IF YOU'RE looking for trenchant and penetrative commentary about the state of the arts, Banksy is yer only man. The art terrorist who works through the medium of stencil graffiti produces site-specific work characterised by its brash humour and clever use of sloganeering, writes Brian Boyd
Though criticised by the more antediluvian type of art critic as a "prankster", Banksy - a young man from Bristol whose real name remains a mystery - displays quite a sense of elan in his visual subversion.
As some form of commentary about the communications industry (or maybe just the British Telecom company in particular), Banksy placed a model of a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in the side on a street in central London. The phone box was apparently bleeding. It became quite a tourist attraction for the short time it was on the street before being towed away by the spoilsport council. Curiously, British Telecom later bought the installation and it is now believed to be in the reception area of their UK headquarters.
Just last year, Banksy managed to evade security and hang his work in four of New York's most well-known and well-guarded museums. One of the exhibits he "stole in" to the city's National History museum - a beetle with missiles attached to its body - was undetected for the best part of a week.
For the Brooklyn Museum he decided on a portrait of a military officer holding a spraycan with anti-war graffiti in the background. He decided not to exhibit in the world-famous Guggenheim because the only space left for him was between two Picassos. "And I'm not good enough to get away with that," he said at the time.
When pressed on how he evaded the Fort Knox-style security at the museums, he disarmingly pointed out that "the museums have their eye a lot more on things leaving than things going in - which works in my favour."
Banksy's latest work is inspired by the musical genius that is Paris Hilton. Ever since the release of Hilton's pitiful debut album, Banksy has been going into record shops and replacing the CD (not the packaging) with his own specially made-up CD. Somehow he has managed to leave the barcode intact on the CD so that people buying the Banksy version don't know they've been had until they play it.
In place of Hilton's heavily treated vocals over rubbish r'n'b, listeners to the alternate version will hear a selection of his remixes with titles such as Why Am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?
It's unclear how many of these alternate Hilton albums are actually out there, but Banksy has mentioned that there at least 500 copies spread over 50 record shops throughout the UK.
So far, HMV says it has recovered seven of the Banksy CDs from two of their shops, and Virgin is still busy looking. The response from the shops has been surprising.
"It's not the type of behaviour you'd want to see happening very often," says a HMV spokesman. "But, I think you can give an individual such as Banksy a little bit of leeway for his own particular brand of artistic engagement. Often people might have a view on something but feel they can't always express it, and it's down to the likes of Banksy to say what people think about things."
None of the record shops have received any complaints and there have been no returns from puzzled customers. Which can only mean two things. Either, people who buy a Paris Hilton album are so dense that they actually believe the Banksy version is the real version. Or else, those who have the Banksy version totally support what he is doing and don't want to return their copy.
bboyd@irish-times.ie
