Banksy is graffiti art or vandalism?

Does Banksy Rule OK?

How do you react when confronted with walls defaced with marker pen and daubed with spray painted tags? To most it is a depressing sight, a symbol of decay and neglect creeping into an area. It fills us with a sense weary unease, and seems little more than an attempt at pissing on ones own territory.

Take a closer look however and there are a gems hidden amongst the scrawled mass, public toilet door toilet door witticism for example, (perhaps bodily functions bring out the poet/comic hidden within)

Finding Banksy

If you look long enough you might come across the stencilling of the anonymous UK guerrilla artist Banksy. Is his work vandalism, or is it thought provoking, inventive and humorous, adding to a location rather than detract from it?

Banksy was strongly influenced by the works of Blek le Rat, and the anarchist punk band Crass, both of which mounted campaigns using graffiti and stencils in the early 1980s.

Banksy’s easily recognizable street art, combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stenciling techniques. His highly detailed graffiti consists of two or three layers of fine lined stencils. Often satirical, Banksy’s pieces of art comment on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics.

Banksy’s usual subjects are familiar images or iconic figures which he manipulates to form his to darkly humorous art. Art which is threaded thought with a strong social commentary on topics such as anti-war, anti-advertising anti-capitalist, anti-establishment or pro-freedom.

The very nature of Banksy’s work is disposable by being illicitly carried out in public spaces. Councils have often over painted his works. With Banksy’s increasing fame (infamy) this appears to be a changing trend with councils now preserving and often ’retouching’ Banksy graffiti as potentetial tourist attractions.