[Larry David]

Good interview in todays Sunday Times , News review section with Mr B. 

[WILLYBKLN]

Linky?

[Black Apple Art]

Seems you have to be a paid member to access it. Here is an excerpt. If anyone has a membership please copy and paste

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/eleanormills/article1599540.ece

"I have a large collection of famous art at home, but they’re all fakes. I make them myself. If I like a picture I grab a photo, project it up and paint it. Sometimes I change the colours to fit with the curtains. I do it partly because I’m tight and partly because if the Basquiats and Picassos in the sitting room were real I’d be too scared to ever leave the house.

“I don’t make as much money as people think. The commercial galleries that have held exhibitions of my paintings are nothing to do with me. And I certainly don’t see money from the T-shirts, mugs and greeting cards. My lawyer calls me ‘the most infringed artist alive’ and wants me to do something about it. But if you’ve built a reputation on having a casual attitude towards property ownership, it seems a bit bad-mannered to kick off about copyright law.”

[Dexter Bulldog]

Aug 31, 2015 1:56:48 GMT 1 Black Apple Art said:

Seems you have to be a paid member to access it. Here is an excerpt. If anyone has a membership please copy and paste

www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/eleanormills/article1599540.ece

"I have a large collection of famous art at home, but they’re all fakes. I make them myself. If I like a picture I grab a photo, project it up and paint it. Sometimes I change the colours to fit with the curtains. I do it partly because I’m tight and partly because if the Basquiats and Picassos in the sitting room were real I’d be too scared to ever leave the house.

“I don’t make as much money as people think. The commercial galleries that have held exhibitions of my paintings are nothing to do with me. And I certainly don’t see money from the T-shirts, mugs and greeting cards. My lawyer calls me ‘the most infringed artist alive’ and wants me to do something about it. But if you’ve built a reputation on having a casual attitude towards property ownership, it seems a bit bad-mannered to kick off about copyright law.”

Could you copy and paste the whole thing for non subscribers please?

[Hubble Bubble]

Please !

[Cornish Crayon]

Bugga normally buy the ST as well, but I'm in a very soggy Londan tawn !!!

A link or complete paste would be most welcome

[Black Apple Art]

Only found the small portion as I am not a subscriber, which is why I asked someone to post it in its entirety. I'm not one for teasers lol.

[pauljunk]

Anyone have full text on this?

[Graham H]

Here you go folks.. Dont tell anyone it came from me..or ill be in trouble.
G


I am meeting Banksy. Or am I? His people confirm he is here when I visit his Dismaland “bemusement park” on opening day. The place is awash with Banksy’s inner circle — rugged types in big boots and hi-vis vests, primping and snapping one another in front of the exhibits.

One particular man — rodent-faced, average build, with mousy hair — seems particularly prominent. Perhaps notably, he comes to speak to me and my family as we leave (I’ve been told Banksy might). He smiles and says how hard it has been to keep the project secret since work began in February, and how he has finished a final work — a Banksy mural of a woman in a shower — only last night.

He bubbles with excitement, his eyes shine and he has a contagiously enthusiastic manner. A certain X-factor, combined with his rodent features (a rat is Banksy’s signature) makes me pretty confident it is the doggedly elusive graffiti artist. But no names. When we finish chatting, he flashes us a smile, removes his hi-vis jacket and vanishes still anonymous into the throng. Was it him?

If you haven’t been to Dismaland yet, chances are that you’d like to; Banksy’s creation in a disused lido in Weston- super-Mare, Somerset, has proved so popular since it opened last week that the website crashed, customers are queuing for hours in the rain and £5 online tickets are changing hands online for £1,500.

Like Banksy himself, the world- famous artist you wouldn’t know if he passed you in the street, Dismaland is a paradox: an amusement park where Mickey Mouse-eared stewards command visitors to “end joy”, replete with souvenir black balloons for children that read: “I am an imbecile.” The dark heart of this anti-Disney attraction is a ramshackle princess castle — next to a police riot van in a pond — inside which Cinderella’s coach has crashed and paparazzi are eternally snapping her broken body.

So why, I ask Banksy, during an exclusive email interview — this time I’m sure it is him online — does the world need Dismaland? “We probably underestimate children,” he replies. “Dismaland is an experiment in offering something less resolved. Why should children be immune from the idea that to maintain our standard of life, other children have to die trapped in the hulls of boats in the bottom of the Mediterranean?”

This is a reference to his boating pond where you pay £1 to steer miniature ships full of model asylum seekers through water filled with floating bodies (it took him a month to get them to float). This is one of Banksy’s many attempts to skewer the hypocrisies of the modern world.

He continues: “The grown-ups might have convinced themselves small incremental change and buying organic tomatoes is enough, but passing that mindset onto the next generation — I don’t think that’s necessarily good parenting. Essentially the tone I’m striving for here is: ‘Disneyland run by Trotsky after a head trauma.’”

Surprisingly, he insists: “I don’t have an issue with Disney. I’m not a hipster, so I don’t think something is evil or vacuous simply because it is popular.” Meow. “Some Disney is very good. The Let It Go sequence in Frozen is brilliant cinema — the ‘journey’ between the beginning and end of that three-minute song is pure gold . . . The Dismaland branding isn’t about Disney at all; it’s just a framework that says: ‘OK, we accept that making art puts us in the light entertainment industry, and we’ll attempt to engage at that level — but for the left.’”

Whether or not you subscribe to his view of the world, Dismaland is fun, surprising and on a far grander scale than anything Banksy has attempted before. It features more than 50 artists — Banksy says he approached them all himself by email — including two works by Damien Hirst and a huge model of a riot-strewn city by the man behind dance music band the KLF and the K Foundation (the art collective that once burnt £1m) as well as Banksy’s own giant installations, fairground rides, a cafe and regular concerts.

This is a huge departure for the street-art Scarlet Pimpernel who thus far has clung to the shadows. Is this the moment the rat king finally scuttles into the light? Might the bemusement park become a permanent fixture with Banksy as its impresario?

He insists not. “I can’t extend the run because of technical calculations. We have tall structures which have been constructed and certified for one weather period. It gets windy there and we’re not insured for one minute past the last day of September.”

It is not just the technical issues. He sounds somewhat chastened and harassed, not just by the ticketing problems but by some of the more hostile reactions to his experiment. “The first day I wandered round with the public I have to admit there was no one more disappointed than me. I think the whole idea might have been a big mistake. By repackaging an art show as an amusement park, everybody’s expectations were raised substantially — the branding writes a cheque that the event doesn’t cash.

“I was in there looking at Ben Long’s sculpture of a horse constructed from scaffolding, a piece that if it was shown in the V&A alongside other sculptures would be remarkable, but the lady next to me asked her husband: ‘Does it do anything?’ I suddenly realised the whole premise was wrong. I’d pushed it too far and it had gone from being a pretty good art show to a very sub-standard amusement park. I mean, who stands in the Tate looking at a Henry Moore asking: ‘Does it do anything?’”

He was also piqued by some critics who called Dismaland one-dimensional and simplistic. “A lot of critics don’t like this kind of art because it doesn’t require their validation or interpretation — they don’t have to explain or contextualise, so it does them out of a job. Fundamentally, I disagree with the charge that it’s not art because it’s too easy to understand.

“But apparently we can only have one kind of visual art — one that is alienating to many people, that requires extensive knowledge and commitment and which makes people feel thick for not getting it. My contribution to this show could probably quite fairly be described as looking like the ravings of an angry adolescent, but I’m not sure what’s wrong with that.”

His responses to my questions were endlessly delayed and when they finally arrived he wrote: “Sorry it’s late but I’ve been at Peppa Pig World today and I couldn’t get on the wi-fi.” Either he has a young child or this is another hoax. As ever with Banksy it is tricky to tell.

This aside, could, of course, be a reference to his own website problems. I am surprised he doesn’t apologise to the fans who have spent hours online trying to buy tickets. Instead he responds: “The technical problems weren’t planned, but an unexpected plus side of online tickets not being available meant we had a few more ‘locals only’ days.” (Later on he admits: “Admission fees are not something I’m keen to repeat.”)

He claims he always envisaged families strolling along the beach and dropping into Dismaland on a whim. “They notice a fairytale castle, spend three quid [on the door] to come in and get something totally unexpected. When people are too aware of the project you lose a genuinely honest reaction. The element of surprise is your greatest asset as a graffiti artist, the last thing you want is a queue.”

Methinks the man doth protest too much. He must have known the real market for the show would be the thousands of Banksy fans who have made the Dismaland pilgrimage, not just from all over the UK but the world — Australia, Japan, Germany (two groups camped for two days to get in) and the Middle East.

To be fair, Banksy is returning to his roots. This is his manor and Weston- super-Mare is reaping a tourist boost from its prodigal son — trade is up 20% since last year and the car parks are full.

Brought up in Bristol — by some accounts his real name is Robert Gunningham — Banksy will not answer my questions about his identity but does divulge that he “went to Weston every summer for the first 17 years of my life.

“The Tropicana [the disused lido where Dismaland is now based] used to have a pretty brutal wave machine. I think for the locals just getting to go inside the building once again is a big draw. I haven’t really touched it much, most of the show has come in on wheels; we even left the crisp packets that were lying around — a 20-year-old packet of Salt’n’Shake is surprisingly evocative.”

Banksy returns several times to the same theme of how we explain the messed-up world we live in to the next generation. He calls the philosophy behind Dismaland “post-modemism” — it is his response to the hyper-connected internet-enabled world we all live in.

“I feel like my generation [Banksy is in his late forties] was the first to deal with the mass media beaming the world’s problems to us in real time. I remember the baked beans cooling in my mouth as Newsround showed pictures of flies crawling over the faces of African babies. Mostly we’ve chosen to deal with this by cocooning ourselves, that way we can live with the guilt. It’s interesting that Dismaland gets described as ‘twisted’ — I’ve never called it that. Somehow building a family attraction that doesn’t ignore injustice, casual cruelty and mortality means your attraction is deemed twisted. I think it should be the other way round.”

His left-wing politics have never been a secret; when I ask him what he would do if he were prime minister he replies: “Abolish inheritance.” So I assume if there is a Banksy Jr, he or she won’t be passed on much dosh by Dad.

This is the second time I have interviewed Banksy for this newspaper — both conducted by email (the last one was to discuss Exit Through the Gift Shop, his documentary about the art world). But this time I think we actually met. Didn’t we?

[Dexter Bulldog]

thanks

[zc]

Brilliant read, cheers

[Jeezuz Jones Snr]

great read thanks

[mlwells04]

Good read, thanks for the copy/paste