Status Updates From Banksy: You Are an Acceptab...

The main problem with forms of resistance that emphasize individuality is that they very easily become commodified and sold back to us as lifestyles” (229). There’s that identity thing again.

Gaza: “Relax. It’s OK to enjoy bagels an still object to elements of Israeli foreign policy” (225). And some might say “Israeli ‘foreign’ policy.”

“If there ain’t no property damage then it ain’t really street art” (222). So trails to nowhere are for a holy audience.

Allusion to the Odessa Steps scene (200). Potemkin villages everywhere.

“The Great Art Swindle” (186-7) appears to be Banksy’s way of messing with his own market. After telling the story of Tox’ downfall, Banksy makes identity a two-edged sword. Fiction as protection in court. “What crimes did you have in mind, My Audience?”

“Swing Low Sweet Charity”(162-5) ends with “No Borders. No Bosses. No Bombs.” Acting globally should include local action at ground zero. Or is ground zero everywhere? Does ground zero come home to roost?

Banksy’s brief section on Palestine quotes no fewer than 6 sources. If research represents anxiety about one’s lone understanding, Banksy lack a faith in Israel’s wall has him citing more sources for “The Art of Resistance” than most of the book’s other chapters.

“The monkey idiot with a glimmer of consciousness goes where the wise man cannot “ (152) [qtd. from Untitled. Street Art in the Counter Culture.

The USA is the belly of the war-corporateCapitalism-hypocrisy beast.

Tourists & Refugees, finite time spent & conversions: $$$-to-€s, figures of faith.

“Handbags at Dawn” recounts Bansky v. Robbo dogging battle which becomes like a dialogue or collaboration.

Blatantprovocation (107) makes me think of tagging on the rez and James Luna’s “All My Real Estate” pun for “All My Relations” in Shame Man. Many puns ago, our foreskins stayed with us.

“If graffiti changed anything it would be illegal.” It is illegal, so what does it change? What property means.

When is poem or painting a crime? When it does something against the law, something that doesn’t “entertain” people who make the law.

“Banksy freely admits to working in states of advanced intoxication” (102).

Banksy makes site-specific Art: “Ah, that’s the key to graffiti, positioning” (88).

Although the Banksy vs Grey Ghost ends in a montage that undercuts the relevance of some of its parts, one wonders if there aren’t some connections that didn’t make it into the text.