Material from Banksy's Dismaland theme park has been used to create shelters for migrants in the Calais refugee camp. Makeshift huts have started to spring up in 'Dismalaid' using timber from Banksy's 'bemusement park' which closed last month. The shelters are being built inside 'The Jungle' where 6,000 refugees displaced from countries including Syria, Libya and Eritrea are camped.
“Horrific killer drones! Ankle-shattering leg irons! Cluster bombs! And electric stun batons that cause excruciating pain but leave no trace!” The cheery voice and cartoon imagery leave no doubt that this advert for the world’s biggest arms fair is a sharp spoof, produced for Amnesty International to highlight the British government’s willingness to flog weapons to repressive regimes via the Defence and Security Equipment International’s jamboree at the ExCeL Centre in London’s Docklands.
But a separate campaign is also leading to many posters cropping up at bus stops and on tube trains that require a second glance. “Important announcement, Travelling on the DLR from 15th to 18th September?” reads one, using London Underground fonts and branding with the DLR line turning into the image of a tank. “This September, a swarm of arms dealers will be descending on the DLR … Customers are requested to help stop the arms fair.”
The 300 posters are by artists who exhibited work at the Museum of Cruel Designs (PDF) in Banksy’s Dismaland. A collective called the Special Patrol Group helped distribute it around London using “Ad Space Hack Packs”, a £6 pack of Allen keys which it claims “gain access to around a third of bus stop advertising space on the planet”. (Transport for London is not amused by this flyposting “vandalism”.)
Inside the walls of a derelict seaside swimming resort in Weston-super-Mare, UK, mysterious construction over the last month—including a dingy looking Disney-like castle and a gargantuan rainbow-colored pinwheel tangled in plastic—suggested something big was afoot. Suspicion and anticipation surrounding the unusual activity attributed to fabled artist and provocateur Banksy has reached a Willy Wonka-esque fervor. Well, if Banksy’s your bag, continue fervoring. If not, there’s more than a few reasons to continue reading.
The spectacle has since been revealed to be a pop-up art exhibition in the form of an apocalyptic theme park titled Dismaland (“The UK’s most disappointing new visitor attraction”) that will be open to the public for five weeks.
Dismaland.co.uk - More at Mashable
The elusive graffiti artist, political activist, film director, painter and long time fugitive that for years has gone by the pseudonymous name of Banksy, was arrested early this morning by London’s Metropolitan Police. After hours of questioning and a raid of his London art studio, his true name and identity have finally been revealed.
The City of London Police say Banksy’s real name is Paul Horner, a 35-year old male born in Liverpool, England. The BBC has confirmed this information with Banky’s PR agent Jo Brooks along with Pest Control, a website that acts as a handling service on behalf of the artist.
London Police Chief Lyndon Edwards held a press conference to answer questions about Banksy and how Horner was finally apprehended after all these years on the run. “We had a 24-hour Anti-Graffiti Task Force monitoring different groups where Banksy was known to frequent. We received word that around 2am a group of individuals left a flat speculated to be one of Banky’s art studios. This group was followed by agents and once vandalism had occurred, we then arrested the group, 5 men total. These individuals all had ID on them except for one, and that is the one we believed to be Banksy,” Edwards said. “We then raided the studio where this group was last seen leaving from. Inside we found thousands of dollars of counterfeit money along with future projects of vandalism. We also found a passport and ID of a Paul Horner who matched the description of the man that we are currently holding.” Edwards continued, “Horner is currently being held without bail on charges of vandalism, conspiracy, racketeering and counterfeiting. We are also holding the other four individuals whose names we are not releasing at this time.”
But it is all not true:
Banksy Arrest Was A Giant Hoax, The Elusive Street Artist Has Not In Fact Been Caught - Hoax 'Banksy Arrested in London' Story Dupes the Internet Again - No, Banksy hasn’t been arrested
It comes as a genuine shock, then, that a council has removed one of his paintings instead of calling in the valuers. Tendring district council says it destroyed the new painting that materialised in Clacton-on-Sea – where Tory defector Douglas Carswell is about to fight a byelection for his new party Ukip – after getting a complaint that it was “offensive and racist”. Was it?
Not in a million years. This is the best Banksy I have never seen: a clever and succinct satire on some currents of feeling in contemporary Britain, terrified of “migrants”, menaced by otherness. Far from being by any stretch of the imagination “racist”, it is – was – a witty putdown of the drab, dour vision of Britain touted by those who would push down diversity and hold back the tide of modern human movement.
Then again, the council’s story is at best incomplete – it did not have to instantly act on the reported complaint. Some will suspect its claim of racism is an excuse for removing a work it knows to be precisely the opposite. How convenient to use the language of political correctness to censor an anti-racist artwork.
I know one thing. Banksy suddenly matters again. He has created a powerful image of our prejudiced times. Far from a stupid mistake by a confused council, its destruction is a real and vicious act of censorship. Banksy has not been banned from Clacton-on-Sea because he is a racist. He has been suppressed because he exposed the truth.
More by Jonathan Jones at the Guardian – Banksy website
