New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag (opens in new tab)

into the void, or off the edge?

"off the edge" is a clear interpretation of the statue. "into the void" is a bit more of a stretch. IMHO.

But that's art for you. Everyone has their own take on it.

His other works aren't subtle.

It's also referencing the recent flag controversies in the UK over the past year.

Which flag? Or, what kind of flag? Or does it matter?

Sadly, in this day and age, that simple one-punch obvious meaning is just what's needed.

“I remember when all this was trees” [1] is maybe the best example. Detroit hasn’t been “trees” in something like two centuries. Platitudes doused in treacle.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/01/ba...

You really don't see any good ol' fashioned short and sweet headlines that read best to the ear in a Mid-Atlantic accent anymore.

There's a (mostly terrible) documentary about a previous bansky "statue" deposited in London that, in one of its better moments, tracks down the people who actually make statues for artists like banksy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Banksy_Job

edit: I feel I should clarify that this is not an official Banksy documentary. He made "Exit Through the Gift Shop" which is an amazing film which I highly recommend to anyone.

Not sure who you think "they" are but "This is England" is superb. It deals with a lot of issues, way beyond just nationalism and the like.

Perhaps you would like to fix your gimlet gaze on "A Clockwork Orange" and deliver a further withering critique.

A simple explanation regarding the increase of the number of nationalists within England is the population has increased. QED.

It's not so much a secret as it is simply not public.

  Westminster City Council has told the BBC it did not grant permission, as it was not given advance warning that Banksy's team was planning this installation.

Council permits are usually quite public (in my country). Sneaking it in becomes part of the artwork.

(Though it's not in /the/ City of London. That wouldn't happen in a million years! City of Westminster is way more culturally flexible)

This contradiction at the heart of it does a lot of work and is a very valuable part of the art. This contradiction has led me to think a lot about rules and their role in society and to what extent pure strict rules based societies are a worthwhile goal and on the other hand what it means of we make exceptions.

Plus the execution is also part of the art.

There are many examples of the same thing: Andy Warhol and the soup cans and screen-printed portraits with different color backgrounds or Led Zeppelin and English folk hard rock songs that have hobbits in them are two of them.

Eventually, it's hard to even process their work in the context of how predictable and trite it seems to be a few decades later.

Unfortunately, they often don't meet that bar, so the message has to be in a form they can understand.

There are fights worth fighting: for example there are 300 million women alive who have undergone forced genital mutilation. 300 million ain't cheap change. There are also hundreds of millions of people who applauded the killing of 1200 young civilians who were enjoying life at a music festival "because it's resistance".

Applauding the killing of young unarmed civilians, genitally mutilating women and turning a blind-eye to a regime slaughtering 30 000+ of its own unarmed civilians is where I personally draw the line and consider there are maybe more important things to complain about than, say, "the patriarchal western society built by heterosexual white men" or some other woke non-sense like that.

Now to be honest Banksy did art criticizing war overall, not just war started by the west. So a generous reading could consider that he also criticizes things like the 800 000 deaths during the Hutu vs Tutsi war.

But still overall: lots of balls from western artists when it's about criticizing the west, but tiny tiny nuts when it's about, say, attacking the ideology that is responsible for 300 people enjoying music at the Bataclan and then getting slaughtered.

But these people can live with their own conscience: I speak up and I've got mine.

You are wrong.

... that blinds you to any alternative; that indoctrinates distrust in different perspectives; that elevates the humanity of fellow believers above others.

> Maybe a more powerful piece of art would have that self reflection effect across the board. As is it feels about as nuanced as "fuck trump" and similar. If you already agree you already agree, if not then you just think it's stupid.

So close. Based on your own statement, it appears that you disagree with the proposed thesis by this piece of art.

> So ultimately feels like impotent art unless I am totally misunderstanding.

Maybe you should re-examine why you think it is stupid/lame. Is it because it calls you out and you don't like that feeling?

What if the design was made by generative model, does the statue become more or less valuable?

I think you're wildly overestimating the general population's capacity for nuance.

Particularly in a world where nuance goes the same way as wood logs near a fire place.

1. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-a...

As seen by the raised fist, the man is angry because the operation Epic Fiber has caused a blockage just in the strait of Trump, so is a metaphor about the dangers of having too much nuts in the world. Banski has planned also that the flag ends totally white by seagull activity; so this, always evolving and deceivingly simple piece of art, gives us hope for a future restoration of the blockage soon before we end nuking everybody on the process.

Denouncing the raise to nuttionalism while providing hope for the future. A powerful message.

See?, this is art, everybody can sell anything with a little practice. If they can sell a banana taped in a wall, so you can too.

Historically, the black flag is strongly associated with anarchism, anti-state politics, revolt, and rejection of national authority.

Had he colored it in the union jack, then I would've said it was nationalism, and the person is blinded by nationalism.

But. This is Banksy, black-and-white Banksy, so there may be no symbolism behind the black flag, but it's just very interesting. I can't accept that he would not have considered the color of the flag.

I know firsthand what can be done with a hardhat, clipboard, and high-viz vest. IMO it is far more likely that Banksy is just really good at social engineering in ways that other street artists are not.