When we left off, the battle lines had been drawn between
Street and Graffiti Art. Its representatives, Banksy and King Robbo, battle
with spray paint and vastly differing ideologies. King Robbo is making
statements about the male ego of Grafitti art, trying to prove his superiority.
While Banksy focused more on the thought provoking messages of his stenciled
work, less on the individual ego of the artist. However, this is just the
beginning of the war between Street and Graffiti Art. Through the ongoing artistic
battle, we can further understand the ideological differences expressed, but we
can also comprehend some of their inherent similarities.
After the move by Robbo to incorporate Banksy into his tag,
Banksy adds a childish Fuc in front of Robbo’s name, which is subsequently
removed. The bickering continues between these two artists, when all of a
sudden, the battle goes dark. Someone covers the battleground in black paint.
In the film
Grafitti Wars, Robbo
takes this opportunity to create a stenciled work of his own. Top Cat leans
against the gravestone of Banksy’s career. This is a little different from his
usual work and it shows how Robbo is starting to evolve outside of his normal
comfort zone. Robbo also does this to illustrate how easy stenciling is and
that it doesn’t require any particular talent or artistry.
[i]
This shift is documented in
Graffiti Wars,
where Robbo actually begins to make the transition from Graffiti Artist to Street
Artist. He brings his work inside gallery shows and starts becoming a famous
name again. Maybe the Top Cat piece is also making a statement that he will
take out Banksy in the gallery as well as the street. Macnaughton makes the
point that ethics also separate Graffiti and Street art.
[ii]
When someone moves inside of a gallery and gets the chance to profit from their
work, it is now street art.
Whatever the statement about his own rise in the artistic
community, Robbo is silenced as, once again, the wall goes black. This time Banksy comes back with a
rather strange work that no one can seem to make heads or tails of. It’s a
chalk living room with a three dimensional chair and stenciled elements. It is noted that Banksy often pays back
to his influences in his own way.
[iii] Many find
Banksy has taken ideas from Blek le Rat and other stencil and Street Artists.
However, this particular piece recalls an experimental time for another street
artist, Keith Haring. On his website it states, “…he noticed the unused
advertising panels covered with matte black paper in a subway station. He began
to create drawings in white chalk upon these blank paper panels throughout the
subway system.”
[iv] That sounds
very similar to what Banksy has done here.
Why would Banksy create a throwback to another artist? We
may never know the answer, but Banksy sees himself as a liberator and he likes
to remind his audience that art is a democratic exercise. He believes that the
individual’s opinion regarding a work is as important as anybody else’s.
[v]
This may have been his way of taking the battle away from a petty feud and
going back to inspiring the usual thought concerning his work. A scene as
perplexing as this living room will definitely inspire plenty of though
regarding its meaning.
This would be the last move in the war between Robbo and
Banksy. Shortly after, King Robbo tragically suffered a head injury and remains
in a coma. Banksy added one last note to Robbo by recreating his original tag
with a torch lit spray can to act as a memorial flame. However, despite the seeming
end of the war of Street and Graffiti Art, Team Robbo, who were followers of
King Robbo, kept the battle alive. They would go out and vandalize or adorn
Banksy’s work in other areas. They would change the content or add anti-Banksy
messages.
This continued battle extended beyond the tunnel in Camden
to other urban areas. In doing so they both perpetuate a basic ideology that
Street and Graffiti Art share. Banksy and Team Robbo achieve the goal of using
free public art to reclaim pieces of the urban environment that would otherwise
be used for advertisements.
[vi] Potter makes
the argument that, “The Thing about street art is, it all comes down to
property…Street art, like graffiti before it, regardless of what the content of
the image may be, is a criticism of the idea of property itself. If it was not
illegal, it would not be street art. Therefore its illegality is what defines
it. Take it out of that context and you are left with ‘art’.”
[vii
Street and Graffiti art are born from the same mother. They
both struggle with the definition of legality and property. Who owns what and
what gives them the right to own it. They want to take back the streets to make
statements. They may be personal statements about themselves. Graffiti Art is
all about the male ego and proving yourself with your tag. While Street Art is
intended to make a nice image that provokes thought in the viewer. However,
both street and graffiti art can agree that they are an anti establishment
movement that would not mean anything if they weren’t’ illegal. They may have
extreme ideological differences, but at the end of the day, they are more
closely linked than most realize.
[i] Channel 4, “Graffiti
Wars,”
Street Art News video, 46:47,
August 15, 2011, http://www.streetartnews.net/2011/08/robbo-vs-banksy-graffiti-wars-full.html.
[ii] Alex
Macnaughton,
London Street Art Anthology (New
York: Prestel USA, 2009), 2.
[iii] Gary Shove
and Patrick Potter,
Bansy: You Are and
Acceptable Level of Threat (Darlington: Carpet Bombing Culture, 2012), Belly
of the Beast.
[iv] Keith Haring,
“Keith Haring Foundation,” Online [home page on-line]; available from http://www.haring.com/!/;
Internet; accessed 24 October 2012.
[v] Gary Shove
and Patrick Potter,
Bansy: You Are and
Acceptable Level of Threat, 9.
[vi] Ethel Seno, ed., Carlo
Mccormick, Marc Schiller, and Sara Schiller, Tresspass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art. (China: Taschen
GmbH, 2010), 10.
[vii] Gary Shove
and Patrick Potter,
Bansy: You Are and
Acceptable Level of Threat, Any Last Words.
