Banksy in Notting Hill
Banksy, on the corner of Portobello Road and Acklam Road, taken this morning
Imagine you have just painted the outdoor wall of your house beautifully white this summer. And one morning you wake up and find this huge graffiti on your white wall.
That would piss most people off, unless the graffiti is made by an artist called Banksy. Banksy (wikipedia) is a kind of a legend in London, his stencil art can be found several places in London, but no one knows his identity. Banksy still goes around London (and many other places) leaving his work, but some of his artwork has also been sold on auctions, for prices as high as £288,000.
Which explains why, on the above picture, the people living there chose to cover it with a plastic layer to conserve it, in stead of angrily repainting the wall. I wonder if it raises the value of their house.
Banksy official website
And those people were lucky, it could have been a version with a less fortunate subject …
If you want to look it up, it’s on the corner of Portobello Road and Acklam Road, here it is on a google map.
(And a slightly larger version of the image here)
I quite like his work I have to admit. But what do you think about grafitti?
Related posts
Comments
Have your say
I don’t like grafitti in general but we have one of his stencils on our class shirts from when we were in London and I adore it (it’s the girl with the heart balloon). I don’t like when people put their “tags” on trains and old buildings. It has to convey a meaning to be art.
The girl with the heart balloon is one of my favourites too. (not surprisingly)
I agree on tags on trains and buildings, don’t like it either.
I love Banksy’s work.
The funny thing is I just found out that this is a Banksy as well:
http://www.thegirlinthecafe.com/photoblog/59-dont-be-silly-of-course-it-is
I had no idea :-)
I’ll have to scan the city for more of his work.
I guess 1% of all graffiti is real art. The other 99% is rubbish.
I like like the work of Banksy.
It does have a plastic layer! Ha! How nice. I do like this one, but not most of the grafitti I see, to be honest. Thanks for the link for Banksy, I liked that a lot too!
I think grafitti, if it is art, is wonderful. Just putting your name or symbol everywhere is pretty useless though. I was just in San Fransisco and windered upon some of the most wonderful street art off of Valencia Street, and have seen some wonderful things in Barcelona as well.