This week, Banky’s new film Exit Through the Gift Shop will hit theaters in the United States. For a complete theater listing, visit Wooster Collective, which has been acting as the official voice for all things Banksy. The movie premiere’s today in Los Angeles, so it’s no coincidence that these images hit the intertubes this past week to turn up the hype around a film that I was fortunate enough to see last week during a press preview. Expect my review to appear Wednesday morning.

A case for a greener LA (via Unurth & Nuart)

I don’t want to be one of Banksy’s endless legions of fans who circulate images without critical comments, so I’ll add my two cents to his latest stencils to surface on the streets of Los Angeles.

Ok, these images are nice, but Banksy really hasn’t been able to move past the visual one-liner that is the essence of his stencils. His sculptures, on the other hand, tend to be more complex and interesting.

A more violent Koons balloon dog (via Arrested Motion)

The Koons balloon dog piece in particular is cute, but frankly it doesn’t even make much sense. I would love to know if the context for this image (is it on a museum? a prison?) would help us figure out what he’s trying to get at. Feel free to offer your own interpretation.

Hat tip Unurth

UPDATE: Hyperallergic intern & contributor Tim McCool figured out Banksy’s joke in his Koons-related stencil:

There’s a Koons quote: “Abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class.” So Banksy is accusing Koons’ work of being in the same category of unintelligible, abstract, and ludicrously expensive art. That’s as far as I am conceptually on this, haha.

Hrag Vartanian is editor-in-chief and co-founder of Hyperallergic.

23 replies on “New Banksy Stencils Surface in LA [UPDATED]”

  1. On Google Street View, the building with the security guard and dog piece looks like an abandoned parking garage.

  2. There’s a Koons quote: “Abstraction and luxury are the guard dogs of the upper class.” So Banksy is accusing Koons’ work of being in the same category of unintelligible, abstract, and ludicrously expensive art. That’s as far as I am conceptually on this, haha.

    1. Awesome. That must have to do with it (beside the obvious and kind of poor joke about guards on duty but somehow Banksy still manages to paint his piece). Sometimes I forget that Banksy is a genius.

  5. Banksy makes a clever inside art world pun and then laughs at people trying to find the deep “meaning”.

Comments are closed.