil style depicting some of his classic imagery. Last week, the Brit-born artist unfolded a traveling Ronald McDonald statue also in South Bronx, which I’m still trying to catch. Here, a little boy scrawls the anthem ‘Ghetto 4 Life’ on a gray wall with the help of a butler-like man serving him spray cans on a platter. This one has sparked some debate out there. Why has Banksy depicted a white rich little boy in the streets of Bronx? Is it a self-deprecating piece? Is it a commentary on the rift between street art and graffiti? The locals has expressed already some mixed feelings about it. As reported by Gothamist, the owners of the shop hit by Banksy has asked for somebody to preserve it, although other locals expressed concerns over the fact that an elusive street artist had to scrawl there for the people to come to the Bronx. Some taggers has already scrawled over the wall, although I could catch the work untouched.

UPDATE (21:20): The owner of the local hit by Banksy has hired a couple of guards to protect the piece during the night. You can see them working here.

Banksy #20 Hammer Boy

West 79th st. between Broadway ave and Amsterdam ave

While everybody is still trying to figure out where exactly is the Vaginal Anthill piece unfolded by Banksy in Staten Island, the elusive artist struck again Today hitting the Upper West Side. Banksy gets back here to the walls of Manhattan with his classic and signature black stencil style, depicting a silhouette of a boy swinging a sledge hammer. The piece is located next to a red standpipe, what creates the illusion that the boy is about to hit it, and has led to a myriad of pictures of people letting the boy smash their heads. However, if you look to the whole picture, you can see a red metal whatchamacallit at the top end of the pipe, up from the hydrant, what lets to an allegedly hammer-and-bell carnival game. As always, some random guy has tried to deface it already, but has been stopped by the crowd, as reported by Gothamist. By the way, the #wetwipeboys contacted me to let you know that they are out there fixing the damaged pieces.

UPDATE (10/21): The landowner of the building has put plexiglass in front of the piece to protect it. Apparently, somebody didn’t agree with the decision and scrawled all over it the phrase “Let the streets decide”. Luckily it has been washed off.