Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Possible Prig Attack on Paris Hilton

I have been considering the artist Banksy as the subject of my second Prig Alert (see below). Banksy, who carefully preserves his anonymity, pursues his art by intervening with graffiti and other devices in public places. The latest stunt - read about it here - involves replacing Paris Hilton CDs in shops with his own and changing the covers. This is obviously an outrageous abuse of a fine if rather odd-looking woman. But the priggishness involves the dully conventional nature of the message. Banksy's CD tracks have titles like Why Am I Famous? and What Am I For? So, yeah yeah, Paris is famous for being famous. Priggishness involves the seizing of moral authority by the adoption of banal, conventional attitudes and, in this, as in many other works, Banksy seems to be doing just that. Indeed, some of his work is irredeemably banal - see his web site here - as when he draws a circle and writes inside "Most things look better when you put them in a circle" or vacuously moralistic, a pale shadow of the artistic insurrections of the early twentieth century.
But I have decided not to give Banksy the honour of a Prig Alert for two reasons. First, he is, when not being banal, a rather gifted and witty draughtsman. But, secondly, there is the remark of a spokesman for one of the shops where Banksy intervened. He said that people had bought the altered CDs but none had been returned and there had been no complaints. Banksy, it seems, is not being banal, merely horribly realistic. People really are that stupid.

6 comments:

  1. I'm a big Banksy fan. He usually expresses my feelings exactly, in his work. And at least his graffiti is artistic. Although I enjoy having a chuckle at the stupid/gullible people, at the back of my mind I also become deeply disturbed at just how many there are. Oh what a future we have!

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  2. I confess that I am fairly ignorant of Banksy, but he does seem to have a little too much time on his hands.

    That said, next time I am perusing Waterstone's, I shall look beneath the laminated covers of First Among Equals and Prison Diaries Volume 396 to check for sabotage...

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  3. Welcome, Lee, I'm not sure but I don't think I've seen you here before. I see the attraction in Banksy but, in general, it seems a bit think, unremarkable. But I'm old....

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  4. Hello Mr. Appleyard and thankyou. I've only discovered your blog until relatively recently. I enjoy your articles in The Sunday Times, hence the reason for my visits.

    My excuse for liking Banksy is that i'm in my mid twenties (which are the new 'teen' years I believe), well that and a hint of rebellion...

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  5. What if Paris were to strike back with some guerilla art tactics of her own I wonder? If for example you were to buy, on some eccentric whim, the clearly loopers Bryan Appleyard's "Aliens- Why Are They Here?" and upon getting to a particularly juicy bit you were to turn the page and find yourself reading about a certain Jeffrey Archer's tennis match during which the weather stayed mercifully fine...

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  6. Banksy?s stunts are becoming somewhat hackneyed and old. The Paris Hilton insertion, if you will, represents a marked dip in form after his graffiti, some of which I quite admire. If one is to pursue counter-culture line, then it?s important to be wholly more subversive than this. You?re right in saying that the ?why are these people famous line? is far too ubiquitous for an artist that fosters an ?underground? aura; turns out he has the same tepid vexations about celebrity as the rest of middle England.

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