Julia
and I walked around London one day in an attempt to locate a few of Banksy’s
works. The first piece we located was near the Highbury & Islington
overground station on a wall next to a pharmacy. It was Banksy’s Tesco Flag, which originally depicted a
young boy raising a Tesco flag as two other children looked on with their hands
over their hearts. Bansky is clearing trying to make a statement about
consumerist culture and how so many people in today’s society are not only
dependent on this culture, but praise it to the point of worship.
The
interesting aspect about this piece, however, is that while Banksy is clearly
trying to make a point about consumerism and corporate institutions in general,
his artwork is covered by a sheet of plastic. The top half that originally covered
the flag was broken, and both the flag and the two children’s faces had been
painted over. At some point, however, someone must have considered this
graffiti “art”, enough so that they wanted to preserve it. By being such a
well-known artist, Banksy is in a sense giving in to this consumerist or
institutionalized culture – he surely has his own sort of “cult” following.
This begs the question – is it possible to make a political statement through
art without invalidating that statement by the ritualized culture that
surrounds art admiration for aesthetic reasons?
Posted by: Maddy
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